On Monday we had our first group tutorial, and we each shared our thoughts on our manifesto and the works we want to create for the project. I want to use this post as my documentation of my ongoing ideas and help me to clear my thoughts and find the angles I want to research further and start to experiment (which I really should have started already…)
We suffered a bit in the beginning with the topic “Exposure” as it is quite broad and everyone had a different interpretation on it. However, I think this perfectly shows the significance of our topic, as you can see how different people’s understanding can be by the fact that we are a group of people coming from different background, and we have been exposed to different things throughout our lives until this stage. But by communicating and exchanging ideas, we have finally come up with something for all of us to work on. I started to clear my thoughts and find inspiration for my project by doing a little mind map. In the end I want to focus on four aspects for this project.
1./ FRAGILITY
Being exposed to different things could make us feel fragile, vulnerable. And from my own experience that I found it extremely uncomfortable to be exposed to people or things that I am not familiar with.
I want to recreate this scenario by creating a garment that makes people feel that fragility of exposing one self. And I started my research with Marina Abramovic’s famous work Rythm 0 and Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, which they both use body as the subject to express, and put themselves in passive roles. These two performance art also greatly shows the idea of voyeurism and the physical experience of exposure.
To express the fragility I also researched into the material to capture that feeling. Instead of using fabric, I was thinking something more delicate, and in my imagination, a extremely thin paper that is soft like fabric. In the end I accidentally found a video talking about the thinnest washi paper that is used for conserving paintings or ancient documents. And I have also done a paper shopping, and I cannot express my excitement when I saw and touched these paper in person. I will start to experiment with the material soon and hopefully I will be able to create something interesting with them.
2./ TRANSPARENCY
When talking about exposure, it is impossible to look at the word “transparency.” Transparency can stands for clarity, openness; but it can also be associated with surveillance. I started my research with architecture, when the bauhaus era transparency was glorified, and how the use of transparency started to shift through the modern history.
3./ LAYERS
Layering is also one thing I will be experimenting for this project. As we are constantly exposing to countless stimulation at one time, I see layering a important visualisation of my topic. The layers also can help to show how the different exposure we have encountered in our lives has shaped the person we are today. The news we saw on the newspaper, the story we found on the internet, the person we met on the street and the knowledge we have been taught in schools overlapping each other and forming our thinking and influencing us in a direct and indirect way. I want to use different pattern or colors on each layer which it will create a new form or visual graphic when they overlap with each other in the end. And I’ve been investigating on which subject I want to express.
I was always very fascinated by the way we store intricate information and delicate images with just binary numbers. By translating the things we encounter on a day: a picture we shot on our way home, the message we send on our phones, or the article we read into binary format, I can stitch them onto the material and turn them into a unique graphic after layering. Language and text are also one possibility representation I can play with as they are an important media of exposure. And by planning a paragraph of words by layering floating characters on different layers, it can create the sense of miscommunication and lost in translation under the context of human interaction.
However, I have always interested more in the abstract form. And when it comes to transparency and layering it reminds me of one of my favourite artist Rothko. By layering the colours, the artist created this mysterious and spiritual work for people to look and reflect. The depth he created with the layering of colours and paint pulls people into his painting.
When we think about exposure, we often think about the physical form or happening. What about the emotion reaction we had when we are exposed to this world? I always think emotion is a sign of humanity, and everyone have their unique reaction and feeling of emotion. Abstract form is one of the best way to capture and evoke emotions, and this might be the direction I want to head in with my individual works.
3./ SILHOUETTE
Even I personally sometimes hold back to expose myself to new things, I often found that some of the best experience from life are the decisions I made to walk out of my comfort zone. I have to experience that state of vulnerability of exposing myself to new things/environment/community at the first place in order to reflect on that experience now and realize that how that firstly thought negative experience turned out to be a positive part of my life. And I believe by exposing one self to different information, perspectives, experience…etc, is a way to empower. Thus, I want to express that empowerment by the silhouette of the garment. And by playing with the contrast of the fragility of the material with the empowering volume of the silhouette, the viewer/wearer will be able to see the different aspects of the topic exposure.
CHRISTINA TAI 