Finding adventure in a limitless world

my parents told me

when i was a toddler i hated being

buckled in a stroller

and as soon as i could walk i never

ever sat in a stroller again i’ve always

craved adventure

and i think even as a child i expressed

the desire to explore the world

by rejecting limits why limit yourself

we buckled and ferried around in a

stroller when you could be free

to wander the world on your own two feet

as a child every new location i

discovered was always fresh and exciting

a simple trip to the local aquarium our

hike

up the mountain it always felt like this

great grand adventure

and then i grew up and i began to

realize that the world wasn’t as wild

and

fantastical as i had hoped it would have

been

every exciting location i discovered as

a child grew to become boring and

mundane to me as an adult

and unless i had the financial abilities

to buy myself a ticket to bali every

week

my days of adventure had come to an end

and i had reached the limits

of exploration but if there’s one thing

all of you here know about me

it’s that i hate limits and it just so

happened

i found the key to breaking the limits

of my reality

my name is sean i’m a digital artist and

i would like to share with everyone a

story

about finding adventure in a limitless

world

i take the train to work daily and i

come home very much the same way

i sit on a cold bench and i look across

the even colder broad faces of my fellow

passengers

i place my hand on the frosty metal pole

and i look out into the darkness that is

the subway tunnels

it is honestly one of the most boring

experiences i have to go through

every day of my life but you know where

else is cold

and requires you to travel through a

duck beyond

outer space because going to work

is boring but when you travel from your

home planet of earth

to the far-fetched colonies of the

galaxy on a spaceship now that

that becomes an adventure i see the

lights outside the trains

and i don’t just see them as led

electronic lights i see them as stars

asteroids and meteorites i see

travellers in their spacesuits

entering the trains only to take out

their protective gear

and store them in compartments below the

seats which have now by the way been

elongated

so that travelers may put their feet up

and take a nap across the galaxy

you see another thing is that traveling

through space

can take months if not years so i think

it would be wise if we could cultivate

agriculture

on the train the plants we grow below

the main deck

they can provide us food and oxygen on

the long journey through

space you see if a bit of creativity

even an ordinary train ride to work

can become an epic space adventure and

if you apply this simple process to your

daily life

you will come to realize that you can

find adventure

even in the most ordinary of places

and while the locations of these

ordinary places inspire me to look for

adventure

i am equally affected by the amazing

works that already exist out there

by other artists some artists they paint

on canvases

some they scout on white marble but few

realize that video games

are a work of art in itself how many of

us

have played video games only to be

mesmerized by the beautiful worlds

behind our computer screens

these are worlds locations and

experiences that cannot exist

in our reality but when various artists

come together to create these

video game worlds it gives me the chance

to discover to explore and experience

a whole new universe and i am forever

changed by it

inspired by these video game worlds to

look at the real world around me

differently and the real world around me

is a

concrete metropolis everything here is

made of glass and steel

some people would even say that

singapore is the epitome of a modern

futuristic world and the best example of

this is marina bay sands

overlooking the central business

district

whenever i walk past the fleshy

boulevards i cannot help

but re-imagine myself in one of my

science fiction video game worlds set in

an underwater city

you see the mall is a layer of glass

that covers it

as a ceiling it’s absolutely beautiful

but what if that layer of glass was

built for higher purpose

what if it was built to keep seawater

out and to sustain a driving city

below the ocean now that that’s the kind

of city

i would love to live in and if you apply

this

this idea this concept to the many other

futuristic architecture in singapore

perhaps many other locations were built

for this exact same purpose

and i drew that comparison to the

orchard gateway tube that links two

shopping malls

across a busy street because as simple

as the tube looks and functions on dry

land i think when placed in my

underwater city universe

it suddenly becomes a vital

transportation path

allowing travelers and citizens to

transverse the city freely

without getting wet of course now

i’ve always enjoyed playing video games

video games gave me the freedom to

discover

and explore worlds and universes that

could never exist in reality

but i was always told from a young age

that video games were a waste of time

that i would accomplish nothing sitting

in front of a computer screen

but this world and the adventure that

just brought you on

it was inspired by a video game and

completed with photoshop

both behind a computer screen

many people have asked why are most of

my works based in singapore

and the answer is simple i look for

adventure in my daily life

and my life is here in singapore as a

born and bred singaporean another

inspiration for my ideas

come from my own upbringing here in

singapore

an example as a child i would visit a

temple during a chinese new year with my

family

while the grown-ups prayed in the inner

sanctum i would curiously wonder the

temple grounds

