Sunday, August 26, 2007

• from the desk of loucee.com

dear faithful readers...

i must apologize for not been able to update this blog for quite some times. a lot of new things just happened in the last 3 months of my life, which have taken away my mind and my time to just even visit my blog, let alone to post something in here... :(

just a quick update for those who kindly have been asking me how things are via email, friendster and ym...

• school is approaching the end. in less than 10 days i must submit my final dissertation to the design school's office. although the topic is really exciting, useful (for my fellow graphic design entrepreneurs), and potentially can fill the literature gap out there, it's been a very slow process... :( but i'm working on it... painfully slowly... but i'm getting there *finger crossed*

• i've been hired full-time as a head designer in one of the north east's leading internet marketing consultant company. *YAYY!! buka botooolll!!* hihihi..
it's really... really.. a bless... and i can't be thankful enough to the universe for giving me such an opportunity to start this new adventure, crawling inside the web world --not just to surf-- but really to understand the magic behind it in the business world. this new job has also allowed me to put my new design management knowledge into practice, making trips to the corners of the North East of England almost every week to give presentations and sell designs to the geordies.. :P hihihi.. never thought of it in a million of years.... but it's happening.

as the only non-british who works for the company who also had never been exposed to the 'real' british culture (Newcastle is not London, ok?! quite isolated and untouched by the international crowd), there are a lot of stories from this experience of course... :) but until the time comes, i can only 'write' those stories in my head.

for now, sadly... i must pronounce that loucee.com is officially entering a temporary hiatus mode. i will be back again soon... hopefully with a new, more fresh, more exciting and more inspiring layout.

thank you for keeping up with me throughout this time, and... of course 'til we meet again, people... :)

*kisskiss*
~loucee~

loucee said it on 8:12 PM

Sunday, May 20, 2007

• in the name of art

beberapa bulan lalu, saat PPI Newcastle bikin acara one-day-tour ke Liverpool, beberapa teman mengekor saya saat masuk Tate modern museum...
"ikut loucee, aahh... biar bisa nanya-nanya tentang seni.." kata salah satu dari gerombolan 4 orang yang tiba-tiba jadi buntut
"mo nanya opo, toh? kaya gue tau aja soal seni.."
"ya, pan elo designer... masa kagak tau seni?"

nah! ini dia nih! sebuah persepsi yang menurut saya agak sesat. sama sesatnya dengan mengidentikan designer pasti jago gambar atau designer juga bisa dikatakan seniman. itu gak bener ya, boo...! design dan seni itu beda, tapi soal yang satu ini, kapan-kapan aja dibahasnya. sekarang kembali ke masalah tuduhan designer pasti ngerti seni.

saya gak akan membuat generalisasi, tapi saya akan membuat diri saya sendiri sebagai salah satu contoh designer yang dengan jujur mengaku gak ngerti-ngerti amat soal karya seni, seperti seni lukis, seni patung, seni instalasi, de el el. sehingga ketika saya diberondong oleh teman-teman dengan pertanyaan... "kok, yang kaya gini bisa dibilang seni sih, louc? ini mah, gue juga bisa bikin!" saat melihat sebuah lukisan pemandangan dengan outline garis pinsil yang sangat simple di salah satu ruangan di dalam Tate, saya juga cuma bisa senyum tipis sambil mengangkat bahu... "mana gue tempeee, bo!"

tapi teman-teman saya tentu tidak puas dengan jawaban tempe-tahu. mereka 'memaksa' saya untuk menjelaskan. dan pada kesempatan itu, jawaban paling ngawur sekalipun, kayanya bakal ditelan mentah-mentah oleh mereka karena keluar dari mulut seorang designer. padahal... belum tentu benar, dan mungkin malah jauh lebih sesat dari tuduhan bahwa saya ngerti banget soal seni.

