CRITICAL REFLECTION

This work is based on the social problem of the alienation relationship between people and things in the consumer society. I'd like to discuss what kind of influence the alienation of people and things will bring to human beings in the consumer society, and how people should deal with such effects. I divide my works into three periods, in which my focus is different. In the first part, I visualize consumerism from an objective perspective and a capitalist perspective. In the second part, I stand in the perspective of consumers to describe the alienation of people and things in the consumer society. In the third part, we will combine the first two parts to show the relationship between people and things in the contemporary consumer society, through the form of freeze frame animation

A Tired Day, 29.7cm x 42cm, 2021

In Unit1, I used newspapers, fashion magazines and other consumer goods as materials to make some collages about consumerism, and expressed my feelings about consumerism Through Collage abstraction. So in Unit2, I continue the collage project. After investigating Robert Rauschenberg, I think my works lack diversity, monotonous materials, and can not accurately express the theme. After I finished collage1, I changed the materials of collage. I split the packing boxes I collected in my daily life, and then I reconstructed the collage. I scanned the collage and processed it with PS to explore different visual effects. After determining the best visual effect, I tried to combine collage with screen printing. There were some problems in the printing process, but it also added some hand feeling to the work. The combination of the hand feeling of screen printing and the mechanical feeling of the packing box made me very satisfied. In the process of printing, I also tried to print the pattern of collage on the shopping bag, which brought more possibilities for my collage.

cosmetics container products, 14.2cm x 20.5cm, 2021

Plastic Shopping Bags, 2021

After group presentation, Leo gave me some suggestions. She thought I lost some interest after I took the package apart. So I tried to reassemble the screen printed product into a box. In this process, a conversion process from 3D to 2D and then to 3D is realized. These boxes may be used in future exhibitions.

Box, 6cmx6cmx18com, 2021

In my mail art project, inspired by a poem, I used the infinite flip card to express my feelings about this poem. Finally, I showed my work in the form of vedio. In the process of this exhibition, because the card is used to express poetry in a form between 3D and 2D, the teacher thought my card was very interesting. They suggested that I try to apply this technology to my theme works.

My Butterfly,Unlimited Flip Card, 2021

After the meeting, I accepted the teacher's proposal and began to explore 3dcollege. I made a plat of paper with four spaces. I want to use these four spaces to create a 3D sculpture that the audience can watch around. In these four spaces, I create according to some images cut from magazines and some consumer goods collected in my life. I copy and print these images, collage them in a way of repeated images, and make them into the form of 3D paper sculpture. After the initial completion of the draft of the four spaces, I found that although the 3D paper sculpture form is very attractive, it can not highlight the depth of the four spaces, so I modified the draft, using the advertising language cut from the magazine to make a space extension line, and the revised collage has a more hierarchical sense of space. After that, I found that although I had the depth of space, the sculptures in the space still had some levitation and lack of reality. After thinking about it repeatedly, I decided to add shadows to them. I cut up the fluorescent tape and pasted them on the plat regularly according to the natural light and shadow. The effect is satisfactory.

3D Collage, 20cmx20cmx20com, 2021

After the meeting, I accepted the teacher's proposal and began to explore 3dcollege. I made a plat of paper with four spaces. I want to use these four spaces to create a 3D sculpture that the audience can watch around. In these four spaces, I create according to some images cut from magazines and some consumer goods collected in my life. I copy and print these images, collage them in a way of repeated images, and make them into the form of 3D paper sculpture. After the initial completion of the draft of the four spaces, I found that although the 3D paper sculpture form is very attractive, it can not highlight the depth of the four spaces, so I modified the draft, using the advertising language cut from the magazine to make a space extension line, and the revised collage has a more hierarchical sense of space. After that, I found that although I had the depth of space, the sculptures in the space still had some levitation and lack of reality. After thinking about it repeatedly, I decided to add shadows to them. I cut up the fluorescent tape and pasted them on the plat regularly according to the natural light and shadow. The effect is satisfactory.

After talking with Paul, he thinks that my works are interesting in form, but they can't express my emotions and themes accurately. This is also a problem that bothers me for a long time. How to express my themes from an appropriate angle. For this reason, I have been distressed for a long time. In the process of doing research, I watched a movie called "fight club", which is an anti consumerism movie. The protagonist suffered from schizophrenia because he could not stand the life in the consumption era, and used another personality to pursue spiritual freedom. There are a lot of dialogues in the film, such as quilt theory. After watching the film, I did a research on the film. During the research, Professor Adorno said a sentence to give me some directions for the development of the work. He said that growing up in objects will make you look like the object itself, and human beings will eventually be commercialized. This led me to the idea of making consumer portraits. In the era of symbol rule, consumerism is always guided to become a reproducible symbol. So I modified the development direction of my 3D collage and began to make portraits in the scene.

Consumer Portrait, 3D Callage, 2021

When I do portraits, I have been thinking about how to present the state of consumers and what kind of scene should I put the portrait sculpture in. After researching johnberg's way of seeing, I have some ideas. Johnberg pointed out that advertising is the vitality of capitalist culture. Advertising always tries its best to persuade and please consumers, promise them a bright future and make them fall into a dream of nothingness. So I decided to create a dream for the audience with some fantastic colors. In the process of making sculpture, I abstracted the payment QR code and bar code into patterns and added them to my works as elements.

In silent critical reflection, I show my teachers and group members the 3D collage of my portrait. I also got some feedback in this discussion.
1. We should consider the relationship between the work and the object when we show them. There should be some connection between them.
2. The scale of the work is small, so we can consider expanding the scale.
3. Some thoughts about one's identity should be added to the works.
4. Enlarge or duplicate the picture to attract the audience with the volume of the work
5. More research should be done when choosing the collage material (logo)
6. Consider the display form of the works, and perhaps consider using the iPad.
In this discussion, when discussing with online students, Jo showed my works with a small camera. It's amazing that when the small camera shuttled through my works to show the details, it had a very interesting feeling. Jo suggested that I could consider making a video to be displayed next to my work, which provided a new idea for the direction of my work, so I recorded the process with my mobile phone. The perspective of the film gives the audience a very novel feeling, and the recording process also provides a new idea for my freeze frame animation.

After the group discussion, I reflected on my works. These pictures look very real, but they are in a virtual state in real life. I put them in real life in the form of paper carvings, and then I photographed them with my camera. In this process, they have a shadow, which is the proof of their existence. Using photography to put the contrast between the real and the virtual into the space has a sense of disorder, which is in line with the feeling brought by consumerism. The dream of prosperity is not real, but consumers are really in such a dream space.

Selfie2, Digital Photography, 2021

In the process of making portraits, I also encountered a thorny problem, that is, the level of color and space are not very good, unable to let the audience into the emotion. After investigating Daniel Gordon, this problem has been improved. The artist also focuses on 3D sculpture. His control of color and the rhythm of the picture are excellent. His works combine digital painting with manual collage, and the visual effect is very attractive. I try to combine my sculpture with digital drawing. The plane effect of digital drawing contrasts with the three-dimensional feeling of sculpture. Make the picture interesting.

Picnic, Digital Photography/drawing, 2021