CreationProject

For the creation project, I decided to create an artwork that can be considered “digital art” in Christiane Paul’s definition. Paul emphasizes that digital art is not only about using digital tools but also about exploring how technology shapes culture and perception -- “by making use of its medium’s key features, such as its real-time, interactive, participatory, generative and variable characteristics, or by reflecting upon the nature and impact of digital technologies”. For this project, I decided to create a (looped) video / animation / GIF and focus on reflecting upon the nature and impact of digital technologies, specifically social media.

With reference to some class readings and lectures, an artist and artwork that inspired this piece was Amalia Ulman’s “Excellences & Perfections” in 2014. I thought Ulman’s six month project was very interesting, posting various photographs on her Instagram account, engineered to provide heavy insight into her supposed life, where her photographs depicted cliches of aspirational living and documentation of someone striving for a perfect life. Her project challenged the widely held belief that people using social media do so sincerely and in order to represent their actual lives. Unfortunately, social media is a tool that allows us to manipulate every image and every message, making us skeptical and question the authenticity, representation, and reality of others displayed on these platforms.

My piece attempts to critique social media, specifically the culture of doomscrolling and attempts to reflect the “augmented reality” we have created and cultivated for ourselves on the Internet and these social platforms. The piece begins by displaying the current, and very familiar, version of Instagram’s interface, presenting their traditional home / mobile landing page. It starts with the first post or image slowly growing larger over time and eventually taking over and filling the entire screen. This feature attempts to demonstrate users getting too immersed in the app or media they are consuming, as though they are getting drawn to and “sucked” into this virtual and fabricated reality. Once the post fills the entire screen, it will eventually glitch, occasionally and temporarily switching to a second image. These glitches initially attempt to throw the viewer off guard, occurring unexpectedly. The glitch acts as a reminder to the audience that the image they are looking at is digital and not necessarily real or an accurate depiction of reality. The second image that occasionally glitches in is a reminder of reality, displaying what truly happens behind the scenes and further emphasizing the “perfection” we curate and post online. It reflects the reality hidden behind the “perfect picture,” acting as a reminder that these images are simply illusions of this “perfect world” others curate online. After, a hand will appear and scroll to the next post. It was an intentional design choice to make my artwork a looping video / GIF – forever looping and truly depicting and reflecting the nature of doomscrolling. The final detail I wanted to mention was the subtle glow of the phone and the colour of the background. The background is intentionally a very dark shade, an attempt to further reflect the culture of doomscrolling, often occurring in bed at night. Overall, inspired by Amalia Ulman’s “Excellences & Perfections” in 2014, this project is intended to reflect social, online, and doomscrolling culture, while exploring the theme of perception and online identity versus reality, reflecting this “augmented reality” we create for ourselves online.