sebagai designer, saya memang diajarkan beberapa sejarah karya seni di bangku kuliah. tapi apakah pelajaran sejarah itu membuat saya mengerti seni? gak juga. yang saya bisa lakukan adalah mengapresiasi karya seni tsb, terutama bila dikaitkan dengan kondisi dan situasi saat karya seni tsb lahir.

ada beberapa seniman yang bisa menghasilkan karya revolusioner - jauh melihat ke depan- seperti Piet Mondrian favorite saya misalnya, atau betul-betul beda dengan karya yang banyak dihasilkan oleh seniman lain pada suatu masa seperti pelopor gaya kubisme Pablo Picasso. those.. i think i know why they call certain pieces as art. but beyond that? i think i'm a wee bit clueless. kalau saya diminta menjelaskan dimana letak seni pada lukisan super abstract Jackson Pollock yang jadi lukisan termahal sampe laku $140 juta di ajang lelang, kembali saya akan menjawabnya dengan... "mana gue tempe. boooo!"

pada dasarnya saya tak punya formula untuk menilai sebuah karya adalah seni atau bukan. seriously... i think it's quite subjective, and i don't think there's any rules being made by any organizations to determine whether a piece is an art or just a doodle. saat saya mengunjungi museum untuk melihat pameran lukisan pun saya jarang bertanya apakah ini sebuah karya seni atau bukan. if you met me in a museum, most likely you'd find me gazing on a piece and just enjoying it. saya jarang mikir yang macem-macem di museum, tapi saya pasti punya opini akan bagus-tidaknya sebuah karya. dan opini ini tidak lahir dari sebuah teori, tapi lebih terdorong oleh sebuah sensasi. ya, saya menilainya dengan rasa yang paling jujur dalam hati.

ketika sebuah karya dengan mudah bisa membangkitkan rasa senang, excited, adem, sedih, tergelitik, begidik, dll dalam diri itulah karya yang menurut saya bagus untuk saya! 2 kata terakhir harus saya tulis karena setiap orang pasti punya sensasi yang beda saat melihat sebuah karya. jadi... bagus buat saya belum tentu bagus buat para kritikus seni atau ke-4 teman yang ngintili saya di Tate Museum tadi.

kejujuran dalam menikmati sebuah karya seni menurut saya penting hukumnya. jujur dalam merasakan sensasi yang bermain dalam kalbu *bahasanya, deh.. tolong!* dan juga jujur untuk bilang... "gue kagak ngerti, bo!" saat melihat karya seni yang terlalu ajaib bentuknya. pada prakteknya, karena malu atau takut dicap kurang pinter atau berbudaya, kejujuran jenis yang ke-2 ini lebih sulit untuk dilakukan, bukan? padahal mah, santai aja lagii... gak ngerti seni tidak otomatis membuat seseorang jadi berkurang IQ nya.

as simple as it seems, tetep aja... saya yakin pasti masih tetap akan ada orang-orang yang gelisah berlebihan kalo ketauan gak ngerti seni. for them, kebetulan saya nemu produk ini di Baltic tempo hari. dijual dengan harga £4.99. cukup mahal untuk sebuah produk kadal! tapi salut buat produsennya yang jeli membaca pasar. saya sendiri sih gak beli [gambar di-embat dari internet], tapi saya sedang tertarik untuk membeli produk sebelahnya keluaran produsen yang sama. saya berharap yang ini lebih berguna! :P

loucee said it on 9:39 PM

Thursday, May 10, 2007

• references

welcome to the end-of-semester hell week! following are the list of assignments due on the same week:

1. Dissertation Proposal
2. Ethic management case study assignment
3. Risk management essay assignment
4. Managing design e-business essay assignment

