Luis Delfin - ADAD1002 - T12A

@simonecaoadad @taneisharose @ninaandayaunsw

Mediated Desires

Weekly topics: Desire & Value

As consumers of media, we are easily persuaded to conform to the supposed stipulated ideals that have been put forth and promoted by the media outlets. Whether or not we agree with what is being presented to us, the ideas and images promoted shape our own ideologies on what is deemed acceptable or intolerable in society today. Individuals all share the ultimate desire of being accepted as a valued member of their community. They feel a sense of belonging if they connect and relate with the ideals that have been popularised by social media, the primary platform that individuals refer to and interact with to gain an improved insight of what’s happening in the world around them.

Audiences interact with the installation piece by transporting the images on the floor into the bin, which is filled with black water. The action religiously alludes to the Christian sacrament of Baptism, a symbol of rebirth and new life. Baptism is performed to cleanse oneself of sins, but ironically, black is associated with death. The image disintegrating in the black water symbolises the death of their former self and the beginning of their new self – a replication of what has been normalised by the media.

After the images were finished, we decided to test out and see if we can create black water. Initially, we were planning to just purchase black food colouring, however, I thought about the dirty cup of water used to clean brushes for painting and how it transforms the liquid from being clear to murky and disgusting. Because I had black paint at home, I decided to test it in a small, glass jar to see how much paint it will take for the water to turn black.

We printed out our other set of images, but this time in black and white to symbolise the old and outdated. 

Each of us had roughly 20 sheets worth of images to cut out. The task was simple, however, it took up a lot of our time. Because we want to make them look compact and plentiful when scattered around the bin on the floor, we wanted to have more than enough images to work with. Also, having an overflow of these sentimental images symbolises how individuals hold a plethora of values during their lifetime and over time, the things that they valued are easily discardable.

We also wrote down quotes that relate to body image. The positive and appraising quotes will be put on the bucket to emphasise how you will be treated if you adopt the values normalised by social media. The negative and degrading quotes will be on the floor, suggesting that you will be treated like rubbish if you keep your current set of values and ignore what is put forth by the media.

To make it a more personal work for audiences, we decided to cut up blank sheets of paper and scatter it amongst the floor. A pen will be next to the bucket, where they can write some of the value that they once had in their life and put it in the bin of water. 

@simonecaoadad @taneisharose @ninaandayaunsw

Before we started assembling our event, we decided to brainstorm the different characteristics and traits emphasised by the media that viewers typically desire and wish to adopt. We came up with the following:

Mediated values:

- Ideal physical appearance/image: beauty and make up accounts on social media platforms to inspire others to look pretty, make up tutorials on YouTube to help people look pretty

- Socialising/Going out: individuals upload images of them with their friends having fun together. Curating an outgoing image that looks fun and enjoyable.

- Materialism/Branded items: you need expensive items to look good

- Gym/Training: stay fit and active, you’ll look strong and tough and successful

- Money: you need money to live a happy life

- Fame/Stardom: if you can’t become a celebrity yourself, then be like a celebrity. They’ve accomplished plenty by being who they are.

- Using social media: best way to connect with the world and learn about what is happening in the world around them

Old/Personal values:

- Effortless appearance (no make up): being happy to leave the house without caring about what everyone thinks about the way you look

- Staying at home: relax and rest alone

- Simple items: cheap and plain clothing or devices that are does the job despite not being expensive or branded

- Objects/Toys: treasured objects that are typically valued by everyone when they were younger  

- Hard-copied images: a physical copy of a memory shared by the person, lasts forever

- Long relationships (family & friends): tight bonds with each other, memories that are close to the heart, moments that you’ll never share with anyone or anything else, irreplaceable

- Nature/Environment: going outside and doing nature activities (fishing, hiking, etc.), any activity outside that is not media related or technological

We used our brainstorming notes to scan the internet for images that are associated with these values stated. We created 2 separate google documents: one for the images that will be pasted on the bin, and another for the images that will be scattered on the ground. Each of us collated 5 pages of images each for the bucket and 15 pages each for the floor.

