Action plan

Project Proposal

‘Bio’

Section 1 - Progress and Achievement 

Throughout this painting course, it is somewhat ironic that the most valuable lesson I have learnt is that painting is not a necessity - I have come to understand that there are no boundaries within fine art. A practice is not limited to its medium and this encourages me to explore and experiment with new methods. 

Section 2 - Context

Since venturing into performance and social media through my project ‘#harrystylespleasenoticeme’, I am eager to explore this deeper, as I feel that fully immersing myself in the piece is much more powerful both for me and the viewer. 

I have been looking at mostly performance and digital artists, focussing on identity, femininity and the internet age. Amalia Ulman, Ayesha Tan-Jones, Juno Calypso and Tyler Coburn are examples of the inspiration I have collated on my blog. 

Ulman’s dedication to ‘Excellences & Perfections’ is admirable - the notion of studying an issue by becoming part of it is something that interests me greatly. 

Section 3 - Project Proposal Aims, Methods and Realisation  

Interactivity is an area I have yet to explore, and I hope to do this with ‘Bio’. I aim to create a number of characters, each representing a type of ‘Online Girl’ - types which are being determined after publicly asking friends on Facebook to note the 5 types of girls they see on Instagram, as well as watching the vlogger Gabriel Conte’s YouTube video titled ‘TYPES OF GIRLS ON INSTAGRAM’. Through a satirical gaze, I will photograph myself as these characters, surrounded by their defining possessions (i.e. cookbooks, makeup, yoga mat) and print them onto small cards. I would also like to experiment with casting and make a latex mask of my face which I will then wear in the photographs. The installation would be a questionnaire, text printed onto fabric in the form of a flow chart that viewers can follow to determine which ‘type’ they are. The cards with the characters on them will be sorted into different places underneath the questionnaire, so different answers will lead you to different piles, resulting in each participant picking up their own card telling them which category they fall under. 

‘Bio’ will require me to use new materials, such as alginate and latex to make moulds of my face - a method I have not tried before; as well as experimenting with large-scale photography, shooting full body shots of myself instead of solely head shots. 

I will be visiting the Robots exhibition at the Science Museum, as well as viewing Gillian Wearing’s work at the Tate Modern and Urs Fischer’s interactive sculpture at Sadie Cole’s HQ. Some of the books I will look at include The Internet Is Not The Answer, (Keen, 2015) and Sociology in the Age of the Internet, (Cavanagh, 2007).

Section 4 - Evaluation

Keeping a blog has been beneficial to me, so I will continue to use this online space to gather images, articles, essays and exhibitions as well as my own thoughts and development pieces. I aim to use my sketchbook more, as was suggested by my tutor, and experiment with materials. Alongside this, I will also continue using my notebook as a place to constantly brainstorm and evaluate my ideas, which will enable me to see my progress when writing my project evaluation. 

Bibliography

Amalia Ulman: Excellences & Perfections (2012) Available at: http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/amalia-ulman-excellences-perfections (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Art Documentaries (2014) 1/2 Marvin Gaye Chetwynd - what do artists do all day ? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poy9Zc1IzwM&feature=youtu.be (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

ASMRrequests (2014) Departure Ep. 2: Frontiers - ASMR Sci-Fi series. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1679&v=YYpI8847naw (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Black, H., (2013) Further materials toward a theory of the hot Babe. Available at: https://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-hot-babe/ (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Juno calypso: ’I‘m conveying a woman’s right to be selfish’ - sleek mag (2016) Available at: http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/09/14/juno-calypso-art/ (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Coburn, T. (2017) I’m that angel (longer excerpt). Available at: https://vimeo.com/129042914 (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Gabriel Conte (2016) TYPES OF GIRLS ON INSTAGRAM. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYo2tj-ttB0 (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Dot, T.D. (no date) The future of Facebook as a social content farm. Available at: http://mashable.com/2013/02/19/the-future-of-facebook-as-a-social-content-farm/#eAuyaeYhGEqk (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Everard, S. (2017) Lucy hardcastle’s intangible matter | the fifth sense. Available at: https://thefifthsense.i-d.co/en_gb/hero/lucy-hardcastle/ (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Excellences & Perfections: Amalia Ulman at the Influencers 2015 (2017) Available at: https://vimeo.com/148370883 (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Ex Machina (2015) Directed by Alex Garland UK: .