... on top of that, i also have 3 other projects from my part-time job. if one indication of being stress is having this urge to jump out of the window [on a high-rise building of course]... well... i guess that's how i feel now. BUT, no.. this entry will not discuss about the step by step process of jumping out the window to finish my end-semester misery. i've blabbered too much in the past about how tough it's been for being a student again. instead, what i'm about to write in here is one important thing that i've been doing in those assignments, which is... doing references *yawn*

every students should know that in academic writing references is essential, correct?
as an undergrad and grad student, i've been writing many academic writings in the past. but references is given a whole new meaning when i was enrolled in Northumbria where the university and my teachers have been talking about how important it is to do references correctly to avoid plagiarism since day-1. they even included this whole guide of doing references in the 'Cite Them Right' pdf file by Richard Pears and Graham Shields in the 256 MB usb key we got for free during enrollment week.

in the past, i used to think that academic writing is all about 'saucing' or known as 'ngecap' for us. :) you just have to 'pretend' that you are smart by pouring out your own thoughts about some topics on paper and the list of references in the end of it will become some proof that you've done some hard works in getting all those books... not necessarily read them though... :)

little did i know that academic writing is actually about telling your opinions that are only valid if being supported or argued by other scholars. my advisor told us that in the 15,000 required words of final dissertation, we are not even allowed to write our own thoughts until the Conclusion part! "it's like building a legal case," she said, "in which you collect all the evidences you want to proof to the reader while being objective at the same time."

what she said has made me think about all academic writings i've done in the past. if i submitted them to Northumbria, i'm sure i'd never be graduated and worse, could get kicked out from the university, as i tend to copy paste things from here and there without referencing correctly according to the recommended Harvard system.

it has actually made me wonder also, if only the Brits who pay more attention on such things coz if i compared to my previous study at Pratt in New York, my professor seemed not to care about the references thingy, and I got an A for my final Thesis in which i was 'preaching se-enak udel' about Indonesian graphic design without having a solid ground to support it. but then again, it's Pratt, not sure if i could get away with it if i went to Harvard for instance.

now how about the Indonesians?
as far as I remember to those undergrad days about a decade ago *boy, i'm old.. *, nobody encouraged us in doing references like the way the Brits do. but then again, if you think more... plagiarism in this context is kinda 'normal' happened in indonesia, isn't it? again, i don't have a solid ground on this. i'm just guessing... based on my own experiences, assumptions and observations. please correct me if i'm wrong... :) but this topic has became one of the faves amongst indonesian students in here. we often compare it to our experiences in the past where most of us studied in indonesian unis, and copying from books, internet or other academic writings were seen as the normal things to do.

this 'new' way of writing has also brought some consequences for us in writing our assignments. for those who still have this mentality of 'cuek aja lagi... guru mana yang kerajinan ngecek tiap kalimat itu di-copy atau gak?', i can guarantee you that their career of being students won't last more than 1 semester. our teachers are equipped with this super software that can detect whether you have referenced things correctly or done some plagiarism.

a friend from business school one time showed me a website where this software could be found and used if you have a member access. basically how it works is you upload your writing file, the software then will check the sentences thoroughly, and a couple of minutes later, your file will be marked with a color:
- green means good, less than 10% copied sentences
- yellow means in a border line, you must change some of your sentences
- and red means you are a THIEF!

back to the indonesians again, another friend who's doing MBA in Northumbria has this Indonesian text book sent by his parents to support his study. out of curiosity i opened that book during a lunch break in our campus' cafeteria. on the cover it says something like 'Manajemen Bisnis - Buku Panduan Wajib Bagi Mahasiswa Bisnis Indonesia', written by an Indonesian professor with half of a dozen titles next to his name that make him sounds like a super intellectual person.

with a high expectation, i flipped through directly to the references part in the end part of the book. well... guess what i found? not more than just THREE bullet points of references from Tempo Magazine, Kompas and Bisnis Indonesia newspapers! geezz... even Kotler's books have this whole list of references which can be made into a whole new chapter, and this guy confidently published a book with only 3 references?? i only have one thing in my mind... " Bapak ini pasti JENIUS sekaliiiii!!"

loucee said it on 2:02 PM

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