FINE ART PRINTMAKING
CRITICAL REFLECTION
In this unit, I extend some thoughts on the "disease" of modernity through the study of consumerism visual culture in contemporary society and Chinese culture. In the last unit, I experimented with 3D collage, comprehensive material collage, and infinite flip cards. After the discussion of the new unit, I finally chose to use the infinite flip card to continue to develop and deepen my work.
In this unit, I further deepen the theme and explore the profound imbalance between individuals and society behind modernity by studying the alienation of people and things in a consumerist society. In this unit, I take advertising as the starting point of consumerism visual culture and deeply discuss three questions. The first is whether the virtualization characteristics of all media represented by advertising erase the human perception of the real world? And second, the "multi-media era" will have an impact on social culture and the human spirit. Third, are we trapped in the rules created by modern consumer culture, and what impact does this rule have on us? Through these three questions to reflect on the unreasonable points of modernity, so as to make the audience alert and face up to the potential crisis of modernity.
Reflection Process
At the end of the second unit, I got some feedback through the tutorial with my tutor.
1. Although the form of the 3D collage is good, the criticism and intention expression of the work is not enough, and the viewer can not get the information intuitively.
2. The work has no connection with its own cultural environment.
3. I didn't fully consider my final product and display effect.
4. The work did not find a strong entry point to deepen the theme.
In terms of work direction, the teacher suggested that I could explore the waste of resources caused by consumerism.
According to the teacher's suggestion, I tried to make a new set of 3D collage. I named it "excessive".
In my works, I added some symbols with cultural symbolic significance, such as small advertisements, cakes, and so on.
I take small advertising as the background because small advertising is the epitome of the current situation of social consumption in China. The content of the small advertisement covers almost all the processes from recruitment to consumption. It reflects that in China's rapidly developing economy, capital needs a large number of labor to create production value. In this process, they obtain wealth through labor, but this wealth will soon be consumed in various forms, and the money will return to the hands of capital again. And people are advocated to create a better new life through consumption. The heavy burden of consumption makes people have to work harder. So far, human beings have fallen into a vicious circle from work to consumption. In this process, people are always controlled by capital. Under this control, people's spirit is materialized. Unconsciously, people in the consumer society suffer from the mental illness of "commodity fetishism" (Fan Xiao Nan, 2019)
The struggle for freedom, 29.7cm x 402.0cm, 2021
In the works, you can see a pair of hands growing in the wall of the small advertisement. They try to eat the cake in a savage and snatching attitude. Hands represent consumers, who grow from a wall full of small advertisements. This metaphors the current situation of China's consumption. With the development of Chinese society, advertising is considered to provide "freedom" of choice (John Berger, 2015). Although it seems that people have many choices, in fact, the sovereignty of consumption no longer belongs to consumers. People are materialized by a series of consumer needs and ignore the needs of the true self. As the movie "fight club" said, people are no longer themselves, but represented by a variety of materials, and people and things are one/ Cake is a symbol of material consumption. With the tide of China's consumption and industrial upgrading, people began to pursue a quality and fashionable life, and a new consumption culture came into being. Enterprises use advertising and marketing to create topics to drive consumption, but this trend gradually deviates. Enterprises create beautiful Fantasies for consumers and create a tense atmosphere of purchase. Gradually, people begin to spend a lot of time, energy and money for some insignificant consumer needs/
Therefore, in the works, the cake is always in a state of suspension and weightlessness. Chinese society is at the peak of the development of consumerism, but at the same time, people's spiritual needs do not match it. This leads people to be easily persuaded by means of consumerism and fall into fantasy dreams. The red rough painted nails represent the desire of consumers and the barbaric consumption state without thinking.
In terms of production, I always try small paper sculptures, because small paper sculptures are small in size and easy to master details during production, while A4 size paper is also easy to shape. However, the disadvantage of small sculpture is that the size is too small to attract and deter the audience. I hope my statue can attract the attention of the audience in an instant. After seeing Oldenburg, the form and size of his works attracted my attention. He used canvas to sew some consumer goods in consumerist society, and filled many froth and ice cream boxes inside to simulate the filling of cakes. The size of each sculpture is huge, occupying people's visual space and physical space, which makes the relationship between sculpture and people form a contrast. The size of consumer goods can not be ignored, just like consumerism. So I began to try large-scale paper sculpture. Compared with small-scale paper sculpture, there are many more restrictions on technology. The quality and color of ink printing are not as good as laser printing, so I chose laser printing, but there are new problems in the selection of paper. Most laser printing paper is relatively hard, which makes the shaping of sculpture not as easy as small sculpture. In the selection of sculpture materials, I chose the printed finished products collected in daily life and the fillers in express boxes. The filling in the express box and the daily waste of paper exacerbate the waste of natural resources, the ecological environment has been damaged, and the natural crisis is intensifying. That's why I chose them as materials.
In addition, I also try to print the work on the sticker so that it has the attribute of small advertisement and can be pasted.
Next, I continued to take small advertisements as the starting point and cooperated with Yiran Gao and Shuyang Ren on the work "waiting for the tape to run". In this work, we use windows as a connecting medium to project images through hollowed out shapes on different sides. My side shows consumerism, while Yiran decorates the other side with flowers and plants. Express her thoughts on the relationship between nature. Two distinct themes are intertwined through the window, which also reflects the contradiction between society and nature.
