W8 PROJECT #4: Research + Replanning (2/4)

REPLANNING

Hello again. I've switched up the plan for Book #1. There was less of a particular reason for doing so, and more because I felt like I needed something stronger to work with thematically. I settled on the idea of commodification and turning yourself into an advertisement. It is in conversation with the question "Does how we are perceived/look represent us?" as our appearances become a form of advertisement. This is because we present ourselves in a way that allows for others to want to know more about us, or understand who we are. It's a first impression.

To portray this I plan on editing myself into multiple different profiles/advertisements (ie. dating app profiles, career related ones such as indeed, etc) and adding written commentary to different aspects of it. It's paralleling the idea of appearance and advertisements. I've seen this topic explored before, but those works tend to dive into the more "sexual" expectations and I plan on exploring the commodification/capitalism aspects of it. I'll try to find an example of a work that delves into the sexuality I was referencing. My conversation will revolve around how the ways we see each other are in response to short-form content and an over-reliance on shallowness.

Because long form content is becoming less and less consumed, most knowledge or understanding must be reached in short form. This creeps into our social lives as well, as we've adapted to make quick assumptions about people as not a lot of information can be communicated in a short amount of time

RESEARCH

I have a pretty clear idea of my plan now. So far I've collected dating app screenshots from my friends, and I will grab some of my own for other advertisements.

This was one of the screenshots from my friend that made me laugh. I won't include the others for privacy reasons of course.

From there I will be downloading any of the screenshots, matching the typography and then adding my own photos in where the others used to be.

In the library I had great luck looking through the oversized section!

I found a bird book. Very important. The title was indiscernible on the spine, but the number was QL 674, if anyone needs to look it up. I was inspired by the white backgrounds on the "photos" as it made them more apart of the page. I plan on replicating this. 

This was a page layout from Horst: Patterns From Nature. This doesn't fully play into what I'm planning, but it is interesting. I mostly grabbed it for my mom who does abstract nature photography!

I was too scared to crack the spine of this one, but this book was from an untitled group photography book! It had birds on the cover. I enjoyed how the photos were set on the page--there was a nice fluidity to the placement, and I may replicate it for my second book. 

I found a book of photography books. It was titled The Book of 101 Books. Which was exactly what it says in the title. The book within a book I enjoyed was Peter Hill Beard: The End of The Game. I liked the layout of this one the most even from the quick references. It has multiple photos in almost a collage format which is close to what I'm going for. It doesn't stray too far from the original format either, and still looks quite visually pleasing.

 

Art history is almost over and I want to grab a snack and go to bed, so I'll leave it here for now.