Summative Evaluation and Presentation Boards

This research driven project has allowed me to explore the effects that use of social networking sites have on our ability to develop interpersonal relationships. This has also led to me explored networked publics as spaces in their own right, the idea of self and self disclosure, as well as the psychological effects that over use of social networking sites has on us and the ability for us to form deep meaningful bonds with other people.

The practical research and work that has come of this research project has helped me understand more about the work that I resonate with most, and how I want to develop my practice in future projects. I feel that it is integral to image making to create illustrations that contain a level of authenticity and honesty, creating a creative community where talk of emotional states and personal feelings is not taboo, as well as encouraging others to be more honest with themselves and those around them.

I feel that this module has help me develop my research skills above all else, I have discovered how research can really inform my practice when I follow my own initiative and explore subjects that genuinely interest me, even if this means the work or research reflects a level of self-disclosure from myself.  I believe that this mindset of working will be something that continues to accompany me throughout my remaining months at university and hopefully will continue to inform my practice in a positive way.

500 Word Summary - No.4

 Throughout this project I have discovered a lot of things about my chosen topic, my interests in illustration and my own practice. I am intrigued by how we form relationships and bonds with other people and how a state of constant connection can affect our day-to-day lives. I am also interested in the idea of self and self disclosure and how these two things affect peoples perception of themselves, perception of others and how other percept them. I feel that my research was broad and covered a lot of different topics that I managed to dwindle down to a more specific area of research, allowing me to explore an interesting subject in a way that suits me as a practitioner.

Overall, I think the thing I’ve gained the most from undergoing this research project is how I want to inform my own practice, and I feel that this could be something that I continue exploring throughout other modules and in my personal practice. It’s also given me more confidence to be more honest and authentic in my own work, a quality that I believe to be integral to image making.

I believe that this has also changed the way I approach work, and think that thoroughly immersing myself in research before creating work will help lead to more fully developed outcomes in the future. The research aspect is something that I usually skim over with an eagerness to create practical and I’m now realizing that delving into this further can help inform my outcome to a fuller extent. I would also like to be creating more work that stems from human experience as I feel this contains a level of authenticity. It would be interesting to expand on a few more projects and start to take on board my own feelings and opinions as well as the feelings and opinions of others. I would also like to continue exploring how my work sits in a digital and physical environment and how I can translate between the two. Whether this be in terms of process or where the image eventually exists, online or in the physical world. Both avenues can reach different audiences and certain topics and themes will suit one above the other.

Overall, I think that I’ve managed to complete this module to a decent level. I do think I should have given myself more time, started research earlier and developed practical work sooner. I’ve always struggled with COP, it’s not a module that I enjoy and is something I continuously put off. I have really enjoyed the research aspect of it though and feel that if I hadn’t done the usual thing of avoiding it I would have been able to further push and develop my work to a fuller extent.

Visual Responses to Context and Themes

I've been further developing some ideas that i've been exploring in my sketchbook. These three images focus on the themes of connection, communication and identity online. With the aim to be posted online, these images are intended to get people to reconsider the relationship they have with the internet and the relationships they have with themselves and the people around them. 

Final Images and Layout for Zine

Compiled in this issuu document is the final pages and layout choices for the zine. I chose to title it IRL, an internet acronym that stands for In Real Life and conveys the idea of self disclosure, false presentation of self and how this impacts our hoensty within interpersonal relationships. I'm quite happy with how the overall aesthetic of the zine has turned out, I feel tha tmy colour choices work well, complimenting the drawings whilst not overpowering. I felt it best to use softer colours as I'm working with more personal subject matter, soemthing that should possibly be dealt with a little more delicatley. If I had the time I would like to delve into this subject matter more, possibly proposing to continue this zine series, focusing around the idea of anonymity and other internet phenomena. My zine aims to focus on the first hand, personal experience that online culture can give people, using primary research to inform the practical outcomes.

Development of Imagery from Responses

From the responses I got to my questionnaire I selected ten confessions that I thought would work well together in a zine format, whether that be the content of the confession, the humour behind it, the level of emotion contained within or the type of imagery it conjured up. The process of roughs allowed me to explore different formats and layouts before finally settling on my chosen ten images. The issuu document below shows text for the front and back cover, designs for the end pages and the ten confessional images I chose to create. I chose to use the enter and esc key as end pages as I found it metaphorical of entering into the non-spaces that social media is, using it as an emotional outlet and then in a sense escaping into the real world.