@simonecaoadad @taneisharose @ninaandayaunsw

After numerous discussion, we have decided to abandon our event idea as we realised that there are many issues and complications that are too difficult to solve, and that rather than putting too much pressure on ourselves to solve them, the more mature method is to let it go and move on.

Shortly after agreeing to discard the auction event, we came up with another concept.

Below are photos from my VAPD of a summary our concept. I wrote these notes after discussing with my group ideas for our new event to gain a better understanding of its meaning.

Inspiring Artist - Hossein Valamanesh

Falling (1980)

Longing Belonging (1997)

@simonecaoadad @taneisharose @ninaandayaunsw

We started brainstorming what objects we could put up for sale and how we could make it. We decided that we would all make boxes and make them all look different in terms of the way it looks on the outside. 

We want to explore different materials that have different textures. This adds another element to the work, another aspect of the object that could potentially sway the person to bid for the item. We also want to play with audience perception as we think it’d be interesting to see how bidders will react when the object is not what it says it is on the outside (e.g. ‘WARNING! Fragile!’ sticker on the box, but inside the box is an unbreakable item).

We also though that it’d be interesting if some of the items didn’t have anything at all, thus, destroying its value to anyone. This will be an interesting twist to the auction as a person would eventually end up paying good money for nothing.

Below is a drawing of an idea for one the object/box. We are still not sure about what materials we will use for the other three objects and how we will run the auction, but those details will come to us over time.

@simonecaoadad @taneisharose @ninaandayaunsw

As a group, we agreed that we would like to create an event that is based around the topic of ‘desire’ because we felt as if everyone could relate to that feeling of wanting or needing something that we don’t have. 

This branched off to the idea of hosting an auction in our studio space, where the members of the class are invited to bid for a series of items before them. Inside these items is a mystery that no one knows, therefore, individuals are bidding for items that they do not know its worth. The act of bidding for the object reveals the persons desire to possess it as well as its content inside (if it even has anything inside it). We came up with this idea after talking about eBay and how there is an option to auction a product rather than selling it for a set price.

The object itself was inspired by mystery boxes, which was popularised by several media influencers and entertainers. The element of surprise is what makes the act of purchasing the box enticing, as you never know if you’re going to strike big. When the highest bidder wins the auction, they are free to do what they want with the box (open it). Having the item already, seeing its actual worth and value can affect their desire to obtain the object.

This concept explores the weekly topic of ‘desire’ in conjunction with ‘value’ and ‘affect’. 

Inspiration:

Mystery Box opening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncP-T9NB-8A

How does collaboration create communities in art and design? What challenges do collaborative approaches face and what are some of the solutions?

For Assessment 2, I wanted to create a metaphor of the process of collaboration being a journey that consists of a series of twists and turns that are challenging to overcome, but is possible. I did not want to link it just to art and design, but also in our everyday lives, as the workplace today revolves around the importance of teamwork and collaborative projects.

Collaboration in art and design is the process of working together with a group of individuals to create a single art piece or a body of work. What makes collaborating with others efficient and effective is that it increases the overall potential of the work as it offers multiple viewpoints of what direction the project could potentially go towards. Collaboration enables us to learn from others and build multiple relationships and networks with the people that you work with.

A community is defined as a group of people that share an interest or a commonality with each other. In art and design, a community is made up of the people we make it with, the people we make it for, and the people who benefit from what we make. Not only does art help build new communities, it can act as a voice for communities by exploiting and responding to the pre-existing cultural values of today. Not only do artists collaborate with other artists, but through their work they are able to collaborate with its audience. This two way interaction builds a series of relationships amongst the artists and the audiences through the work, which potentially builds a community.

In Assessment 1, I looked at a variety of artworks that built a bridge between the artist and the audience for inspiration. With reference to a series of informal works, I was inspired by the idea of making the audience become the artists of the work, which eventually led me to the concept of my poster.

