kateperriorcofa

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Week 11: Creating a Glitch

This week in out tut we had to 'create a glitch' within the Cofa quad. My group decided that this mundane and sensible space where people needed to me injected with a little, mystery, intrigue and of course a hint of profanity. We took the concept of 'an easter egg hunt' and hid tiny cable ties around the space, on railings, bins. doors and chairs. 

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Poster visualisation

Visual representations of what the posters would look like if they were placed in a social setting. 

Apologies for the lame photoshop skills, but you get the idea. 

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Final work.

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Conceptual statement

My chosen question for assessment one was, ‘The contemporary self could be said to be quantitative. We produce a constant stream of data that is collected, projected, and stored which determines our daily existence. To what extent has this ‘quantitative turn’ changed our understanding of self?’

Upon completing assessment one I came to the conclusion that it is the combination of social media paired with social, economic and cultural expectations that pressure us to dived, split and fracture our identities in order to ‘fit in’.

For assessment two I began by turning about the original question and exploring it in more detail and depth. I wanted to uncover why it is that we all feel this need to adapt, appropriate and filter our true selves online to become one of the crowd. Why is today’s contemporary self consumed by this idea of social media and how we portray ourselves online and to the rest of the word? Are we all just a bunch of pretentious assholes who compete for the greatest amount of praise by our peers? Why do we make certain decisions online to represent our selves in different ways?

After asking myself questions like this I came to the conclusion that I wanted to generate and spark the same curiosity within my viewers. That is why I decided to chose the medium of graphic design as I would create a poster campaign questioning these certain values. I then began my research into graphic design and what I needed my campaign to have in order for it to be successful. I came across the prestigious works of Stefan Sagmeister and his business partner Jessica Walsh. I immediately loved the way in which thy represented their ideas through graphic media and knew I wanted to travel down a similar path for my campaign.

One of the main characteristics of Sagmeister’s work that I felt worked well in communicating a strong message whilst also being visually intruding. This was the way in which he used typography in his advertisements. This then led me down the path to develop a slogan for my campaign, ‘Do you reflect your true self online?’. I wanted the slogan to be direct simple and effective because it was the way in which I would represent each piece of typography that would give the work more depth.

I decided to break the slogan up over five separate posters and represent one or two words on each. On the first poster I chose to use the first two words ‘Do you’ because they were short and I felt they were simple enough to be on the same poster. I represented these words by creating them out of plastic eyes, which were stuck to two different arms. I acquired the idea from my experiment I did on ‘value’, the multiple eyes represent the numerous people found online that we attempt to impress through our online profiles. The world of social media is so broad and vast that we cannot possibly know how much of our information is spread or who is looking at it.

In the second poster using the word ‘reflect’ I decided to create the word out of reflective glass placed onto a persons face. This poster has a more direct link to my first assessment where I used reflective surfaces also. I wanted to explore the pressures we put on our own self-image when expressing ourselves online. A mirror reflects all, is that what we do online?

The third poster, which reads the word ‘your’ I created by using keyboard keys. This poster is highlighting the implications our words and actions have online. With the click of a few keys a certain view, opinion and idea can be blasted across the world. The Internet and world of social media can be very influential in people’s lives and I don’t really think many people understands the power it has.

For the fourth poster ‘true self’ I decided to concentrate more on the setting of the text and not so much on the physical text itself. I based it around the idea that we all wear this Internet and technological mask when using social media sites. We project us but it is only the ‘us’ we want others to see, a filtered, edited and distorted version of ourselves.

The fifth and last poster demonstrates to word ‘online’, similarly to the ‘reflect’ poster there is a sense of the literal as a line physically represents it. But I also chose to use a computer cord because of the technical connotations and the unplugged socket at the end indicates an unfinished ending. Making the viewer question the purpose for its existence as well as questioning their own existence online at the same time.

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Bibliography

Narcissism on social media tells us a lot about ourselves, Elliot Panek, http://theconversation.com/narcissism-on-social-media-tells-us-a-lot-about-ourselves-18308

The Social Media Effect: Are You Really Who You Portray Online?, R. Kay, Green, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/r-kay-green/the-social-media-effect-a_b_3721029.html

Sagmeister inc. graphic design, Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh, http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com

Physical typography, Behance, https://www.behance.net/search?content=projects&user_tags=1162585

Typography, 99 Designs.com, http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/05/21/25-mind-blowing-typography-art-projects/

What’s on your mind?, Higton Bros, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVZYiJKl1Y

 The happy film, Stefan Sagmeister, book, Institute of contemporary art, Università of Pennsylvannia, 2012

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'Online' poster 

With this poster design I want to create the typography out of  a 'line' of some sort to add a similar pun as I did with the 'reflect' poster. I used an old computer cord I found in my house, wound it and bent it to create the word 'online' to give the illusion of the for literally being on-line as it is a line. But leo have strong references to technology as I am referring to the internet and online interaction. 

