First in 2007: Creative Exposure

Giving a talk each year has been a must for me. But this year, it started slowly. Due to heavy commitment of work, I make more time to increase my understanding and observation towards what we call the Creative Multimedia Industry, by coordinating and supporting a lot of launches and events throughout the year.

This year, I admit, I put my pencil down and do more typing. There wouldn’t be more of those 170 layers of Adobe Photoshop that I normally do over weekly basis. But recently, it’s about time. I don’t want to waste half of the year not doing anything in the digital art scene.



British Council invited me to present our group, Digital Malaya Project (DMP) collective for the Love & Money Design Dayz event, called 'Pecha Kucha Night'. The whole session from 8.30 pm - 10 pm was a blast aligned with great speakers from Juan, Chun Woei, even Sharon Chin, Jerome, Michael (Gilamon), Morag Myerscough, Matt Armitage, Aiko (FuriFuri) and others.



The rest of the pictures can be found in my flickr page.

For the first time this year, Abby, my sister had showcased her photography works together with Riz Ainuddin, and the key people of DMP, Perez & Shieko that night. It was a good crowd. I'm also glad to meet my friends from Bigbrosworkshop (Juan), Chun (UrbanCr3atures), Jay Lim & Vivian Toh, Simon (VectorBross), Tintoy, Gilamon (Lefty, Michael), Radio & Driva, Weng Keong (Arachnid), Salmi & her friends, Shafina and her cousin and the rest. Everyone had been very supportive and looking at them, they do care about education and creative awareness.

For more info about Design Dayz: Pecha Kucha, click here.

I have two upcoming art exhibition, and one upcoming talk in Johor Bahru called 'Menjana Kreatifiti Melalui Interaktif: Proses Animasi' will be held next month. I will keep you posted.
Web Design by Content that features my work are now available at Amazon.com


I had a good hangout session with DMP Collective (Abby, Shieko & Perez), Elyna Shukri, along with Ibah, Eka, Tini, Zatyl and 84Cube (Najib, Acit, and that guy) at Pelita, near KLCC.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank British Council Malaysia, especially to Patriana & Sunita for having us on the show, and thanks to all of my friends who came to the event yesterday to support our group. It was pleasure to see all of you guys. We have a lot of fun!

Like Paul Arden said; “Accentuate The Positive, Eliminate the negative.”


New Work: 'Cacausia'

New artwork that I created last three days back in the office.



We can't own them, but treasure them for the beauty of God's creation. Inspired by Cockatoo, our local call 'em Kakak Tua, I present to you my latest artwork, ‘Cacausia’ . This is a part of the continuous series from 'Obourius', in conjunction of ‘Extinction of the Wild Life’ series.

Facts:
'Caca' taken from the word 'Cacatuidae'. Cockatoo belongs to 21 bird species in the family Cacatuidae. 'Usia', means Age in Malay language. In Malay language, we called Parrot, ‘Kakak Tua’, meaning ‘Old Sister’ (or whichever you prefer :P).

Colors:
I would like to bring the warm colours to make it more emerging. Previously, my artwork ‘Obourius’ had been very ‘de-saturated’ where I set the color palette slightly pale. With ‘Cacausia’, this version will create more vitality and oriental.


Sony PSP Fever
This is not an ordinary gadget. I was way behind getting myself updated with handy tools lately (orang kata ketinggalan zaman) after givin' away my iPAQ to Abby for her birthday. I remember when I was somewhere in The Curve a couple of months ago, I saw few kids playing PSP. I thought it was cool for such a small age to have such privilege to own a PSP. I said to myself, once in awhile, I do need these kind of escapism, after all, you need to focus on some other things, before you turn old.

Last two weeks, I was thinking of buying iPod video but it turns out PSP was the right and perfect choice. For RM690 (Basic kit) + 4GB of Memory Stick Pro - RM170, (together cost RM860). Adding a UMD game, 'Open Season' - RM140. Now, TOTAL cost = RM1000, this amazing gadget gives you 5 power function;

i) Playing amazing 3D games (UMD), Well, original UMD games costs RM80-170.
ii) Downloading and viewing photos, (good for portfolio review for interviews & clients)
iii) Videos (Elyana told me most of the directors uses PSP to showcase their film on PSP)
iv) Music playback and download (depends on your card. In my case, i have 2 GB of MP3s!, 1GB of videos)
v) Internet (Yes, check email here, Adobe Flash enabled, Portable TV, RSS, wi-fi surfing baby!)



Now, my iPod Nano merajuk. I think I lost it somewhere in my room, or in the office, or forever gone! Anyway, with PSP, I have saved a lot of money comparing to iPod Video. You get five (5) major function (giving you the resolution of 480x272) of PSP for RM1,000 while for iPod Video, they offer few functions and small resolution (320x280), without cool games and Internet surfing for RM1,099! The price different is RM99, but think of the big features that PSP offers. Plus, with MemoryStick, you can even store your documents and files (like a thumbdrive) whenever you are connected to your USB cable and a computer / laptop. Of course PSP doesn't offer playlist for MP3 playback and bigger size compared to iPod, but they also have art album cover and great quality of sound. The battery last longer than iPod, plus I don't need to find weird USB cable to connect to my psp, as I can borrow anyone's USB cable (camera, external hardrive, etc).

I also purchase Tekken Dark Resurrection (probably the best!) and the worst game ever, which is the new Transformers: The Game. Oke la, maybe the game trailer looks fantastic, but the game NOT! Well, since I'm a big fan of Transformers (Collector of G1, Masterforce and Cybertron), I would say it's a good collectible items, but not meant to be played. The game sucks! Not worth any of my penny.

To add more suprise, in my office, there are 7 people who owned PSP including two of my great bosses! Hasnul helped me to get the best deal of PSP in Gamers Hideout, Cineleisure, Damansara. Although they have limited PSP games on their rack, but their customer service support was good. At first, I bought UMD game called 'WTF' (Work Time Fun, yeah right!). I played this game (WTF) for one day and later I was not even satisfied (for RM80, giler rugi oke). I trade it with 'Open Season' UMD a week later at Games Hideout. Those guys are great!

With this PSP, I get to spend more time especially Ramadan is coming soon. I have my al-Quran PSP installed in my memory stick, thanks to Ikhwan Nazri from Flavert and his friends for developing a holy application for this. Good job!

Next year, there's iPhone arriving in Malaysia right? Let's just see.

Btw, Angel, a visitor from my blog informed me that she got to know my blog from a local TV station. Thanks for informing me. Now, I have to find out how my blog got on the show :) If you guys have any news about it, do let me know.

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