P009 →Beauty Error
Intro:
So much of contemporary photography is obsessed with perfection. With the invention and wide dissemination of the digital camera, ideas around surprise, error, and glitches have almost been totally eradicated. This is largely due to the popularization of the medium and the ideology of how a “perfect” image should look. Social media platforms proliferate this obsession with image as a conduit for perfectionism.
Final presentation and reflection:
With Stephen Gill's random shots of birds, I began to reorganize negatives of my childhood photographs that had been cropped and adjusted for blur, defocus, and exposure. This revisited and altered detail brought the photos to life. I realized that by looking back at failed works, hidden potentials and possibilities can be discovered on the way of "waste utilization" so as to achieve breakthrough results in the next creation. Through the literature on visual perception and art, I found that the human eye has the ability to perceive depth, and the perspective and three-dimensional sense of the works strongly enrich the visual hierarchy. So I chose transparent PVC-textured paper and combined and superimposed the two images. In this way, the finished product allows the audience to see the people trapped in the screen through the pictures of the aquarium, thus strengthening my theme and using visual guidance to create a stronger impression and impact on the audience.
THEME:
In my aesthetic observations that extend from the perfection of photography to real life, I realize that many people in society are bound by aesthetic standards and unknowingly plagued by social media-induced anxiety about looks and bodies. What I want to express is that many people choose to "internalize external aesthetic standards to self-censor" instead of "breaking the shackles of mainstream aesthetics and embracing themselves.". combined with imperfect photography techniques. The challenge is the "pun" expression of the theme while combining the ideas I want to convey with the ideas explored by the technical techniques of photography.
Nowadays, those who cater to the public's aesthetics often get more attention and love, so people show another self by creating a perfect image on social media, but they also lose their unique personality and style. The people pictured wear layered glasses that reflect their attempts to assume the gaze of others and use Photoshop to alter themselves. They are swayed by public aesthetics and want to be like others. They huddle behind a screen, forgetting their true selves, like fish trapped in an aquarium, while viewers pay to come in and admire them, bringing in profits for the aquarium without them knowing it.
Technical practice process:
This way of breaking traditional cognition and looking at problems subversively allowed me to explore more in design forms and materials, which not only deepened the fun.This leads me to the core of my project technique, this time without technique. The lack of skill is reflected in three aspects: First, find failed shooting opportunities with the pure desire to record. Second, take the least technical approach to shooting. The fixed camera and position randomly capture the position, light, and movement of the characters. Third, shoot the screen of the electronic device to reproduce the real scene of the photo in the eyes. This is also influenced by Taisuke Koyama's Rainbow Series; he made me think that photography can also use different angles and materials, random light, and different media and iteratively shoot through experiments in physics, chemistry, and science. Electronic screens and LCD screens are composed of polarizers, glass substrates, and color filters. The visual effects produced by the superposition of water, glass, and light sources are exactly what I want.
These beautiful mistakes made me realize that many works that seem to fail are considered beautiful because they break the boundaries and conventions of habit and show unique aesthetic value. Failures do not mean works are worthless; rather, they stimulate artistic thought and discussion, and works that are formed involuntarily or at random convey ideas that can be connected. While appreciating the failed works, the audience can witness and resonate with the creator's brave and innovative spirit. The beauty of failure, then, is the reflection, debate, and ongoing exploration of artistic creativity that it provokes in production but also breaks the limitations of traditional graphic design.This way of breaking traditional cognition and looking at problems subversively allowed me to explore more in design forms and materials, which not only deepened the fun of production but also broke the limitations of traditional graphic design.