In my imaginary Switzerland, the water is clear. The reflection of the architectures shines toward the sky, pierces through cold blue, and it’s shattered when the wind blows.
And there’s fondue.
How Hanz see Switzerland
Switzerland reminded me the extreme cold weather and snow.
This photo was taken in the one of the coldest night.
Though I believe that Switzerland is much colder than I expect.
And I’ve never see snow.
Therefore I tried to find something that looks like snow in Hong Kong.
The glass lights.
Switzerland reminded me the schweizer armeemesser.
Which is the first Switzerland product i met in my life.
Switzerland reminded me the nature.
I heard the view of mountains is grand and uniquely spectacular.
It’s my honor to see these views.
Imagine Zwitzerland
The top drawing is showing The Court of Final Appeal Building. It located in Hong Kong Central and was designed as a British architecture. I just imagine some of important Zurich buildings are built in this western style with a rectangular and symmetrical pattern. Also, there is hanging some national flags to show its significance.
And The bottom one is Yuen Long, a new developing city in Hong Kong. It is near to China Shenzhen and suburbs. You can see there are a large pieces of some beautiful clouds and some lower density buildings in Hong Kong as the form of Zurich I believed to be. There are a lot of beautiful environments with plants.
switerzerland at home
(left: pencil rubbing of a biscuit made from Switzerland;
right: a postcard from a friend)
*
conversation with mom
(mom: m ; winnie: w)
w: mom, do we have anything at home made in Switzerland?
m: army knives, watches… why ask?
w: assignment. anything you don’t mind me playing with, like something you won’t be upset if i… accidentally break it.
m: no? wait… the biscuits i bought weeks before seems to be from somewhere in Europe… check if it’s Switzerland.
w: is ikea from Switzerland?
m: it is from Sweden. Sweden and Switzerland is different.
w: is Switzerland famous for making cool electronics?
m: i guess you mean Germany…
w: …opps.
*
Switzerland in 80s
In my childhood, Hong Kong people always named food or commodity with Switzerland, for instance, cookies, candies, package food, etc. In addition, their logos were represented in the landscape of nature environment, such as snowy mountain like mont blanc. As a kid, we didn’t have any idea where Switzerland or Zurich is, the image of a country was being constructed through smell, taste or package of snacks, though the landscape had nothing to do with the candy. Later, I realised those food brands manufactured their products in rural area in Hong Kong, which migrated all their production lines to Mainland China. Indeed, they keep their brand in associated with Switzerland. Recently, I am working on my own research project on Communist film after WWII until early 80s; apart its propaganda part, protagonists always struggled with tough nature environment. Perhaps this is part of the reasons that the imagery of Switzerland was idolised and reflected in products.
Imagine Hong Kong
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“You are going to Hong Kong? Cool, i was there! It’s …”
Hong_
Imagine another “World”…
H_igh
O_verwhelming
N_ew
G_iant
K_nowledge
O_verfull
N_obelprice
G_igabyte
Panoramas
Visiting the School of Creative Media yesterday I was surprised to find myself in a pretty amazing machine called Gallery 360, which creates an immersive and interactive environment that is one way of representing remote locations. The form of the installation, the 360 degree rotunda, actually goes back to the 19th century panorama. The panorama then was one of the most influential forms of visual entertainment and consisted of a giant painting often combined with extra scenery in front of it. Switzerland has a famous panorama in Lucerne, the Bourbaki that shows a scene from the Franco-Prussian War.
First Assignment
What associations do you have regarding the other location? What mental images do you have without conduction research? And most important: Where do they come from? Post at least two images or videos with comments on the blog. Deadlines is October 12.
Thomas’ first post
Hello everybody
I enjoyed reading the texts of you honkong-students and watching the film of Winnie. I look forward to see you at our skipe-session today.
See you soon, all the best
Thomas