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'Do you' poster

For this poster I adapted the idea from my value experiment using the eyes to create the typography. I also took the conceptual idea from the value experiment about how we value peoples judgement and opinions of our physical beings to much. It is the main reason why people distort their real personalities online, because they want to be perceived by others in a certain way, not be judged or excluded from todays 'norm'. 

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'Your' poster 

I decided to create the word 'your' out of computer key letters, because this is where it all starts. only a few letters on a keyboard typed in a certain format can create so much angst and lies. 

I also included the 'enter' bar because i thought it had a symbol reference to the choices we make on the internet. I don't know how many times I have second guessed a post hovering over the enter bar.Most people usually hit enter and don't think to hard about the consequences or the implications it will have on themselves and others. Maybe it's time we all need to stop and second guess the the results of our actions online, if you truly believe it post it, if not….

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'True Self' poster

Originally for this iteration I wanted to take a straight image looking through the iPad, however my camera did not like photographing an iPad screen which resulted in the screen changing colour with wavy lines across the image.

I then created the 'True self' iteration of my campaign by editing an original image onto another. I came it quite well and I was pleased with the result. 

Again, following on from my previous post this image was inspired by the idea that we create an online mask of our selves by manipulating our own image. I chose to use this image format because I self it was a meaningfully juxtaposed by the text. Yes, the image is of the person behind the iPad, but is it really? It is an adaption, a captured image, it could have been altered? the viewer doesn't really know because it is used as a mask, hiding the 'real' person with a (edited) image of themselves. 

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Do your wear the online mask?

I came across this image of Stefan Sagmeister holding an iPad in front of his face with an image of his face on the iPad, I couldn't help but think quantitative self!

It then began me thinking about how we quantity ourselves online through technology, almost creating a mask for ourselves with a version of our own identity. 

This will be the inspiration for one of the iterations in my poster campaign. 

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Final 'Reflect' images...

i decided to take my last experiment a step further, away from the arm and onto my sisters face! 

I really loved the result of these images, they are simple, pure and intriguing all at the same time. Iv'e decided from conducting this shoot that all my images will have some part of the human body in them, either a face, arm or hand. This will draw back to the idea that the meaning is relating to the 'person' and their interaction with technological world. 

This series doesn't have a direct relation to technology or the internet, however I will make sure through out the serious a technological element is apparent. 

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These images reminded me of the original techniques I was researching to break up and divide ones self. They have very powerful imagery that is symbolic of the contemporary self being quantitative and how the internet and social media is separating our true identities. We are still one but now have this sense of being detached.

I though Chuck Close’s portraits were relevant because they typical realistic  depictions of people (including himself). Close’s technique of dividing each photograph into grids then painting each square at a time amazes me. It also relates to the idea of creating a false reality through images we post. The grid almost reflects that we are simply made up of pixels.

(Not sure if the last image is actually by Chuck Close but I liked it so I posted it anyway)

Great documentary on Chuck Close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRfe1skdQfA His story is very inspiring and his practice is fascinating to watch in action. 

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Experimentation

Following on from my chosen campaign question 'Do you reflect your true self online?' I decided to play around with creating typography out of different materials. I found this disco ball in my house about to get thrown out (from my raging kid party days). I decided to pull the pieces of mirrored glass off and create one of the words in my slogan 'reflect', obviously because of the pun. 

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Assignment Two aim:

'Do you reflect your true self online?'

For this assignment I knew I wanted to create a graphic design piece that brought realisation to the fact the contemporary self is quantitative. Through my research of online profiling, social media interaction and just general observation it is clear that many of us project our selves differently online without even realising it. Therefore, my aim for this assignment is create an awareness poster campaign that highlights the unnoticed character duplication we all partake in on the internet. 

I want people to stop and question their own online profiles and and bring awareness to how much they have distorted their real selves online in the hopes they start to become more true to themselves, online and off. 

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Through interaction with the social medium, the real and ideal selves intersect; and the ideal self is at least partially actualized. In essence, our online selves represent our ideals and eliminate many of our other real components....

Another interesting article about the realities of portraying ourselves differently on social media to 'fit in' with various subcultures. 

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'What's on your mind?' - Highton Bros. 

Came across this video on Buzz Feed but Norwegian filmmakers Highton Bros. called "What's on your mind?" a painfully accurate portrayal of Facebook envy, and how different out online personas can skew from reality.  

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Are we all really that narcissistic? 

This article was an interesting read as I am looking at how the contemporary self can be said to be quantitative. It discuss' the issue that people, especially teenagers, project themselves on various social media sites in different ways to portray a certain image. There is almost this unspoken competition going on amongst the world of social media that everyone feels there is a need to impress and belong according to certain social standings.

I know for a fact that I have friends on Facebook that express themselves very differently to how they do in reality. It makes me pose the question of the severity of this point. How many people change, tweak and edit themselves on social media to present a specific image? 

How many people wear this mask of the internet?