Visual Appendix: Research & Plan
Visual Appendix Proposal
This essay looks at how people in power use psychoanalysts and advertisers skill to aid their influence on us in not only our purchasing choices but in our life choices. Through time this has changed dramatically from where it started to where we are now in the advertising world, from propaganda to a revolutionary technology age. The essay looks at the work of Sigmund Freud and his idea of the unconscious mind being a main factor in advertising through the years right up to today. Also looking at how Edward Bernayse, Anna Freud and other social scientists and psychoanalysts contributed to the research into our ever changing society mind sets and psychological positions in relation to influence and persuasion.
As a advertising and branding specialist in my field, I intend to explore the way in which advertising has changed its methods in relation to self image and how we see ourselves in phycology terms. My appendix will help me create a body of experimental work around how we see ourselves in society, enhancing my research, development and signposting to me where phycology and advertising is linked closely. My outcomes will come in forms of a series of sketches, showing the contrast in thoughts and how we can respond to them,
i want to show how self image had changed our phycology and how we are targeted, from Marylyn Monroe to recent dove ‘every one is beautiful’ campaigns. I intend to create a series of sketches, including, pen to paper, photographs and digital work, all enhancing my research. Conducting my own social experiments on self-image to get results that support my essay and the aim of the appendix itself.
Self-image
Beauty
Phycology
Advertising
Ideas...
Artist research
Gregory Crewdson
Beneath the roses is a photograph series showing typical scenes of drama and cinema films, exploring the American psyche.
This work interested me and my appendix research because his works to me show that he stereotypes the situations, he picks familiar and typical scenes caught within many dramas we see on our TV screens. Capturing moments in this way makes you stay in that moment, creating more drama. The lighting and scenery adds to this.
My aim for the appendix is to create experiments in some way that will address and make people aware of self-image discrepancies using design methods. His work has influenced me because the photos are experimental themselves, with the idea of an American dystopia, I want to expose that dystopia we live in within self image.
Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Stills is a series of sixty-nine photographs. In them Sherman appears as fictitious characters in scenarios resembling moments in a film. The ‘stills’ are set in a variety of interior locations as well as outside in urban and rural landscapes.
Cindy Sherman’s work brings out more of the stereotype idea out in a more obvious way. She is recreating characters form films, but not specific characters, general ones that appear in the same situations.
Looking at self-image in this way could prove interesting, finding ways to capture people in photographs that portray the people who are lacking in self-esteem and in their image.
Experement 1
Shea Glover, a high school student from Chicago, conducted a social experiment to find out. She posed people in front of her camera and then told them “I’m taking pictures of things I find beautiful.”
I’m inspired by this experiment; I think it shows that just by being told you’re beautiful, you can smile. You don’t have to receive a big gesture to have confidence in yourself, but in fact words from a stranger can help.
The way this student captures the reactions before and after, literally shows the contrasting emotions, self-doubt and self-confidence.
My Intentions
I picked self-image as a social problem because of the variety it contains. I want to do a set of experiments and this is one I found I want to try out myself. Taking photos of people I know and don’t and telling them the same thing, capturing their reactions before and after, the difference I want is to then ask people what they thought of the two photos and get their opinions on the two contrasts.
Experement 2
2 People Described The Same Person To A Forensic Artist And This Is What Happened
Dove’s real beauty campaign...
My Intentions
The way this experiment worked was that the artist drew a women that was explaining herself, however the artist could not look at the woman, he had to draw purely on her description, the women was then described to the artist by another person, someone that had met that women only a moment ago for a few minutes. Again the artist could not see the describer.
The 2 sketches were shown to the person being drawn, the difference in beauty and how you would describe yourself beside how someone else would describe you is enormous.
This gave me the idea of thinking about self-image and how you look through someone else’s eyes. I could use couples and do the same thing or something similar. I am certain I would get results similar.
I want to do something similar to this, asking people to describe them selves and then be described by someone else is a way of seeing how people really feel about themself
Experement 3
An Artistic Experiment Exploring Self Image and Beauty in Society Using Tape, Make Up and a Camera – Work by Young Artist, Shelby Tsuji
Shelby has found a moving way to express/portray how serious it really is. In Shelby’s series, she places a strip of painter’s tape down the center of a girl’s face and applies heavy make up to one side of her face. After removing the tape, she photographs the subject against a white background with heavy light and includes a statement from the model. The result is startling and intense.
This is another experiment I want to try out, I think this will really express the idea of makeup and what it means to girls, from the inspiration they get from celebrities and the reason they look up to them and see them as role models.
Experement 4
Another thing I may do is to take these kinds of surprise photos of people, this will capture the people who are shy and who are not. I then want to ask them why they don’t want me to take a photo of them?
I expect the result to be that they think it ill go on social media and people will see it, it will be a photo that they were caught off guard; they haven’t posed or edited it.
I think it would be interesting to see the people’s reactions and what they say.
