Curated Content: Nowell
It’s not social media, it’s us. Social media amplifies human nature, and as humans interact with it, we change it as much as it changes us.
Shaun Higton’s ‘What’s on your mind’
The first frame shows a well sculpted man showing off his beach destination, foreshadowing the desire of the main character. The scene transition matches the cut on action ; the Facebook picture of someone else’s 5 star dinner is contrasted against his own microwaved dinner. Everything the main character sees on Facebook, he compares to his real life. Montage editing is used to put a series of shots together thematically. Keeping track of space and where people are located in the room can be seen in the office scene, when the camera pans to the other side of the room.
The short film uses Facebook statuses to ‘speak’. There are no spoken words, symbolic of the main character living in Facebook and not being present in real life. When he is on Facebook, the only light is that of the computer screen’s, amplifying his loneliness. The ending is when his Facebook friend decides to hide all of his posts, and acts as a metonymic code. I make the assumption that Facebook refuses to accept negative parts of one’s life, because it is a place where one parades one’s happy moments, and engages in comparisons on who’s life looks the happiest.
(200 words)
11.11.11's Workers Are Not Tools
This photo demonstrates depth through lighting, where the backlight separates the foreground from the background, bringing the toolbox into greater focus.
This photo allows me to utilise constructivism ,my eyes first fall on the open toolbox and upon realising that there are people and not tools inside, I construct the meaning of the image. The human workers in the toolbox are an indexical sign, and I immediately link them to how society often perceives them as tools. We use them and undervalue them when we credit ourselves for the good job done.
Metaphor is at play here as well. Just like how tools are non living things, we can infer that society treats these workers inhumanely, which renders them helpless and trapped.
One of our creation ideas is how the Instagram template of putting our pictures in a series of boxes limits us. Instead of thinking (and living) outside the box, we are being trapped inside a box, expecting these boxes to tell the complete story of our life. These boxes suffocate us, often throwing an individual into the limelight, for public scrutiny. People who idolise ‘perfect’ Instagrammers are tricked by how this box frames lives untruthfully, presenting a warped reality to them.
(203 words)
Webiste of organisation (it’s a Dutch organisation) : http://www.11.be/