For this assessment, I referred to my own personal experiences of collaborating with others, not just from an art and design perspective, but also in my everyday life. Through this experiences, I was able to narrow down the series of challenges that collaborative groups face. I also realised that these challenges aren’t necessarily difficult to overcome, but are rather detours and speedbumps that are taken which affects the groups progress. At the end of the day however, these challenges are solvable and adaptable, and strengthens the relationship between the group members. Having gone through a series of twists and turns to eventually reach the end goal of their collaboration is an odyssey, an experience that the shared together, therefore, strengthening their ties and relationship with each other as a community. I also conducted research on Dadaism, an art movement from the early 20th century that created works as a form of protest. Their works were somewhat abstract pieces that commented on the cultural values and general norms were adopted by society at the time. The artists expressed their observations of the world through their work, inspiring me to express my personal observations of the nature of collaboration through my final body of work.

My final work is a metaphor of the journey that a group undergoes in a collaborative project. A sculptural wire piece that was inspired by the ‘wire loop’ game, the work encourages audience to attempt to guide a small loop through a windy strand of wire without them contacting each other. The loop representing the group in collaboration, audiences attempting to move along the confusing path symbolises the fact that working with others is a difficult experience that requires plenty of time and patience from everyone involved. Every bend represents a challenge, the more severe the bend, the more time consuming the challenge is. When the loop touches the wire, it affects the persons decision making as it forces them to stop and adjust their grip. This symbolises how some challenges affect the way that the group approaches the work, leading to them making the adjustments and changes that groups must make in order to overcome these challenges. But no matter how many challenges there are and adjustments a group makes, over time they will reach the finish line together, walking away with stronger bonds and as a community. Audiences are invited to play this game as a group, with one person manoeuvring the loop whilst the others offer them guidance and verbal assistance. Audiences are also allowed to manipulate the wire path, emphasising the fact that not all collaborative projects encounter the same challenges.

References

American Management Association. 2018, ‘The Five Steps to Conflict Resolution’, accessed 9 September 2018, https://www.amanet.org/training/articles/the-five-steps-to-conflict-resolution.aspx

Artyfactory. 2018, ‘Dadaism’, accessed 12 September 2018, http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/dadaism.htm

Mann, Jon. 2017, ‘How Duchamp’s Urinal Changed Art Forever’, Artsy, accessed 12 September 2018, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever

MoMA Learning. 2018, ‘Participation and Audience Involvement’, accessed 8 September 2018, https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/media-and-performance-art/participation-and-audience-involvement

The University of Queensland. 2018, ‘Problems associated with group work’, accessed 9 September 2018, https://www.uq.edu.au/student-services/learning/problems-associated-group-work

I purchased a block of bamboo wood from K-Mart as I thought that it could be used as a nice base for my sculptural piece/wire loop game.

I drilled two holes near the ends of the bamboo block.

I then cut out a long piece of wire and stuck the ends inside the holes.

These ends were then tied and tightened using blu-tac to restrict the wire from moving.

Before I clogged the hole with blu-tac, slid the loop through the wire. I created a loop using one strand of wire. To make this, I just created a circle shape at the wires middle and continuously twisted the ends together to create the handle. 

The pathway was simply trial and error. I wanted to make multiple loops and turns, however, I had to make sure that I didn’t make too many as it would add more weight to the wire which would make it much more difficult for it to stand up on its own. This issue happened several times during the manipulating process, which resulted in me having to trim down the wire slightly. 

Like all projects, collaborating with others is like a rollercoaster journey: consists of its ups and downs. 

When thinking about my experiences of collaborating with others, I have had my fair share of unpleasant experiences, such as:

- Conflicting ideas

- Loss of direction, not sure what’s going on

- Starting over from scratch

- Failing to complete the task

- Working with people that I do not get along with

- Risk of going over budget

- Unorganised and unprepared

(to name a few)

Personally, I have enjoyed my experiences of collaborating with others, but that does not necessarily mean that it did not come with its fair share of challenges. With every challenge that comes forth, no matter how hard the obstacle may be, there is always a solution. Over time, the group will be able to successfully hurdle over these challenges and eventually complete the collaborative project.

For my next experiment, I want to create a conceptual piece that highlights the journey that the collaborative group goes through. I want to show how working with others is a challenging task but fulfilling at the same time, and how that the challenges faced can easily be solved.