the temple i visited it was old it was

dark

there were only small oil lamps giving

faint flickering lights

the interiors were thick with incense

smoke and you could clearly see the

various life-sized

statues of the various gods and

goddesses in the temple i

always felt like an explorer discovering

a long lost

forgotten temple the atmosphere was so

dark and mysterious and moody but i

absolutely loved it

even though all the new temples in

singapore these days are all big

bright modern and filled with large airy

spaces

i have always hoped that all temples

should look like the one i visited

as a child so i sought to bring that

mysterious that dark that moody

atmosphere

into even the brightest temples i visit

now by placing it

in my underwater city universe the

temple

would still be dark but the images of

the gods are brought to life with

science fiction neon lights

there is a single little kitty cat

acting as a guardian to this sacred

shrine

and you can clearly see the cryptic neon

scribbles written by devotees on the

wall

now this this is the kind of temple i

would love to rediscover

all over again

but don’t worry not all my experiences

in singapore was

dark and mysterious like most

singaporeans young and old i was told of

a time before

sunny singapore was a city of

skyscrapers

a long time ago most people used to live

in what you would call a kampong

the kampong was basically a local

village where small shanty houses were

clustered together many of these kampong

villages were located next to waterways

where they were lifted up by wooden

stilts mere inches above the waterline

of course no one these days live in the

kampung village these anymore

and most people including myself would

have grown up in government-built flats

known as

hdbs many of these government-built

flats are usually described as

very modern organized and clean

in complete contrast to the small

unorganized kampung villages of the past

so i thought it would have been a fresh

idea to combine the concept of the

rising sea waters of climate change

the old kampung villages of the past and

the new modern hdb flats of the present

to create an urban environment that was

entirely

new when the rising sea waters finally

come in and gout our cities

many people whose home homes are now

submerged underwater

they may find it easier to return back

to a kampung village lifestyle

many of these kampung villages would

then begin to cluster around

existing buildings signs of commercial

activity

billboards and advertisements in the

local languages they would all spring up

and add to the chaotic but beautiful new

urban mess we see

now and of course the public bus service

would become a public boat service

linking communities as they would have

on dry land

now i’ve talked a lot about the ideas

that inspire me

and you can see that they mainly come

from three places one

the ordinary locations around me two the

video games that i play

and three my own upbringing

and what i do is to combine these three

ideas together with technical programs

such as photoshop to bring my ideas to

life

now it may sound hard to bring a

made-up world into from from a made-up

world from scratch into place

but i had the advantage of using what

the real world could already provide

which was the actual locations of the

places i wanted to recreate

let me take you on a journey of the

process i go through when creating these

images

i usually start with a base image that i

take with a camera

i chose this image for example because i

felt that the

gap between the two buildings they would

make for an interesting

story what if there was a waterfall

going through that gap

so naturally for that to happen i would

have to flood the streets with water

and if the power invested in me by my

lord and savior photoshop

i drag a waterfall into the image and

you can see that the image has been

almost completely transformed

but still this is an urban environment

and it looks devoid of life

so i go ahead to add in various signs of

habitation

such as shop signs and even a bus boat

at this point i try to bring in ideas

from around the world

i’m particularly inspired by the canals

of venice

and the chaotic streets of hong kong so

what i try to do is to merge the look

and feel of these international places

but also maintain a uniquely singaporean

and southeast asian identity

to the image but with the main elements

all put in place i further dramatize the

composition i have wires that hang

precariously across the buildings

birds that soak under and i even add

rubbish into the water

because you wouldn’t expect the river

passing through such an urban

environment

to be entirely clean and there you have

it

the complete image now i’m really glad

that

i have the chance to explain how my

works are created because many times

when i try to tell people how my works

are made

without the visuals many people they

don’t seem to understand how it’s

possible

how it’s possible for a street to become

a river how it’s possible for train to

be blasted off into outer space

and i don’t blame them this world we

live in is limited by the walls of

reality

it constrains us to think only according

to the laws of physics

and society would have us believed to

think otherwise

is wrong as a child

i was always in vain pursuit of a wild

epic adventure in

worlds and universes that could never

exist

only to realize that the worlds the

adventures that i’ve always wanted to

see

they were merely just an idea away

there is a saying that resonates

strongly from me and perhaps

our generation we are the middle

children of history

we were born too late to explore earth

and born too early

to explore space but for me

i’m always born just in time to explore

the furthest reaches

of my own imagination thank you