Questionnaire Responses

I've managed to get 31 responses to my survey and I've found the results really interesting, people are very open to disclosing things when placed in a position of anonymity, whether this is something highly personal and secretive or something thats kind of funny. I've narrowed down my choices for the zine pages I want to create and have decided to make imagery around the following statements. I have also added one of my own confessions in as a way to take part in that experience of anonymous confession. 

"If I'm not seeing my boyfriend, I spend my weekends alone. I hate it."

"I make people laugh because I'm kinda sad"

"I dont actually hate pineapple on pizza as much as I say I do. In fact, I dont think I've ever tried it... It's probably not even that bad."

"I'm extremley unhappy about where my life is going"

"My housemate kept stealing my juice so I kept topping it up with wee"

"I dont think I actually like the boy I've told I love" 

"I slept with my brother in law"

"I see dead people" 

"I have an STD that I wont even get rid of"

"I feel like I constantly disappoint everyone around me"

Future Minds - Richard Watson

'the average person spends 45 percent of their waking hours on media and communication'

'furthermore, our attention and our relationships are getting atmoized. We are connected globally, but our local relationships are becoming wafer thin and ephemeral. We are in danger of developing a society that is globally connected and collaborative, but one that is also impatient, isolated, and detached from reality.' -pg 3

'but constant connectivity means that we are replacing intimacy with familiarity, and this can also make our physical relationships with other people more ephemeral' - pg 7

'the anonymity of the web is eroding empathy, encouraging antisocial behaviour, and promoting virtual courage over real emotion.' - pg 7

'personal communication is changing too. Want to dump your boyfriend? Just alter your profile status on Facebook from 'in a relationship' to 'single'. After all, if you'd wanted to speak to him in person you'd have sent him a text.' - pg 14

' if you need to communicate with someone it is usually unnecessary to see them physically. These are people ( to paraphrase Nick Bilton, author of I live in the Future and Here's How It Works) who do not see any distincition between real-life friendships that involve talking or looking someone in the eye and virtual ones, where communication is through email or text message. Facebook and Twitter as well as virtual communities such as Second Life also feed into the desir to be reassured that one is not alone, so screenagers use this kind of site to check o their own existence and coalesce around an ever changing universe of friends and online culture.' - pg 14

500 Word Summary - No.3

I have been able to be put in contact with Professor Ben Light, who has sent me over a draft copy of his book ‘Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites’ to read through in order to help further my research. I’m finding the research I’m doing at the minute to be really formative and am quickly developing a strong sense of the issues I am talking about. So far, a lot of my research has revolved around self-presentation and developing interpersonal relationships, forming a stronger foundation for my chosen essay question which I’ve decided will be:

- To what extent do Social Networking Sites impact our ability to form interpersonal relationships.

I feel that my research is informing my practice in the sense of how human experience and emotion can inform imagery. I’m very much enjoying working around quotes I’ve found and conversations that people have had online. I have also started to collect the results from my questionnaire, although I could still do with a few more, so will be holding off on pushing that any further and instead developing my written work more whilst waiting for more results to come in.

I have begun analyzing and dissecting my case studies which I’ve chosen to be Victoria Vincents’ two animations, ‘Find True Love’, and ‘kittykat96’. These two animations explore different strands of online culture, looking at communication, self-disclosure and presentation of self specifically. These are both things that impact the development of interpersonal relationships and I feel align with me wanting to look at the individual experience people have online rather than looking at society as a whole. I’ve also found some interviews with Vincent online that allow her to explain her reasoning behind the work and her motives behind her making, I’m hoping to use some quotes from these in my essay.

At the minute, I’m happy with the progress I’m making, despite having an extended period of time away from uni, which I believe has impacted this module in some ways. I’m happy with how my body of research is coming along and think I’m in a position to begin writing now. The practical work is developing a little slower but I am confident in my abilities to get it done. My next steps will be:

- Begin Context and Themes Chapter of Essay
- Compile research from questionnaire
- Develop practical work
- Further research

Case Studies - Victoria Vincent

Find true love from victoria vincent on Vimeo.

Victoria Vincent's short animated film titled 'Find True Love' depicts a characters failings at online dating and captures the pitfalls of the search for love online. Vincent describes this video as a way of portraying 'this kind of strange emotional connection we have with the internet in a light-hearted movie'.

