PNG Art Evolution

My Painting

Art from a tree trunk or bark and an engraved rock or a cave to a touch screen or a tablet, shall we call it the evolution of art?  This is exactly how the name came about when a group of Papua New Guinea artists met together to collaborate and contribute to the economic development of their country through art in a small way.  

On the 13th of August 2016, 6 Papua New Guinean artists held an Art Exhibition at the Royal Papua Yacht Club in Port Moresby as part of their drive to promote Art and also raise some money to support a worthy cause.  The group was named "PNG Art Evolution" because it fitted well with most of what the group had showcased and also their theme.  I was among the group and was fortunate to coordinate this exhibition along with each member of the group taking responsibilities in various task.

The exhibition showcased art styles ranging from painting, ink drawings, prints, interactive artworks, digital artworks (PNG Fonts), relief art (sculpture), digital art including live art demonstrations.

Participating artists at this exhibition include; Larry Santana, Philemon Yalamu, Albert Joseph, Anderson Habiri, Pax Jakupa and Andrew Santana.  This group of artists represented the different generation of active-practicing artists who are motivated to excell through out-of-the-box thinking and practices.  Though there are many existing artists with similar ambitions, the 6 decided to collaborate and spearhead a new generation of artist who can set long term visions and work towards them.

Four of the Group Members who participated

With the theme "Retrieving the Past, Shaping the Future through Art", the group exhibited varieties of art  from contemporary art to modern art that are practiced in Papua New Guinea.

Since I was part of this group and my personal ambition was/is to see visual art be appreciated by everyone, I decided to do an interactive presentation which I refered to as interactive art or an iArt for short.

The interactive art on tablet (left)

In one of my painting titled "A Nation with Many Cultures", I integrated the artwork into a simple interactive application to allow viewers to interact with the art on a touch monitor and tablet.  This was the first ever interactive art presented in Papua New Guinea that breaks the notion of viewers being spectators or will always be spectators.  This iArt and other similar application to be created in the future, is aimed at changing the perception of viewers from being observers to become participators in the art process.  I wanted to let everyone know that we are all artists in one way or the other and we should be seeing art from a new dimension rather than the old fashion way.  In the past, artists in PNG created their artwork such as paintings, sculpture, crafts etc, then display their work for others to see however, I think this should be the thing of the past because with technology nowadays, we have to take the advantage and take our viewers through the experience of feeling art themselves.  This idea therefore came into play during this exhibition.

Just like I expected, my audience for the exhibition was not the type.  Alot of viewers saw the work however only few reacted to it with great interest and wanting to learn more about it.  The fact that technology is something alot of people are still learning, innovative ideas in PNG pertaining to technology would only be appreciated by those who acknowledge technology. 

The iArt software CD

The interactive Art (iArt) comes as a package that include a painting, an application (software) and a tablet to promote the concept.

What happens is that, whoever purchases the painting, takes the software and the tablet as a bonus.  Whereever the painting is displayed, the software can also accompany it so viewers would be able to use the virtual painting to interact and learn more about the art. 

Thankfully, this first ever interactive art for PNG is now in a new home with the Genia family and will one day become a history, I believe.

Reaching Out - Online Learning

I was invited by a senior staff of Pacific Adventist University (PAU) here in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in early 2016 to be a guest lecturer to one of their courses "Mass Communications".  I was asked to give presentations on New Media as a component of mass communications.  Since it was one of my intentions and passion to share digital knowledge with students throughout the country, I accepted the invite.  I however, reasized that my schedules were extremely tight so I had to think of a way to make it possible for all parties-the students, the university and for myself.

Philemon Yalamu presenting on "The Evolution of Presentations"

I resolved to online learning so I immediately logged into my Edmodo account and set up a classroom then invited the students.  I liaised with Mrs. Rebecca Thomas, the Associate Lecturer of the School of Arts and Humanities to get the lectures and online sessions going and eventually got everyone online.  I actually organized few pre-sessions with the students weeks before meeting them face-to-face.  Since its going to be the first time for me to meet these students, I thought it would be better to give them some experience using an online classroom prior to giving them online exercises which will prepare them for their presentations assignments. 

Edmodo - the online classroom

I have been using online learning in some of my private lectures with some of my corporate clients and therefore had experiences of how effective learning can be.  In fact, alot of time I've committed myself to multi-tasking and found that time is always against me.  Using organised lessons for my private classes as well as outreaching online lectures had helped me achieved much of what I intend to do.  At the time of my engagement with PAU, I was also doing full-time lecturing at the University of Papua New Guinea and also traveling to other provinces to assist with the GBV Data Collection training with UNDP, and this idea fitted well.  

