1. A detailed description of your Artist Statement.

The topic of my work is about body shame. I want to explore how our aesthetics of the body shape was changed and shaped by the social media, and how people are unconsciously affected by such a trend. This is an interactive piece of work, I want my audience to have a think about what kind of body shape they want, and also to explore whether this is what they really want, or they want it because everybody else likes it.

My work is divided into two parts. The first part was about me imitating the way these ladies dressed up and their pose and body figure. There are five of them and they were followed in a chronological manner, there is naked woman from renaissance time, super models in Milan fashion week, and also a lady in a gentleman’s suits etc. The common point of these women is that there were all stripes on their eyes, they all have the perfect body shape in their time but they are actually blind in some way, as they are defined by the trend, by others and by their clothes. I am sure that a lot of you may heard of something like this

“You are a girl, you should wear something that can show your figure”

“You cannot wear skirt because you are a boy, no boys do that”

“You need to wear more dresses otherwise people will think you are a boy”

“You cannot wear these bright colours these are too sissy and guy”

What I want to express here is that clothes don’t have a gender or some magic to change your gender and sexual orientation, these are just fabrics. So as the social media. It doesn’t have thoughts by itself, it’s just a way of transferring information. Living in such an environment and following such a trend makes me confused and questioning myself, I’m asking myself, who am I? Is this who I want to be?

The second part was also me, but I was putting all the clothes on this time. These are my friends’ clothes, some of them fit me well some don’t. The idea is that no matter what I was wearing, I am still who I am. Clothes can cover or show my body shape, but it doesn’t change my personality.

Aesthetically, I used the idea from Bryan, which is RGB separation. It made the video more colourful, and there are also different flashlights, multiple layers and very vibrant colours which is to create a sense of madness and craziness.

The idea of duration was also used, the five ladies at the beginning showed up twice but were in different speeds, the second looping is much faster therefore to emphasize what is showing. Also in the last part, I covered my whole body with my sheet and then took it off, to show what I’m comfortable with, but it only showed up for one second, because I want my audience to remember this. This is because I went to an exhibition in Beijing, and the information of the artists were showed on a screen, but it was blinking very fast, then it made me remember him till now because it was too fast and I tried to pay more attention to it to catch the info that I want to know. I found this really effective so I just used this trick at the end.

Lastly, I want to say that people think it’s cool to be “perfect”, but I think what is really cool is that to accept who you are.

2. The energy dynamics of your work and why do you think so?

Speaking of the causality, I used the repetition at the beginning, which implies my audience that something is going to happen with these five ladies. I also used the electrical, sci-fictional sound to indicate the idea of being changed by technology such as social media. I think my work has a very high intensity, it was very strong and chaotic in terms of colours and the speed, and also has a huge amount of info for my audience to digest.

3. The Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How of your work.

Who: All my classmates.

What: I want my audience to feel a little bit uncomfortable and shocked by this one, and makes them to have a think about this topic after watching it.

Where: In the classroom.

Why: It’s totally safe.

When: During the video playing.

How: It depends.

4. What is the category of interactivity used in your work? Why?

For the last part, I just to show a little glimpse of that, which I found it would catch more attention compared to leave it for long, because people would want to figure out what it is as it disappears so fast, it makes them curious and attract them.