"Despite the anonymity that the internet grants it's users, there is still anxiety that comes with trying to connect with people online. We google questions we dont know how to ask other people and face anxiety over sending/recieving messages. It's something that I think every internet user can relate to." - Victoria Vincent for It's Nice That

Throughout the video, we see the protagonist battle with his anxieties over contacting this girl that he's found via a tinder-esque platform. Overlapping shots of text boxes and action represent the inner turmoil faced when trying to figure out how to correctly message this girl, and this turmoil is further heightened when she doesn't reaply, with humorous google searches leaving the protagonist wondering if he's destined for a life in solitude. The animation ends with him being blocked by said girl. In a way, this shows how disconnected interactions online actually are. Somebody has the power to completley cut off a point of communication in what could be seen as quite a cold-hearted way. There is no consideration for the recipricant of the 'block', furthing showing the emotional disocnnection we face whilst using online services.


kittykat96 from victoria vincent on Vimeo.

Inspired by the world of vlogging and Youtube stars, Vincents newest animation "kittykat96" documents the life of an 'internet famous girl' whose online persona comes to life as a seperate entity to her physical self. The two entities are further blurred and tensions is heightened, despite the protagonists use of keyboard commands such as undo, delete and escape to rid herself of this physical manifestation of her online self. The film questions our obsessions with the internet and how our online personas are just curated versions of ourselves.

"I wanted to think of a way to show how the protagonist would see that she couldnt live entirley as her internet persona or entirley without it" - Victoria Vincent for It's Nice That

This animation brings to light the idea of true self vs real self vs hoped for self, an idea proposed by Sherry Turkle in her book 'Alone Together'. Through use of different social media platforms, we purposley curate our accounts to portray an appealing side to us. Everyday life is filtered through to a highlight reel, showing only the impressive or positive parts of our lives, where as the more negative and dull parts will be filtered out. We are never truly ourselves. The different versions of ourselves we portray must come together to give an over-arching image of who we really are as a person.

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/victoria-vincent-kittykat96-animation-121017
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/victoria-vincent-find-true-love-260916

Start of Practical Responses

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While I've been waiting to collect responses to the survey I thought it best to start some simple visual responses to my research so far. These images are made to be intended to be posted on Social Networking Sites in order to get people to think about how much time they spend online and how this may impact their actual relationships, with themselves and with others. I've been enjoying just drawing around this theme alot, and picking out bits of my research to focus in on. I'm looking to expand on this kind of imagery a little more later in the project.

The Internet Is Not The Answer - Andrew Keen

"But today, as the internet expands to connect almost every-one and everything on the planet, it's becoming evident that this is a false promise." (preface)

" 'Instagram is focused on capturing the worlds moments,' System likes to say. But thats fiction - just like Instagram itself" (pg.104)

"Advertisements for Myself" - Norman Mailer - 1959

"Indeed, the only thing more retro than Instagrams filters is the pre-Copernican belief, encouraged by social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, that the new digital universe somehow revolves around us. Fuzzy technology leads to an even fuzzier sense of our place in the cosmos." (pg.105)

"In the Valley, the rich and famous claim to be failures; on social networks like Instagram, millions of failures claim to be rich and famous." (pg.105)

"The truth about networks like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook is that their easy-to-use, free tools delude us into thinking we are celebrities." (pg.105) narcissism

"epidemic of narcissism and voyeurism" (pg.106)

"our contemporary obsession with public self-expression has complex cultural, technological and psychological origins that can't be exclusively traced to the digital revolution" (pg.106)

Twenge and Campbell - Narcissism Epidemic

"Instagram is a useful symbol of everything that has gone wrong with our digital culture over the last quarter of a century. "I update, therefore I am," I once wrote, half jokingly, about the existential dilemma created by our obsession with social media. Unfortunately, however, the idea that our existence is proven by our tweets or our Instagram moments is no longer very funny." (pg.107)

"if we have no thought to Tweet or photo to post, we basically cease to exist" (pg.107)

"the shameless self portrait has emerged as a dominant mode of expression, perhaps even the proof of  our existence, in the digital age." (pg.107)

"The real myth is that we are communicating at all. The truth, of course, is that we are mostly just talking to ourselves on these supposedly 'social' networks" (pg.109)

Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites - Ben Light

- Concerned with disconnection as something that we do in conjuction with connection
- Theory of Disconnective Practice
- Agree with Boyd (idea of networked publics)
- SNS's are a space where we interact with each other - intimatley interwoven
- 'SNS's are engaged as a space in their own right and some people may never connect the relationships that they develop in those spaces with those in the physical world'

Proffessor Ben Light agrees with boyd's idea of networked publics and states that 'SNSs are engaged as a space in their own right' (Light, 2014). Light further comments on how the relationships and connections found within these spaces may never be developed in the physical world, instead remaining online.