Prezi - interactive presentation software

The contents of what I delivered online were derived from researches based on concerned subjects as well as personal experiences.  I believed in interactive learning (computer interaction) and therefore tried as much to get students involved in online learning as one of the means. The process of learning which the students were taken through involves various modes of computer interactions such as videos, online classroom, email and via interactive applications such as using Prezi.

Students and Staff participating at one of the presentations

For this lot of students, I started off by developing a step-by-step guideline for them to follow along.  I uploaded it on the tutorial page of my website for them to download and follow along.  I also sent the links for the log-in page to their emails so they can directly access the page to get in.  Within the first 24 hours, half of the students gained access to this online classroom and posted something on the noticeboard.  There were few who found it difficult at first so they had to contact me for more help.  I've also noted that students were having difficulty accessing the internet using the network provided by the university so some of them used their mobile devices to log into the classroom.  

By the end of the second week and just before our first contact, everyone was able to log into the online classroom.  I then posted a task for the students to follow prior to our contact which over 90 percent of them did.  Just a few of them who did not complete the task were guided through during our first contact.  The reasons behind them not completing was due to technical limitations which we sorted out with the Information Technology department of the university.

Students and Staff listening to one the presentation

The moment came for me to do my first presentation.  There was a good number of both students and staff, though it was small about 20 altogether in one of the labs.  The first presentation I did was on "The Evolution of Presentation" where I talked about the different periods and stages of presentations from the traditional blackboard presentations to whiteboard, to analogue projectors then to digital projectors and gave a brief insight of where the future presentations might head us into.

There was total concentration in everyone and I felt satisfied when the presentation was over.  We had questions and answers then ended the session.  The lecturer for the course gave assurance to the students that there would be another lecture in the coming weeks to proceed on where we left.  It confirmed to me that the presentation had influenced these students and my motivation to share digital knowledge was elated by the spirits I get from such interactions with the institution.  

Mobile App - GBV Data Collection

Gender Based Violence is one of the Global issues affecting communities today. In Papua New Guinea, various efforts have been made to curb this issue amongst the Government, NGOs, Churches and other Donor agencies. An interesting project recently being piloted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) here in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is aimed at easing the burden of collecting Gender Based Violence (GBV) data throughout the country, available for access by the National Government, United Nations (UN) and World Health Organisation (WHO).  This pilot project is currently underway and selected provinces (National Capital District, Morobe, Milne Bay and East New Britain) are now undergoing workshops aimed at training Frontline GBV organisations to supply data to a central hub which will then be generated and used by the Government, UN or WHO.

As of 18th March 2016, I was contacted by the UNDP office here in Port Moresby to coordinate and manage the National GBV Data collection project, which is currently rolled out.  The contact came after a nomination made by the current Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, who is our head of school here at the University of PNG.

With the help of improved technology today that requires little knowledge on programming, one can develop a mobile application for any specific use and install it on any mobile device for use.  This is exactly what happened in this UNDP-led project where Gerald Okello, a health specialist from Uganda currently working in Madang as a volunteer with the Voluntary Service Organisation (VSO), worked on transforming the application from traditional paper-based format to electronic format, deploy-able on mobile devices.

During the implementation of this GBV Data Collection (Pilot) project, I was invited to travel to various provinces with international Health specialist (VSO) and GBV/FSV Case Management Specialist and Coordinator (UNDP) conduct training on the use of the mobile app that was created.  Participating agencies dealing with GBV issues were taken through a session on how to enter data, track progress and do other tasks with the app using the tablet.  Following this session, members were given a tablet, bounded by an agreement with UNDP to take ownership of each of the tablets and information collected.
 

As of the beginning of May 2016, I am managing the National GVB Data Collection project, updating UNDP on progresses and results of incoming data as well as generating reports and statistics on collected data.

To me, it's an amazing project to work on especially managing and coordinating the records of incoming data from over 50 field workers (for the pilot project only, which will increase to over hundreds of workers during main project) and having manage data on-the-move and at your finger-tip.

Developing Contents for Universal Learning

I'd like to re-iterate again that this blog has nothing to do with any body or any organisation that is/ are named within the posts of this blog.  Everything posted are my first-hand stories about my engagements in the drive to support the title of this blog site "Providing Digital Opportunities for the disAdvantaged - share the knowledge to develop the region".