Fischer, U., The Kiss, 2017, Sadie Coles HQ, London

Flynn, G. (2012) Gone girl: A novel. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Gudmundsdottir, B., Björk Digital, 2016, exhibition, Somerset House, London

It’s Nice That (2016) Nicer Tuesdays: Juno calypso. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmnedKsopaM (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Lo and behold, Reveries of the connected world (2016) Directed by Werner Herzog USA: .

This dystopian climate change film could soon be our reality (no date) Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34579/1/ayesha-tan-jones-indigo-zoom-dystopian-climate-change-film (Accessed: 19 February 2017).

Robots, 2017, exhibition, Science Museum, London

References

Cavanagh, A. (2007) Sociology in the age of the Internet (sociology and social change). Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Keen, A. (2015) The Internet is not the answer. New York, USA: Atlantic Monthly Press.

First week

After over-analysing my own ideas, scrapping my initial one and considering making another film, I came to the conclusion that my original idea was the one I should attempt.
Originally, my plan was to make silicone/latex masks of my face and wear them in a photo shoot in which I dressed up as 5 different characters. These photos would then be printed on small cards and presented as answers at the end of a questionnaire the viewer would participate in.
Now, my plan is to incorporate more performance and writing into it: I will become 4 different characters, each one an over exaggeration of an online stereotype (e.g. fitspo, queen, yoga mum) and perform a monologue that I have written, similar to the text piece I previously posted. Each character will have their own set up, surrounded by material things that define their personality (e.g. yoga mat, makeup, cookbooks) and their own monologue relating to them. This is a draft of the 'Queen' character monologue:

Who is she who IS she who am I? well honey i’m InstaQueen The Everyman’s Dream™ perpetual teen, I’m your InstaWife I’m willing to serve you for the rest of my life! Filler filler sushi dinner, not a slut not a #hoe but a red hot body without a body, whatever the temperature on a screen, available and unattainable. when do you how do you what do you want because I’ll do it for you I’ll do it times two in a lace bra and Kylie Jenner lip liner. I dance in my Calvins I look good in my Calvins I don’t exist in my Calvins because #lifehack I don’t exist - ‘the limit does not exist!’ (Mean Girls, 2004) On wednesdays we wear your adoring masochistic wonderful patriarchal gaze ‘and I’m a million different people from one day to the next’ you’re my welcome guest in my #yesfilter world in my body in my mirror on my camera on my phone to to the pixels on your screen and straight thru ur heart like those new Nikes you never knew you might need until just now and here I am watching you slide into my DM’s watching me sliding down the page out of sight not out of mind because who could forget this piece of fictional ass in some brand new Levi’s because *winky face* treat yo self that’s why! An I for an iPhone 7plus, a like for a like. I’ve got them under my freshly manicured nails (MAC, black opulence) but they hold me in their hands, an instant wife in their pocket got it? Who’s the lucky fella? Who’s the lucky fella? I’m feeling hella heavenly and ultimately babely when I’m waiting for my man to have me in his hand (singular) and through all my fans (plural) it’s you! It’s you! Winner winner illusion killer because you’re trying to smell my hair but it’s not there you’re trying to cut my hair but it’s not there and it’s just not fair bitch what a bitch whore slut hoe see if I care but no one will reply because I was never really there. U can dream about having me and I’ll make u my speciali-t(eatox), #smashed#avo on #toast#fitgirl I’m an it girl I’m THE it girl I’m beautiful and radiant and I don’t know it but I only know it a bit but not enough to be one of those cocky girls ughhhh GROSS I’m just shy and sexy and funny and clever and not too clever and down-to-earth whilst floating thru ur fibre-optic broadband sticking on my eyelashes and breaking my neck to get the perfect selfie just 4 you, and you, and 32k others. But really it’s all for you because I don’t exist without you, if a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? If I take a selfie of myself at brunch w/ the perfect lighting and no one double taps it, did I even go to brunch? Can you go on dates in cyber space? Bio: I’m millions of people and no one, nothing. Pizza enthusiast. 

