Video selfie: Hello! Its not me

These days social media has forced us to comfort to a certain image that we think we should be. For example, women are expected to be pretty and wear makeup to be socially(or virtually) popular.  Men check to see if their hair is in place before they post a photo on Facebook or Instagram.

My video selfie is about conforming to the online expectations— by using heavy face filters and exaggerated photo filters. By covering my (natural) face at the beginning, it shows how youths are unwilling to ‘reveal’ their true self online. And I am guilty of that.

Enjoy(click the link below)

Farz’s Video selfie

Social Broadcasting // Social Art

Annie Abrahams is a Dutch performance artist specialising in video installations and internet based performances. As seen in Angry Women, her works are usually collective interaction. In her research article Trapped to Revealshe thinks that ‘performances also reveal ordinary, vulnerable and messy aspects of human communication’. I feel that her work Angry Women really resonates with that statement, and I will explain this further.

In Angry Women Take 5, there were 8 women in the video broadcast. The video started with a woman talking in French, then another woman screamed, continued by mother, and then another. Their screaming voices were merged together and you can no longer know whose scream is whose. The video continues with subsequent talking, but it is chaotic and unscripted, thus the scene was just screaming and angry women who wanted to talk at the same time.

Since the whole performance is based on social broadcasting, it can be said that social broadcasting has made it possible for Art to advance and be pushed for a greater meaning and cause. Angry Women is a work that perfectly suggests the messy and vulnerable side of the human communication, as seen from the emotionally vulnerable screaming women.

Annie Abrahams has described social broadcasting a perfect medium for live performance as it can ‘study human behaviour without interfering in it’. I agree with this method of social broadcasting as the internet has now become a common and daily thing in our lives. Using it as a medium for study won’t make it as much of a difference as we are so used to the internet. We will carry on what we normally do, as the internet has become a familiar  medium to us, despite knowing that it is for a performance piece, for example.

In conclusion, social broadcasting has further pushed the opportunities for art and its meaning, allowing us to make great social art.

Hello I am desktop

I try my best to organise my files. I actually have a lot of unwanted and old files that I don’t delete(but I should). I procrastinate deleting stuff that everything just piles up.

The wallpaper is taken using a new 50mm lens I just bought during that point of time. Which I excitedly used it straight after receiving it from the deliveryman.

Exposed!

Our identity is what makes us uniquely different. In today’s day and age though, we might choose to replicate or imitate someone else, especially with the flexibility and freedom of social media. We might choose to be ‘someone else’ by filtering out what we post, control what we share or use an overly-flattering selfie. As mentioned by Wittkower, ‘[t]his is what is so valuable about Facebook: the indeterminate meaning of so much of what it is, and what it does.’ I agree with this statement as social media has created a barrier that allows doubt. No matter what we post or share, there are multiple ideas conveyed.

Hasan Elahi is a Bangladeshi-born American interdisciplinary media artist with an emphasis on technology and media and their social implications. He is an associate Art professor at University of Maryland. In Tracking Transience 2.0, Hasan Elahi has been recording everything he does in picture or word form ever since FBI agents told him to report his whereabouts.

An interesting (and funny) video of Hasan Elahi in TED talks: https://www.ted.com/talks/hasan_elahi

His work consists of pictures, some having a plain black background of just information of the places he’s been to, or some just empty pictures without words.

By doing this project, Hasan Elahi is subjecting himself to vulnerability. He exposes his daily routine, his location, his lifestyle. However, it is also ironic how the pictures tell nothing personal about him. There are no people or signs of himself, only plain objects or scenes of everyday life. The pictures seem like they can be easily taken off from google, they have a very surveillant-like quality. Like Hasan Elahi, billions of people are doing similar things as him everyday. Sharing certain content and filtering out only what is required. Linking this back to online identity, people portray themselves differently when they are on social media. Only certain material are shared, not everything.

I entirely agree with Hasan Elahi, how he states that even though he shares everything with us, simultaneously he does not share anything, as the photos are almost anonymous. I love the concept of his work! 🙂