Environment - Digital work

After coming out of my blip and thinking about quitting college, i need to reconnect with my work now i am certain i want to stay.

Feeling a bit lost in my unit i wanted to think about my theme. Digital Environment. What is a digital environment ? Wikipedia says:

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A digital environment is a simulated "place" made through the use of one or more computers. Records or evidence of an individual's interaction with a digital environment constitute their digital footprint.

I would say going by this definition second life is a digital environment... a place where people can take on virtual identities... 

Second life is a virtual world where people create a new identity. It is quite controversial. But in many ways don't people do that with most forms of social media? They take on a persona, a way they want to be seen and how they interact is completely different to how they probably are in person. I know that was the base idea i wanted to react to to make work.

But  i needed to reconnect with the work.  So i created two more digital collages to get the ball rolling. 

With these i was concentrating on colour and used the same colours for both, a more popular colour pallet for an instagram feed.  The first one i was looking as the popularly of posting images with legs in it as something that is seen as sexual but not overly so. The second image i was thinking about how people post, how they vent online or just the way people talk... Its all talk without talking.

So i needed to start thinking about trying some film. I spend a long time creating a sound piece from found audio on youtube of people giving advice on how to be more popular online and how, i think, it is pretty fucked up advice, i made the audio more and more fucked up by creating glitches and static noise. It was really challenging to create a sound piece when i had no experience doing so...

                         (I will submit it on a USB as i don't know how to attach it onto here)

I just felt so disconnected and lost...

AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

So maybe I am thinking to much, something I always do... maybe it can be more simple.

Digital environment.... I live in it. 

HOW DOSE IT MAKE ME FEEL???

Social media makes me feel bad, about myself. Who I am and the choices I have made because I compare myself to others and there accomplishments.... It is amazing but It makes me frustrated that I my phone is a connection to everyone and everything.... it makes me feel voiceless is a sea of people screaming silence. But I depend on it for everything because I have been raised with it.

But how can I make work to this? what can I do?...

I started experimenting with this idea with film & some of my photography unit experiments.

I want to create something that expresses how I feel...

... so I want it to be silent... but I want it to have words.  subtitles?

Could I think about writing something to be used in film? 

How dose living in a digital environment make me feel??

I felt the best and most enjoyable way for me to express this feeling was in the digital collage's i was making... so i decided to make more...

 

I started to think about everything i had looked into with the effects of social media, the way an older generation views how we use it, how it effects us, how we communicate with each other, how it effects out mental state.

I liked the idea of using older imagery of people to express the idea of an older generation so started with that idea and played around.

I enjoy making collages. I can, and have, spent hours and hours (12 straight) creating these...I just enjoy it so much.

I liked the image of the topless woman with the light bulb for a head (the modern woman is a bright thinker) as a little head nod to Hannah Hoch's  Das Schone Madchen/beautiful girl.

I decided i wanted to use people who were associated with a certain thing, and make a comment on how things are now, people that perhaps paved the way to what we have now, or can be connected to it.

 Vint Cerf. Most people don't know who he is but he is known as one of the fathers of the internet because he invented the transmission control protocol ( TCP) and the Internet protocol (IP). These are the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.
He is vice president of Google and he is Active in organizations that work toward making the internet deliver humanitarian value.

I liked the idea of using him as a comment on communication... But i was unsure...

vint cerf


 I then thought about using Emily Dickinson, the American poet. How language has changed how communication and what we see as a thoughtful comment.  

I used colours that are currently in for beauty, hair, web sights, Instagram pages and fashion currently...

Emily Dickinson

My tutor asked me if i thought people would know who she was if i didn't say or make it obvious... and i dont think they would, i thought about this but then thought... that is good. Because one of the things people have said to me about the "younger generation" is that we know nothing about history or historical figures. I thought that is pretty fitting really.

I then decided to concentrate on the mind & the psychology around social media...

I used Sigmund Freud to express the idea of ego on social media. Again using the colours & shapes that are currently "in". I tried to express sexualization and praise...

Sigmund Freud

I then decided i could maybe use a more current figure, i would use Kim Kardashian. I wanted to make a comment on how children are influenced by figures online to grow up to fast, and over sexualize themselves....

I then decided i would use a different figure, but i would add Kim K. in the collage. Again referring to the Hannah Hoch collage.

I decided to use Lucy Stone, she is a historical figure who fought for woman's rights, paving the way for all the rights we have now. I wanted to comment on that idea all the rights we have been given and what we do with it...