Our first Project Brief for the whole course involved Lofi self portraits – that is, using media forms to build up a clear picture of ourselves, our lives, our qualities and things that we feel are instrinsically linked to our being.
The media forms we were instructed to include were audio, image, video and then text. Through all of these, we would be able to communicate something about ourselves. There was only a few constraints, these being that no ‘selfies’ or post production could be used, while our freedom including being able to use any technology to capture these, regardless of picture or audio quality (allowing for us to take liberties with our phone cameras if we so desired). As it was only our first Project Brief, it felt somewhat overwhelming to have such freedom and little boundaries after being used to having such tight constraints over high school projects in the past. The deadline of seven days from our first tutorial also seemed overwhelming, however being put on the spot to create something triggered a creative reaction that led to me coming up with a myriad of ideas in the first ten minutes of planning. Through this first brief I suppose it could be said that I learnt that I work rather well under pressure. They do say pressure turns coal into diamonds, after all (though that saying is not in any way factual beyond its metaphorical meaning).
Through the media that I created for the purpose of this self portrait project brief, I aimed to convey to the audience multiple things; my personality, my lifestyle and my very being. I’ll go into some more detail as to which texts communicate what about myself below.
My three audio texts were as follows –
I’ve always had a fascination about cities, not just Melbourne. I adore the hustle and bustle and the constant happening all around me. It’s like you can get swallowed up within a city and surrounded by the masses; of people, business, traffic, culture, food, commercialism. The city is where a place’s true identity is communicated, as it is the point at which every facet of the society intersects and juxtaposes with one another. I love the contradictions and harmonies, the loud and the quiet, the vastness yet the compactness. Recording a soundscape of the city, with the people wandering by, the trams, all of the chaotic noises working together as one felt like it communicated my love for both my home (Melbourne) and for the epicenters of culture around the world.
It might become apparent from these first two audio texts that I surround myself with and love some chaos. The multitudes of voices talking over the top of each other in this file, I felt, represented what it often feels like to be in my mind; going a million miles at once, difficult to discern where one thought or idea ends and another begins. I am, at the core, a very ‘busy’ person and as such felt this really communicated a part of me that people don’t often notice.
Like many people my age, I’m connected to technology. Its pervasive; seeping into every facet of my life. As such, notifications such as texts and calls are a common occurrence. I felt that this audio file represented my connection to modern technology like smartphones in an ever changing technological community.
My six images –
This image holds a lot of meaning for me, as it was my first tattoo and my way of expressing my affinity with my heritage. The rose is a Yorkshire rose, the symbol of Yorkshire, England, where my maternal family were born and lived up until my mother and her siblings moved to Australia. I’ve always felt more linked to my English heritage than to my Australian nationality, and this was my way of communicating this, while also commemorating my late mother who passed just over a week before I got this tattoo. To me it’s a symbol of pride, family and home. The image conveys this all, while also communicating to the audience my love of tattoos and art.
I felt this image represented my interest in the aesthetic side of this world, as well as my struggle often with self esteem and perception. I find it fascinating how we as a society often obsess more over how we internally look, to those around us and how we and others perceive ourselves, rather than spending more time looking outwards and enjoying what is around us and how we perceive that. I too am victim to being entranced by ensuring I look ‘up to standard’ and conform to an expectation laid out by some invisible force that we all take for fact, and felt that this image communicated that through my staring into the mirror, and the one half of my face being mirrored twice, hiding the other half. I felt metaphorically that this symbolised the hiding of some parts of myself to make myself as a ‘package’ more likeable or palatable to others.
One of my other passions is music. Whether it be playing or listening, a strong involvement and connection to music has been integral to my upbringing and lifestyle from a very young age. This collage I feel represents my love for and commitment and involvement with music, as well as other cultural aspects such as museums, sports matches, overseas landmarks, etc. Once again, it is quite a ‘busy’ image, with a lot going on, which represents very much how I think, act and live – chaotically.
- Eyes – I’m a very visual person. I’m a visual learner and thinker, and when trying to communicate something to another person I often find myself drawing it. Many of my interests involve the appreciation and creation of aesthetics, and I felt an image of my eyes communicated this to an audience.
- iPhone Droste effect – As previously mentioned, technology is linked to just about everything I do, to the point where it can sometimes feel that I’m ‘trapped’ inside of my phone – visually and literally represented here. I felt that the Droste effect – the constant repetition of this image – added the concept of this being neverending, a repetition of the cycle of being bound by technology but simultaneously dependent upon it. I also liked this image because it presented me in my most raw form – no makeup, no hair done.
- Polaroid – Much like my passion for the aesthetic, I also have a fascination with the past and things that came before. This image is somewhat self indulgent as the vintage polaroid is one of my favourite pieces that I own, but metaphorically as a piece of technology it intersects with the past and present – through the modern resurgence of polaroid style cameras to capture images – much like how I feel my generation does within society. It also demonstrates my love once again for film and the captured image.
My three videos –
- Confetti / Party Popper Scene – simply put I felt this communicated my love for fun and chaos.
- Fairy light scene – as someone whom often has their head in the clouds this video felt like it communicated just that – dreamlike and blurred, vague but whimsical.
- Train arriving at platform – This is part of the daily grind for me, five mornings a week. To not include such a constant part of my routine seemed impossible.
Words:
“Home isn’t the house you live in, the area you live in, but anywhere on earth where your flesh and blood reside. Without family, you have no home. I would move mountains for those that raised me, helped me and cared for me when I was in need. Family is more than just a surname, it’s the very lifeblood that runs through your veins.”
Overall, I found this project to be somewhat of a challenge due to the time constraints but it was fun to plan and complete. It taught me that I need to set myself more time based challenges in future to improve my skills in working under pressure – which I do well to some degree as mentioned earlier, but under immense pressure that efficiency begins to decrease. I’m not completely happy with the artefacts I’ve produced and plan to perhaps refine and recreate the images and videos so as to produce something of a much better quality.
