Bartosz Koswoski

I found this artist who produces a range of illustrations that represent the social pressures that social media and media in general has on body image and your mental state. The illustrations include such feelings such as negative influences on weight and diet, and paranoia in relationships that the media causes.




Body Image Control

When thinking about more metaphorical ways of representing the media controlling our aspect of self, I thought of the idea of puppets. The stringed puppets metaphorically could represent that we're strung up to be controlled to think a certain way. I think this would be a nice idea to work with when producing an idea for the project.






Fashion Animations

Episode 16 “The Camellia” - Inside Ch*nel from Cyrille Smaha on Vimeo.

7 Deadly Sins

A piece I found on the internet about the 7 Deadly Sins
Culturally there used to be the belief that there are 7 Deadly Sins, things that could consume you into being a bad person. I think that this sort of theme also links into what I've been looking at regarding people constantly wanting to change their outlook of themselves. The 7 Deadly sins include:

  • Gluttony
  • Vanity 
  • Envy
  • Sloth
  • Wrath 
  • Greed
  • Lust
In particular I feel that the sins that most apply to the themes I've been looking at is the aspects of Greed, Vanity, Envy and Gluttony. The greed of wanting something we don't have and constantly wanting new products, the vanity of constantly trying to look the best we can and impress others, the envy of wanting a body image that we don't have and the gluttony of trying to change our diet to look a certain way. 



LABEL

In September I was approached by an organisation founded by a fellow workmate from college asking me to produce some work as part of their exhibitions for Body Confidence, and as an organisation they strive to not make beauty an exclusive trait to certain people but to embrace the beauty in everyone.

Eric Shaw







Daniel Sparkes

Daniel Sparkes is an English artist that I came across in a gallery in Berlin, his work consists of dehumanising and defacing certain portraits with collage aspects. I like the way his work could potentially relate to the theme of distorted body image as he is deliberately taking away an identity, and could link to what the media makes you think of yourself and a certain way of looking.




Allyson Melberg Taylor

When in Berlin in a gallery, I came across the illustrator Allyson Melberg Taylor who does a lot of portrait work but with slight distortions.




Berlin Trip

Graffiti & Street Art Tour
Berlin was a very creative city, and on the first day we had a street art and graffiti tour which gave us a breakdown of certain styles and pieces. I found it interesting that an ownership of the city had been built up throughout the city, and that certain artists respected each others work by not painting over it etc. There was a energetic vibe to some of the pieces that were produced, linking to the aspect of the freedom once the Berlin Wall was brought down.

Body Image & Materialism

Through developing ideas of themes I came across the idea of further researching how media portrays in particular the female body image, and how we are constantly told we need certain products in order to be happy. I was inspired by the fact that our complete outlook of ourselves could in fact of been brainwashed into us from an early age with the surrounding media.
Our aspect of what we find attractive and what we think looks good all depends on our upbringing and culture and I've found that quite an interesting topic.
I've been looking at a range of magazines such as Glamour, Elle etc. to look at the sort of language and imagery used in order to convince a certain audience to alter their image and to become something or someone different.
I've looked a a few supporting articles as well as existing adverts/campaigns/animations that link to my theme of body image and materialism, and the distortion of self image throughout.

The Changes in Body Image in History
As research I have been looking at a range of articles to compare the historical aspects of advertising the beauty and how this has changed over the years. In particular it has been with women where there was a certain size that had to be maintained in order to seem fashionable. I find it interesting how this has changed over the course of the centuries of fashion and how women have constantly felt like they had to change themselves in order to be accepted.
In earlier years there was the corset in order for a smaller waist to be maintained, whilst nowadays it seems like the larger ladies are recently in favour for being curvier. In the 1950's it was fashionable to gain weight rather than lose it whereas coming up in the 1990's was the aspect of becoming skinnier and losing weight.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/women-ideal-body-types-history-buzzfeed_n_6566254.html 







(Images taken from internet sources and articles and blogs on history of body image)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jun/10/body-image-anxiety-eva-wiseman - Article on Body Image Anxiety

Dove Campaign
Although a huge beauty company, Dove began a campaign about body confidence in 2008, addressing the fact that the large production of products and advertising is having an impact on the younger generations. I like the overwhelming factor that this video gives and the fact that we are surrounded by media telling us what to do.

