09 January — Day 4

Today we had the first mentoring with the presence of both professors. We had to prepare all the related sketches that we had so far also sharing how we advanced from yesterday. As the previous exercise took me a bit out of scope my focus was to get back on track.

To be able to find the borders of my design playground for the upcoming months, I got back to my original sketch of my concept. Which looks like this:

So, what my original question was is why do we so persistent about changing the way we look? I rarely meet a person who can receive a compliment with a simple ‘thank you’ by meaning it seriously. And everyone could tell quite a few things that could be changed on their body. On the surface it has a lot to do with low self-esteem, frustration, insecureness, distorted self-image etc. To find the real root a possible explanation that I can stand by grounded in evolution. The reason why people change they bodies is to play by rules of communities they want to belong to. To be accepted by a certain group of people means to not only part of, but to get protection in case of danger. If the group is limited down to just one person from the opposite sex, the goal with the modification is to attract the other for the purpose of reproduction.

How I translated it into a visual form is that we have The Self, the physical body we were born in. When we encounter communities in the daily life, our Alternative Self/Selves manifest on our body. For example, if one works for a bank, she will put elegant, classic skirt, shirt and blazer combo on and does a modest makeup. The Ideal Self is the way we picture ourselves and is influenced by a range of visual references that we see day by day.

This matrix offers various possibilities to investigate deeper and indeed it is too broad to cover all aspects in one project.

I posed what if…? questions that possibly could narrow down the focus of my research:

• What if we eliminate the instinctual drive from the self, freeing it from the urge to adopt to community standards?
• What if the only cohesive power of communities was a ‘manifesto’ of how its members should look like?
• What if all the modification that appears on the virtual self gets leaves a mark on The Self?
• What if all the people were born with the same Self, with identical physical bodies and our goal of life would be to express our Ideal Selves?

I presented my thought process to the mentors and it helped to create a common ground. I was happy talking to both of them as I got some tips regarding related projects, also their inputs helped me to decide on the direction. They both thought that empowering people to express themselves has the potential to be playful, experimental with methods and has a positive aspect. I could relate to such a direction however I want to keep a slightly critical/speculative tone to my project.