As you can tell I have merged my previous text piece with a new one, after my sister advised me this would work better. I plan to perform this in the set up I have described, motionless like posing for a painting, and display the films on devices like an iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacBook at the end of a questionnaire on the wall. The questionnaire will be to determine which type of 'Online Girl' you are, so the viewers get to participate and interact with the work. 

It was interesting to find that, when I posted my first text piece on Instagram, it received less likes than two videos I made after, where I am reciting something else I have written. My younger sister, an avid Instagrammer, informed me that if she was scrolling down the page, a block of text would not grab her attention. It is then that I realised a video of a spoken piece would be much more effective, gain more interest and hold more attention than a text piece. 

I will attach my official project proposal, which is slightly different to this one, and action plan in a separate post so they are easier to find. 

I am also currently reading 'The Internet Is Not The Answer' by Andrew Keen, as well as visiting the 'Robots' exhibition at The Science Museum tomorrow to add more contextual depth to my piece. 

Notes from reading week

Parker Day

Nadia Lee Cohen - video for Isabella by Isaac Delusion

Ron Mueck

Spring Breakers

- could make film, gang of people wearing masks of my face, them each being a personality, interchange shots with shots from fake advert selling online personas????

Lana Del Rey - burning desire

David Lynch

American Beauty

Lost River

Suburbs / the Hamptons 

keep it simple! ur overthinking it

Gillian Wearing

Cindy Sherman 

These are some rough notes I made during reading week as I was having a crisis about how to translate all my research into an idea I could effectively execute. I decided to post them here because I think it's important for me to see how my ideas can change and lead into new ones, regardless of whether I decide to pursue them or not. It is also interesting to see the progress of my ideas, even if it means going off track for a while and coming back to my original plan with new points of inspiration. 

The idea to make a piece of work revolving around an interactive questionnaire first came to me a while ago, and I have been struggling to think of how to execute it in the right way. I want to talk about identity, the internet, the identities we adopt on the internet, the identities we see, the categories we subconsciously place on people when scrolling through their Instagrams, the human need for categorisation and being part of a group. This last point interests me thoroughly, as it connects back to our primal instincts: as cavemen, living in packs was the only way to ensure survival. It guaranteed you a mate and safety - those left on their own had a severely diminished level of security and would most likely be killed or starve to death. Although somewhat irrelevant now (the risk of being mauled by a wild animal is highly unlikely in today's urban world) our minds still act in this way, basing our behaviours and decisions off the idea that if we don't fit in, we will die. Therefore, becoming part of a group turns into a life or death situation, and not being able to define ourselves concerns us.
From this, I began to think about personality tests such as the Myers Briggs test, which files each person down to 1 of 16 personality types.

I thought that trying to determine a person's personality was too vague and I'm not sure it would be as easy to add a satirical tone if it was hard to define whether I was seriously categorising people or not. I want to make this more relevant to my previous work, incorporating social media and personal identities. 

I searched online for articles and videos about the different types of Instagram Girl, and unsurprisingly found sexist responses that were eager to portray most girls online as vapid and self-obsessed. If a girl takes too many selfies, she's narcissistic and thinks too much of herself, however if she is beautiful then she's your future wife. 