For the next experiment, I became inspired by Google Maps, an application that I use to navigate my way to familiar places. Looking at a map, there a multiple routes that one can take to eventually get to their desired location. This is similar to collaborative projects as ideas put forth by different members are like the routes/paths that can be taken to the destination (the completion of the work). Also, the twists and turns that one goes through, as well as other road issues (traffic, red light speed cameras, dumb drivers, etc.) act as the real world representation of the challenges that collaborative groups face.

I was also inspired by the wire loop game, which involves a person moving a small loop along a windy wire path. The objective of the game is to not let the loop touch the wire path, which has its fair share of twists and turns. The game itself is a journey, as the person progressively moves the loop along the windy wire, with the goal of eventually reaching the other end. I like this game as it is interactive and gets audiences involved. I also believe that it is an accurate representation of collaborative projects as the loop represents the collective group and the twists and turns represents the challenges that they face.

For my next experiment, I have decided to create an image featuring different aspects of multiple peoples faces.These different parts will be collated and joined together to create one face.

The work is supposed to represent the idea of collaboration being a joint effort and how collaborators often offer different ideas to the group, which ultimately leads them to the completion of their work. The collage of a patchy face symbolises the feeling that one gets during a group project when they have an already envisioned image of what the work will be but they are forced to adapt their vision of it to link with the ideas put forth by others. This challenge tends to happen all the time with collaborative projects as multiple people can offer multiple ideas that can improve the work. By creating a single face made up of different parts of multiple people’s faces, the image emphasises the communal identity that they adopt, as they all share the common goal of completing the work together. This acts as the solution to the challenge, as despite having to accept change and adapt, the group is working together and is on the same team at the end of the day. Represented by the fact that you can identify that it is a single person’s face made up of multiple peoples faces, collaboration has its bumps along the journey (disagreements), however, the group eventually puts aside their differences and works together to complete the project. This, therefore, builds and shapes a community.

The Process

At uni, I was approached by a psychology student to take part in their study of the selfie. This study required me to take multiple selfies of myself. After taking part of this study and looking at Dada collage works, I became inspired for my next experiment.

I took a selfie of myself and opened the image on Photoshop.

I then sourced images from my camera roll of some of my friends and cropped them, focusing on different areas of their faces.

The cropped images were then transferred onto my selfie.

Final Product

The images that I used were photos that were taken back in 2017 (last day of high school). I decided to use those images as they were easy to access and it saved me time from having to hassle my friends to take selfies of themselves. Before I used their images however, I did ask for their permission to use their faces in my experiment. Quick shout out to my mates for agreeing to it!

Dadaism (or Dada) is a stylistic form of art that attacked the political, social and cultural values faced at the time of its prominence. A European art movement that developed in reaction to WW1, the works were created as a protest against the cultural values that have been adopted by the world.

Looking at the works of Dada artsist , I became inspired by their works that discusses their observations on what’s happening in the world around them. In particular, I like their collage works as it offers a different and unconventional approach to traditional art, which is what the art movement was about.

Looking at these collage works gave me an idea of how I could represent the challenges and solutions of collaborating in art and design. For my next experiment, I intend to not make a controversial collage that is protesting against collaborating, but something that highlights the flaws of the communal act that are resolvable.

Noticeable Dada Artworks (collages that inspired my next experiment)

ABCD (1920) by Raoul Hausmann

Life and Work in Universal City, 12:05 Noon (1919) by George Grosz & John Heartfield

Incision With The Dada Kitchen Knife Through Germany's Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch (1920) by Hannah Hoch

Urinal (1917) by Marcel Duchamp

This work isn’t a collage, but it challenged the traditional meaning of art. By submitting a urinal as a work at an exhibition and personalising it by simply flipping it upside down and inscribing ‘R. Mutt’ on it with a black marker, Duchamp’s work comments on how everyone can be an artist. This ideology relates perfectly with my concept of audiences becoming the artists.