DOVE "Onslaught" from SUPERGROUP SONIC BRANDING CO on Vimeo.

 Body Dysmorphia Disorder http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/femail/video-1190317/See-Body-Dysmorphic-Disorder-sufferers-experience.html


Effects Media has on Body Image

Anorexia & Body Dysmorphia
Since the aspects of beauty advertising began there was always

Colleen Clark I find this artist when on Tumblr, she's a young degree student who draws up modern comics about the impacts that media has on body image generally.





Articles I've looked at-
I've begun to look at some articles that will involve the theme of body image and the effects that it has on the human mind, and I found it interesting that they have discussed the idea that sad people are actually the biggest buyers. Without us being sad about how we look we wouldn't buy anything new.
(The article is found at https://mic.com/articles/111228/how-western-beauty-ideals-are-hurting-women-across-the-globe#.f4PHZuuC1)
It's also interesting that the aspect of Western culture effects people globally, with aspects such as hair relaxing to get rid of the natural curls some women have, as well as the aspect of skin whitening.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29569473



As an exploration of the materialism side to things, I have found this hyperreality motion graphics piece particularly interesting as it explores the aspect of materialism in the modern world, and it shows how overwhelming it could soon become. I like the aspect of all the pieces being so overwhelming and in your face all the time. There's also the aspect of changing their identity which to me is important, as I feel that identity itself is an underlying theme within my work.

HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.
HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Infinity Glasses Research

Google Glass When looking at futuristic glasses that are advertised currently, I found the advertisements for Google Glass.


New Project

We've been given a new project to continue till March on something that we feel will challenge our skills further as well as being something that would belong in the industry and not just something that had been done over and over again. I'd like to try something new for this project, so here's a few things I've looked at so far.

Paper World- By Mome Animation
I love the idea of making a world within a world, and I think this is a beautiful example of this, using 3D elements to replicate this aspect of origami within a world is really inspiring to me and I find it really aesthetically pleasing. Made for the WWF, the piece is a beautiful metaphorical way of describing the impacts that manmade objects have on the wildlife. I love the way it all connects and there is an attention to detail that I really like within it.

WWF Hungary - Paper World from Paper World on Vimeo.


Merit- By Nick Forshee
Personally I feel like my roots throughout the course have always been with the aspect of 2D and more illustrative aesthetics, and this is a simpler but effective way of animating that I may want to try as I've not really done it before.

Merit Animation from Jim Leszczynski on Vimeo.


UNSATISFYING from PARALLEL STUDIO on Vimeo.

Sehsucht

After having looked at the aspect of paper craft in animation, I stumbled across this making of and animation by Sehsucht, and really liked the aesthetic.
Deutsche Fernsehlotterie "Paper World" from Sehsucht on Vimeo.
Deutsche Fernsehlotterie "Paper World" (Making-Of) from Sehsucht on Vimeo.

Project Reflection

During the production of this project I've learnt that time is very precious in terms of a project such as this. I am happy with the outcome that I have produced and the new techniques I have tried, however I know with more time it would've been a piece that I am proud of.
I intend to work on the piece along the year as well as the other projects in place, and here are points I'd like to improve on.

  • Speed - The overall speed of the piece is too quick, when shown to people they're not able to notice certain elements due to the speed, and the editing on the soundscape has been effected as this needed to be a slower pace too. I'm going to make a slower version and alter the soundscape accordingly and I feel that this will produce a better and more effective outcome overall.
  • Aesthetic- Personally I am happy with the overall aesthetic, however there are some gaps and edges that are showing that initially I didn't like at all. I'd like to polish off some of the images and ensure that they don't have squared off edges.
  • Sounds- Due to the speed, I feel that the sound couldn't be as effective as I would ideally like to have achieved. However, once I have rendered out a slower version, I will be able to edit the sound in order for it to be effective.
  • Depth of Field- The depth of field I added to the images to look more realistic in terms of closer objects being more blurred, I feel is very effective, however, I also noticed once the final composition had rendered, that the front cover of the piece (book) had also blurred, so needed to be altered so that it was back in focus.
Although there is faults with this piece, I like the overall effect of the memories being built up, and my choice to add a little bit of music turned out pretty well in my opinion, just the soundscape that needed altering.