Well for this post, I will share one of my participation at a UNICEF funded workshop which was supported by the Department of Education (PNG) for the digital practitioners here in Papua New Guinea. The workshop invited participants from different sectors who went to Madang to develop Early Childhood Learning materials for children under different age groups.

I was again invited by the Department of Education (Papua New Guinea) to participate with other fellow content designers in a workshop in Madang. This was the second time; similar workshop was conducted in 2014 where I sent 2 representatives (Amos Manasau & Jessy Joe) to participate in that workshop.  Last year (2015), I went there myself and participated at the workshop in order to understand the concepts behind Universal Basic Education (UBE), which this workshop emphasized on.

I got a request from the Department of Education (Media and Communications division), to nominate at least 10 graphic designers/ illustrators in my network to attend this workshop.  Instead of nominating, I posted a notice on one of our social network groups on Facebook (PNG GFX Designers) and 5 young designers volunteered to go along with me so I sent their details to the facilitators and they organised tickets for all of us except one, who lives in Madang.  The five were former students from the Arts and Design program at the University of Papua New Guinea who are attached to various organisations during the time they were taken to the workshop.

The idea of involving these young men and women was to expose them to some of the approaches and requirements of designing reading & learning materials for early childhood learning, in particular considering universal learning.  Additionally, I thought this would be a great experience for them to participate in a collaborative project at the workshop so that they gain some experience working in a team, doing a project within pressing deadline.

During the workshop, we were all placed into groups of 5-8 members comprising various working groups ranging from Production of Books, Videos and Animations.  My group was one of two groups that were tasked to produce an animation at the end of this 30-40 hour project.  In our group were two other members whom I took with, Anderson Habiri and Brian Aiere.  Anderson and Brian were recent graduates and animation is something totally new to them. They were to do illustrations and graphics for our animation however, that also required them to have fair knowledge on animation so they can develop characters appropriate to be animated.  I had to fill in this gap by giving an overview of what we should expect and where each of us would fit in, outlining our specific duties as illustrators and animators for our project.  I had to also take them through basic concepts of animation and how frame by frame animation works as well as showing them some tweening animation basics.  We also have other members who fitted in for sound and children's psychology & behaviour.

The vector drawings in (above) with the fills (below)

For me, that was going to be fun exploring animation as an introvert/ animation enthusiast however getting into my suit as a perfectionist and a number 1 in the Enneagram,  I was worried as time was very crucial for us to come up with an animation product.  Unlike other groups, our group needed more time to complete the compilation however the workshop trainer, Barbara Kolucki assured us that we can still get something done within the time frame.  She stressed that based on her previous experiences with various other places around the world where she conducted the training.  Sure we can, however it won't be to our satisfaction or to a professional standard, I thought.

The workshop's project challenge began and all the group went straight onto planning and execution of their respective projects.  We had a day to do our interviews, investigate and record any audio; basically to gather raw data - and the next day to start developing our illustrations and trace them to vector.  
Back at our table, our group came up with the script.  I then did a quick storyboard to guide us in developing our images for the main poses.  This is shown to the group for approval, then to the trainer, to get the OK to continue.  We got our green light from the trainer so everyone started working on their tasks.  The illustrators worked on the illustrations whilst our sound designer, Josh Tamanabe worked on scheduling the young students of Kranket Primary School to be recorded.

Original Quick Sketches I did for our storyboard

We spent few hours trying to figure out how our illustrators would come up with the poses for our animation.  It was very challenging, considering the time constrains versus the limited knowledge our illustrators have to develop illustrations for animation so our next option was for me to guide them through thumbnail illustrations which they followed to refine.  This approach turned out well so we progressed.  We got all the illustrations done manually, got them traced (vector graphics) and brought into our animation program for manipulation and animation.  

We had almost a non stop period from 3pm that day till 3pm the next day, completing all our timeline and synchronizing sound with the animation.  We added sub-titles to help those students who aren't able to hear (the deaf) and finally converted the versions to various platforms for distribution.

In our final presentation, we presented our production on various outputs representing those that can be played on a computer, using online (youtube & website) and on mobile/ android devices. Just to make it a little bit interesting, I added a matrix code to a card, printed it and used it as our access code to see the video.  This is to show how technology can be used to directly access the video through scanning using a barcode scanner.

The matrix code added to a card for our presentation