When making images, I decompose and reorganize different types of small advertisements to form a more dense amount of information. Visually, it also forms a dense contrast with Yiran's works. Projection is chosen because its properties represent illusory and ethereal. Just like all information will eventually turn into nothingness like a mirage.
Waiting for the tape to run, 2021
Waiting for the tape to run, 2021
After the cooperation project ended, I fell into a long time of confusion. How can I continue to develop my work, and in what form? During this period, I have been conducting research. After reading John Berger's <ways of seeing>, I have some inspiration. John Berger (2019) pointed out that the authenticity of advertising does not depend on whether it can be realized but on the fantasy between the fantasy promoted by advertising and the viewer. The main role of advertising is not to act on reality but on fantasy. So I want to make a comparison between fantasy and reality, so as to alert people to reflect on whether we are affected by consumerism images through strong image comparison, so as to face the potential crisis of modernity.
After the group discussion, the teacher and students think that I could continue to develop the form of an infinite flip card, and I also felt that the attributes of the infinite flip card were very suitable for my concept, so I decided to use the infinite flip card to continue to deepen my concept.
Mobius' circle, 30cmx30cm , 2021
I conducted a survey on what to do on an unlimited flip card. Finally, I chose to use Alipay (an app similar to PayPal). Alipay will draw up a keyword of consumption for each person according to the consumption situation of each person each year. I collected some keywords and used them as the theme to create. My idea is to compare the fantasy side of the keyword with the truth. For example, the keyword is beauty. On the first hand, I will do about the beauty in advertising fantasy, and on the second hand, I will create according to some crises brought by beauty to us.
Mobius' circle, 30cmx30cm , 2021
In the first collage, I used the keyword beauty. When making the image, I used surrealistic creative techniques and added a lot of metaphors to the image. First of all, I put all the elements into the picture of laser paper and tin paper. The laser paper will present gorgeous colors through the reflection of light, which will match the future presented by tin paper., Make the image seem to be in an illusory world. As a true portrayal of people, the mirror adds many illusions of nothingness, false sky, and bright red lips, showing a state of desire and desire. The red lips are slightly open as if to say something as if tempting the viewer to explore the beauty. The mirror presents a digital unreal, implying the arrival of the big data era. The woman's hand on the left of the picture is wearing luxurious fur. The movement of her hand seems to invite the viewer to explore in the mirror, just like an advertisement using images to stimulate people's pursuit of pleasure. The mirror was originally used as a symbol of realism, but in the picture, it seduces the viewer with a deceptive attitude. The mask in the lower right corner is a metaphor for the rhetoric of consumerism. Consumerism always hides all evil purposes under the perfect mask. It requires us to examine ourselves under harsh conditions. And try to arouse our dissatisfaction with our current situation, so as to induce us to solve the problem through purchase. The flowers on both sides of the mirror are a metaphor for me as a female consumer. In the fantasy world, female consumers are always presented in a state of blooming flowers and infinite vitality. They exude charm all the time, which arouses individual jealousy (John Berger, 2019). Black and white squares are like transparent layers in PS, implying the falseness of the world.
Mobius' circle, 30cmx30cm , 2021
The second picture is about the negative theme of beauty. I named his gaze. My inspiration comes from the film. The film named <helter-skelter>. It is a film about women's facial anxiety under the extravagant consumerism culture. The female owner chooses cosmetic surgery in order to become a famous supermodel and get the appreciation and expectation of the public. But because of the use of the dead's skin, cosmetic surgery led to serious skin problems, and finally disfigured and fell to the altar. There is no doubt that the heroine is the victim of consumer rule. With the development of society, people pay more and more attention to themselves. Consumerism obviously will not miss this good opportunity to promote products. It uses all media to convey a harsh aesthetic appearance for society. Women first become the victims of this rule. They are constantly required to conform to the mainstream aesthetics of the society and are examined by men in a weak attitude. So in the picture, you can see many withered flowers, and the center of the flower is the male eyes I cut from the magazine. Withered flowers imply the oppression of this gaze, suffocating women. The withering of flowers is closely related to such gaze. The rose with blood and tears in the lower-left corner is a metaphor for women's painful and helpless struggle under such social rules. The computer window in the upper right corner also indicates that such a world is a mistake.
In the third picture, I take food as my creative theme. In the picture, I put a Chanel fish in the center, with candles and PS processed peach fruit plates on both sides. I present a dinner in a romantic form. The fish in the center of the picture is not a real fish, but a fake fish modeled in 3D, and no one finds this truth in the fantasy world. Because in the world of consumerism, the edible attribute of food is not a priority. The symbolic value of famous brands far exceeds the edible value of fish itself. Consumers don't care whether they can eat fish or not. They care about building their identity through purchase (Fanxiao Nan, 2019)
The fourth picture is created with the theme of waste. In the 2020 anti waste investigation report, it is pointed out that the current waste and loss of grain in China are mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the waste in storage, transportation and production. The second is the waste of consumption. The annual wave of food in the city is about 34-36 billion kg. Unscientific consumption psychology and methods are the main reasons for the waste of catering (Xiaohui Liang, 2020). In the picture, I take the deteriorated meat and fruit as the main body, satirize and remind people to pay attention to the unreasonable aspects of modernity with moldy food.