Perditus paradisus : the dystopia & utopia dichotomy.

• Main Author: Loh, Bi Ying.
• Other Authors: Hans-Martin Rall
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::Drawing, design and illustration
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52408
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

“One man’s utopia is another man’s dystopia, and vice-versa,” A dystopia is an illusion of a perfect world. Utopia is the perfect society. Dystopia pretends to be the perfect society. This final year project is a series of illustrations heavily based on deconstructed landscapes and cities. It captures the distorted imagery of our landscapes through spaces, transformations, and the predomination of a city as the essence of our own selves. These illustrations reflect the utopic – or dystopic – visions of the perfect and unrealistic landscape envisioned by our alter egos. They criticize the world we live in; probing on the innate traits of humans – complacency, power-hungry, and dehumanization – that might predetermined how the future will turned out. Through my illustrations, viewers are invited to a personal soul-searching to ponder on their perfect world, contemplate on what and how it will become the reality in future, the consequences, and getting in touch with their inner-self mirage.