** R. Mutt is the person who made the urinal. Duchamp is informally crediting him as the artist.

For Assessment 1, I created a collaborative poster that encouraged audiences to become the artists. This was done by simply making edits to the poster by crossing out boxes. Making the poster interactive and engaging is what made it interesting and collaborative. 

For my first experiment, I decided to explore this activity furthermore by getting audiences to create artworks together using a variety of mediums.

Digital Art

I first experimented using Adobe Illustrator, a graphic technology software that is used by industry professionals to produce digital artworks. This experiment was very informal as I instructed the participants to draw whatever they wanted. 

I did this experiment at my workplace during my break periods. I got my workmates who were also on their breaks to take part in this experiment.

The participants didn’t work on the artwork together. They each took turns on my laptop drawing whatever came to their mind. 

note** I didn’t take photos of them drawing on my laptop as they expressed their disinterest in having their photo being taken in the workplace.

The first person had a blank canvas, so they had the flexibility of drawing whatever they wanted to draw.

Every person after added minor details to the image, which limits their creative potential in the work as they didn’t have the ability to freely draw anything like the first person.

2nd Drawing

3rd Drawing

4th Drawing

Sculpture - Clay

My second attempt at this experiment was done at uni. I was able to get a few friends + myself to participate in this activity.

Using clay/plasticine, the participants were encouraged to create whatever they wanted to make using as much clay as they wanted.

note** I forgot to take images of the clay pieces gradually evolving. Instead, I only have the first stage and the final stage. I was however able to get some action shots.

First person - myself

Second person

Third Person

Fourth Person

Final Product

Sculpture - Wire

My third and final attempt at this experiment was using the medium of wire. Before I got people to start making the sculptural piece, I decided to make a base. Because I am stingy and poor, I decided to use two cork heat pads from K-Mart as the base. Using this, I put them on top of each other and drilled two holes into the cork boards. I then cut a long piece of PVC wire, inserted each of the ends in the holes and made a knot at the bottom so that the wire will not fall out. 

I then got my two sisters as well as my dad to make a sculptural wire piece. 

First Stage

Second Stage

Third and Final Stage

Meaning

This experiment is to represent the dynamics of collaborative projects and works. It is evident that within the group, there is a leader (whether or not they are established as the leader of the pack) that steers/directs the project. Normally, this person is the one that came up with the idea. This leader is represented by the first person who tackled the work as they had the flexibility to do whatever they wanted to do. The other participants could only add on to what has already been assembled, however, their creative potential is only limited to what is in front of them. This represents the other members of the collaborative project, who complete tasks that support the idea of the leader. 

Breakdown:

Challenge - conflicting ideas; the supporting cast members propose ideas that alter the envisioned image of another person (affect)

Solution - compromise; conflict resolution. Most scenarios, a suggestion is beneficial to the final work. 

How it was represented - the act of people adding on to the work = different suggestions into making the collaborative project better. The design process represents the idea of conflict resolution; how the work evolved from the ideas put forth by each participant.

-

Challenge - superiority and inferiority: the ‘leader’ has a bigger role in making the work. Other collaborators are just a supporting cast, helping the ‘leader’ deliver their message

Solution - this statement is absolutely false. Even if it is not your idea in the first place, it does not mean that you do not have a pivotal role in the creation of the work. You can still make an impact (propose ideas that could slightly change the idea, making it better). It is your work as much as it is theirs.

How it was represented - the process itself; each person adding on to the sculpture = people proposing new ideas to the collaborative piece that could improve the work.

Evaluation

Overall, the 3 components of this experiment explores the concept of collaboration. It demonstrates how when collaborating with others, the contrasting ideas put forth by the collaborators affects the way you look at the work. It also looks at the dynamics of collaborative projects; particularly the how ideas typically stem from an idea put forth by an individual, and is expanded on by other collaborators. 

At the end of the day, the work promotes the idea of making the audience the artist. By creating a single work with other artists, they are collaborating with each other, thus, building a community as they share the commonality of having made an artwork together.

Having been apart of several collaborative projects, I decided to draw back to my personal experiences. I did this by creating a mind map of my observations on how I tend to feel in collaborative situations and what goes on in my head.