                                       

This video by (ironically narcissistic) Gabriel Conte both infuriated and intrigued me. It's curious that he, and many other people (mostly male), feel that they are in a high position of power, to tell a girl what is attractive and what is not, what he likes and what he doesn't. He is telling girls they are self-obsessed when he is self-obsessed enough to put himself on a pedestal and paint himself as the gospel, looking down and pointing at the girls he doesn't deem good enough. For generations women have been categorised from the perspective of and for the convenience of the patriarchy. If she is not a housewife then what is she? She is a businesswoman, cold and important. If she is not a businesswoman then what is she? She is a carer of others, perhaps a mother. If she is not a mother then what is she? She is a 'free spirit', wild and exciting. But really there's no freedom there, she's only allowed to go as far as her admirers can see, she can only run to the end of the road, because they want her to be fun but not too fun, unpredictable but still controllable. Today we are the artsy types, the clever ones, the sluts, the young mums, the older mums, the Kardashians, the gap year girls. On social media it all comes to the one point, that underneath all the labels we are still the desirable girls. Your Instagram Wife will cook you dinner, she'll run away with you, she'll stay in bed with you, she'll paint her nails and contour her face for you, she'll be natural for you, she'll skate, she'll smoke, she'll meditate, she'll rave, she'll give you anything and be anything you want. The notion of females being complex human beings, diverse and impossible to generalise, is too much for some to understand. Because after all, it's easy to advertise something if you're aiming it towards one group, you can sell low fat yoghurt to the fitness girl, and beauty blenders to the makeup girl, and pretty bikinis to the travelling girl.  It's easy to find yourself a Wife if you know which flavour you like. 

Gillian Flynn explores this idea brilliantly in her book Gone Girl, particularly in this extract: 

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)” 

Over Facebook I posted a status asking people to comment what they thought were the 5 types of Instagram girl. Interestingly, the only people that commented were girls, but in my opinion the has to do with the facts that most of my friends are girls, and my friends that are guys were probably too worried to post their opinions in case it started a Facebook feminism debate. 

From this research I am going to attempt to organise the 'types' of girls into 5 groups. I would like to create accounts for each 'type', with myself adopting the traits of that girl in each account, which I could then use in my final questionnaire piece. 

Hannah Black wrote an essay titled 'Hot Babe', exploring the social media girl phenomenon and commenting on its transparency. [https://thenewinquiry.com/essays/further-materials-toward-a-theory-of-the-hot-babe/]

'The counterpart to the slave who has flesh but no body (Wilderson), she has no flesh, only a body. Her body is not made of flesh: It is a collection of parts, a collage, a series of images. In her, functions of the flesh disappear and reappear as erotic or repulsive absurdities: two girls, one cup; 2 million girls, one body.'

After reading this essay, I was inspired to write my own piece, like a stream of consciousness captured online.

Indigo Zoom: The Awakening - Screening and Exhibition

Article: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/gallery/23345/4/ayesha-tan-jones-indigo-zoom-the-awakening

Ayesha Tan-Jones screened her film Indigo Zoom last night, alongside sculptures and posters she had made that coincided with the film. Indigo Zoom was a unique and poignant presentation of our dystopian future, one where clean air is privatised and sold back to the public. Tan-Jones created the persona of Indigo in 2013, and carried out the story through her journey to find clean air and live freely. The whole film was mesmerising, colourful, politically engaging and digitally psychedelic.
Things to take from this:

• addressing a serious issue through characters and story telling, to include politics in a less obvious and more entertaining way - Tan Jones says in her interview with Dazed: "When you present someone with a story that is magical and that people can follow, it feels easier to understand a more complex issue than being told about it through facts in real life"
• combining digital work and tactile work - photography/film and sculpture/installation to bring an idea to life in multiple ways and involve the viewer 

INITIAL IDEAS

Leading up to this Final Major Project, I have found myself looking at more technology-based media, relating to my previous explorations into social media within my work. I have been collecting things that have triggered my interest, mostly focused on identity, modern technology, dystopia, virtual reality and participation. Here I collate the things that have inspired me, fragments of my idea, in the hope to build on them. 

Departure Ep. 2: Frontiers - ASMR Sci-Fi Series

This video initially interested me as I was reading about the psychological phenomena of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) and I liked the combination of intimacy and technology: provoking a human feeling through a faceless platform, creating the feeling of something personal but directing it at millions of people. 