Communication and Cyberspace - Creating Paradoxes for the Ecology of Self - Sue Barnes

"In traditional physical environments, a concept of self is developed through face-to-face encounters with other people and objects. In contrast, cyberspace interaction takes place symbolically in a media-generated space." (pg.230)

"The self that exists as a unified mind and body in a physical space becomes a seperate and distributed digital self. This new digital self encounters paradoxical situations in cyberspace that could threaten the ecological self that inhabits a natural world." (pg.230)

"It is a 'non-space', a hyperdimensional realm that we enter through technology." (pg.231)

"An individual self is established by organizing the attitudes of other individuals toward the self and toward one another through participation in social interaction." (pg.240)

"Thus, by understanding the role of others, we can develop our own individual roles and consequently a sense of self." (pg.240)

"Monist theories of self argue that the physical body is an integral part of self-development. Touching, feeling, and having access to all five senses is essential to interacting with objects and people. According to this perspective, a separation of mind and body in cyberspace will inhibit self-growth. Therefore, integrating the physical body with the digital representation of self in cyberspace would be essential for developing self-identity." (pg.240)

"On the one hand, eliminating the body makes us more equal because we no longer have access to the visual information of sex, age, or race. But on the other hand, the quality of human relationships narrows, because unlike face-to-face communication, we do not have a full range of visual and verbal sensory information" (pg.247)

"People can now communicate and develop relationships without ever meeting each other in a face-to-face situation" (pg.247)

"The formation of symbolic or virtual communities raises the issue of how people will develop a self-identity when they communicate through electronic media instead of face-to-face interaction" (pg.247)

"electronic media is fragmenting self-conceptions. In electronic media "the self is decentered, dispersed, and multiplied in continuous instability" (Poster, 1960, pg 6). Gergen (1991) describes this condition as the "saturated self": "the evening at home once quiet, relaxed and settling, is now - by dint of telephone, automobile, television and the like - a parade of faces, information and intrusion" (pg.248)

"Additionally, a myriad of electronic relationships can invite 'us to play such a variety of roles that the very concept of an 'authentic self' with knowable characteristics recedes from view" (Gergen, 1991, pg 7)" (pg.248)

"The lack of personal visual information in network exchanges allows people to test new personalities and even create totally fictitious ones." (pg.248)

"To summarize, Poster (1990) states when computer communication replaces face-to-face communication the subject is affected in the following ways: (a) new possibilites for playing with identities is possible, (b) gender cues are removed, (c) existing hierachies in relationships are destablized, and (d) the subject is dispersed and dislocated in space and time." (pg.249)


Additional references:
Gibson, W. (1991). Academy leader. In M. BEnedikt (Ed.) Cyberspace: First steps (pp.27-29). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Poster, M (1990). The mode of information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966) The social construction of reality. New York: Anchor Books.

500 Word Summary - No.2

As my research is developing I am gaining more of an insight into my subject matter and starting to be able to narrow down what exactly it is that I want to look at. I’ve been reading about the psychological impact that over use of social media can have and how this affects our ability to develop interpersonal relationships. I’ve also done further research on the idea of ‘self’ and discovered the idea of multiple versions of ‘self’ and how we create fictitious identities online in order to put across an image that is more socially appealing online. I have also established the idea of social networking sites as ‘networked publics’ a term coined by Danah Boyd. ‘Networked Publics’ explore the idea of social networking sites as spaces in their own right, and spaces that have taken over real-life social meeting points. I feel that from the research done I can start to develop some structure to my essay, knowing that networked publics and the idea of self combine and have a direct impact on how we develop interpersonal relationships. These will be the three areas I specifically focus in on when writing my essay: Networked Publics and Online Spaces, Presentation of the Self and Self Disclosure, and finally, Development of Interpersonal Relationships.

In terms of case studies, I have done some research into practitioners that convey emotion through their work and also different examples of how social media has ben explored via illustration. I’m particularly interested in Victoria Vincents work, finding that her practice encompasses online culture and the conveying of emotion in an authentic and honest way. This aligns to my own interests, and allows room to examine how a practitioner is responding to the problems with social media on a level that delves more into the personal experience of being online rather than looking at the impact of online culture on society as a whole.

When considering my own practical work, I feel that at the minute the idea of self-presentation is something that intrigues me, as well as self-disclosure. I find it interesting that people can be so open and honest online when hiding behind a mask and yet struggle disclosing information in their real life relationships. From the questionnaire I put out, I’m hoping to get enough responses to create a small zine type publication in order to explore my themes. I have also been doing some general visual responses in order to explore my subject area more, and feel that some of these could become images that are made to be posted online in order to get people thinking about how they behave around social networking sites.