This woman created multiple identities, each personifying a particular 'type', and then turned them into robots based solely on this 'type'. Throughout the video she keeps a consistent level of volume, staying extremely quiet and close to the microphone. 

Things to take from this: 

• the idea of creating artificial personalities for each 'type' of person, and embodying that in some way
• the combination of something personal and mechanical, confusing the boundaries between them
• the creation of a dystopian future world that doesn't seem too far away from ours

Lucy Hardcastle - Intangible Matter 

Lucy Hardcastle created an online dimension with a futuristic, celestial aesthetic for the viewer to move their way through and complete tasks, like in a video game. 

Things to take from this:

• the immersive, interactive nature of the project 
• the aesthetic - futuristic, smooth, soft light, soothing 

Bjork Digital exhibition at Somerset House 

Last year I visited Bjork's exhibition at Somerset House, where it consisted mostly of virtual realities experienced through VR goggles. The uniqueness and intimacy of this show struck me, and I knew I'd like to somehow explore technology from a fine art approach. You come out of the show feeling like you have spent time with the artist, and that no two experiences were the same. 

Things to take from this: 

• figure out a way to focus on closeness and immersion within my project
• question how to create a sense of personality through an electronic based piece of work 
• experiment with making work that relies on the viewer's participation 

Ex Machina - Dir. Alex Garland, 2015

This film explores our relationship with artificial intelligence in the most extreme sense - embodying all of the paranoia around our rapidly developing internet world and asking 'What happens when our technology surpasses us?'

Things to take from this:

• smooth, futuristic aesthetic and colour scheme 
• make the audience think about and question the morality of the increasingly progressive steps humans are taking with computers

Juno Calypso 

Calypso's photographs convey a feeling of unease, as she personifies these slightly dystopian ideals and creates a persona that is removed from herself, but still holds heavy connotations around what is expected of the female form and females in general. She plays on classic stereotypes to morph into an anti-stereotype, pushing the expectations over the edge. 

Things to take from this: 

• in an observation on human behaviour, feminism is unavoidable - I am a female that is present in society so therefore this is how I view the world. My work usually holds feminist undertones, and it would be interesting to see how these would present themselves in this project. 

Amalia Ulman - Excellences and Perfections 

https://vimeo.com/148370883

At the One & Other show at the Zabludovicz, Ulman presented a video explaining her 4 months long performance piece titled Excellences and Perfections, where she lived online as an alter ego - one that spent nights in luxury hotels, ate lavish brunches and even got breast surgery to fit the Instagram 'Hot Babe' image, as artist Hannah Black describes it. This is the second example (Calypso being the first) of creating something by giving people what they want, but in an extreme and distorted way.  It's a way of putting forth the question 'Is this what you really want?' and giving a physical description of that. In retrospect, Ulman's work would have tied in harmoniously with my project #harrystylespleasenoticeme - we both share similar ideas of shining a light on the issues with social media by becoming a part of the problem, and living as an alter ego in the internet space we are examining. Making comments on the lives we lead but living them at the same time. 

Things to take from this: 

• continue to explore alter-egos and personalities as embodiments of stereotypes 
• how I can involve myself completely in this project, making it a part of my life and living it instead of working on it occasionally 

Article: http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/amalia-ulman-excellences-perfections

Tyler Coburn - I'm That Angel

https://vimeo.com/129042914

Following a lecture I attended by Tyler Coburn, I started to look at performance art in a different light, one that was a marriage of the political and poetic. Where I've been looking at social media in a more satirically kitschy way, Coburn dissects it in a more mechanical way, with complex trains of thought and clean cut shots. 

Things to take from this: 

• look more into the context of the internet - where it started, how it has changed our lives ~ (continue watching Lo & Behold, Reveries of the Connected World by Werner Herzog) ~ and apply that to my research and work 

Upcoming exhibitions I am visiting: 

• Indigo Zoom - a film screening of Ayesha Tan-Jones' depiction of our dystopian future
• Robots - The Science Museum