Author: Adela Julisova

UNIT 3

Unit 3 – Week 3

After identifying further interest in my research and enquiry, week 3 I focused on creating an approach and tools I can adapt to my project through engaging with references. while exploring the topic of identity vs self-representation and how to create an approach to design as a building tool for an alternative space.

IDENTITY IN 21ST CENTURY

In the 21st century, identity is a complex concept shaped by an individual’s unique traits, experiences, beliefs, together with personal, social, cultural, and digital dimensions.

It reflects how individual navigates in a globalized and interconnected world, the roles they play in diverse social groups, their cultural heritage, and their online presence.

Identity today is marked by fluidity, diversity, and the coexistence of traditional and contemporary elements.

SELF-REPRESENTATION

How individuals perceive or construct their own identity both in physical or/and in digital space. It suggests that identity is a dynamic, evolving construction

Self-representation is the way you intentionally project and convey your identity to others.

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In the 21st century, it’s challenging to have full control over all the layers of our identities due to the complex and interconnected nature of the modern world, especially in the digital age.

(Personal And Collective Identity: Transformations In The Digital Age, 2020)

_____

ITERATION

As an answer to my references, I started exploring the same approach, collecting materials connected to my identity without limitations and curating them together into one place. I was hoping this iteration may help me narrow the topic of identity and self-representation even more, however, I started with:

Prompts/questions I was considering when curating the items:

Items that are connected to my identity?

My favourite things, books?

Childhood memories?

The visual representation of self?

Map locations connected to my identity?

Items / things that represent my hobbies and interests?

Memories and things connected to them?

Who am I / my role here?

What objects are important to me?

Extending on my experiments from last week and started exploring the creation of an alternative space by building my notion of identity in 3D freely using forms and shapes

In my experiments, I was exploring different ways and platforms (tools) to build and create such as adobe dimensions, spline or blender.

After all I got quite stuck on creating these yet most of my trials didn’t look very pretty 😀 more like a pile of trash

I started trying different approaches, getting inspired by the shapes of the objects, colours of my objects, to create an approach to design I could continue with or eventually introduce to a workshop or collective creation.

Moving further and iterating deeper, I started tracing and simplifying the shapes, re-building / editing them and placing them into 3D space, exploring different approaches – experimenting and exploring possibilities.

I had a goal of creating engaging materials, that can be expanded/added to by engaging with people and collecting more and more items, using that as a tool to a discussion about the role of identity and self-representation in contemporary society.

Questions and focus coming from engaging with the latest set of references.

How to make the space more accessible and easier to reach for the audience? (Remembering Laurent’s comment from the last class about AR being something invisible, not that user-friendly and easy to reach without a device or an app)

AR can be a great extension of my work, but how I possibly make the space easily engaged with the audience?

Could an online accessible space or a website be a solution??

CONTINUING ITERATION:

In my final iteration, I was exploring ways to create a website and to embed the fictive space.

Found a way to embed a Spline (3D tool) creation to the website made in Frame while I can edit and update it in real time. However, when exporting from Adobe Dimensions, the textures and materials got lost. I continued working with simplified shapes, creating an “Identity Playground” in the space, people can access and engage with.

Can I work with this further??

While iterating I realised still the topic self-representation is too broad. When moving further – what more concrete can I represent in the space?

Moving further – researching and narrowing down the topic down – giving depth to the ideas, making more relatable and engaging work (not only from my perspective)

Engaging with the tools got me interested in exploring the space building space and pushing the tools (and my skills) further – interactive/playable?

How to create an interactive approach to design as a building and engaging tool while questioning and interrogating self-representation?

Cross Year Studios UNIT 3

Languages 2

In the first Cross Year Studio of 2024, we were focusing on languages and the role of translation in creating new knowledge or perspectives on the language.

In my experiments, I was working with complex rules of Czech grammar as the language has a lot of layers and is very complex. The lines reflect the activity we used to do when in secondary school, exploring the unique role of each world in the sentence, and how these worlds affect the whole sentence.

MAGCD-XY-2023-24-Languages-2-Typotranslation-template Download

Tags crossyearstudios, unit3

UNIT 3

U3 – week 2

Continuing the the second week, I wasn’t sure about the shape of the project yet, so decided to take a little snippet to start instinctively iterating with.

As my starting point, I decided to use something simple and visual that is a representation/parallel to my physical identity.

Inspired by the first set of references, I started re-introducing my portrait through different digital processes such as photo manipulation, pixelation etc.

By manipulating the representation of identity (a personal portrait) the experiment visualises and explores the ongoing processes that reintroduce and reshape the identity in the digital space.

I was also experimenting with new tools to me such as Processing and programming to generate some pictures to deepen the idea of the unpredictability (to lose control of the edits)

After the iterations, I was thinking about the context to put the portraits in. While researching more projects and references to develop my position, I stumbled upon a few references that play with the form of objects in an alternative / constructed space. The idea of creating an alternative, distorted representation of identity It identity, doesn’t have one definition seemed like an interesting step in my iterations.

In my experiments, I started placing the edited portraits back into a physical World through the use of AR, freely playing around with forms as shapes, taking inspiration from my latest references.

I was experimenting with AR as it is a tool that balances between digital and physical, distorts and reflects back to the physical reality without actually existing in the space.

These experiments raised interesting questions and moved me deeper into my research and enquiry.

Can I use design tools to create fictive “spaces“ that explore the topic of identity?

Identity x Self Representation

QUESTIONS of authenticity, privacy, influence of technology on our perception of self

1.What does identity mean in the digital age?

2. What is the line between digital / physical identity.

3. How do individuals perceive and construct their identities?

4. How can creation of experimental fictive spaces and an unrestricted (conscious) identity interpretation help to explore the questions and open a speculative dialogue?

UNIT 3

Unit 3 – week 1

In the Unit 2 I was using data collecting, visualisations and diagramming to explore the role of identity in contemporary society, exploring how identities are being (re)shaped through surveillance processes.

Identifying what I want to continue within Unit 3, I was interested in exploring identity’s role in the contemporary world. More precisely the intersection between PHYSICAL VS DIGITAL IDENTITY and how our engagement, and curation of our personals in digital space reflects back to our physical selves. I was aware of the topic being quite general, however, i set a few points to focus on to start producing experiments, hoping the interest will shape further while I put my hands on my studio practice.

Starting with my unit 3 work, I was focusing on the following questions and points to start with my studio practice:

How can visual representation offer insights into the dynamics of identity in the contemporary world?

Using design tools to explore the ongoing processes that reintroduce and reshape the identity in the digital space.

The goal is to speculate & reflect on the question of what is happening to our identities in digital spaces.

2.5 UNIT 2 Written Components

U2.5 – △2 – Antithesis

Julisova_AntiThesis_Tri2 Download

2.5 UNIT 2

U2.5 – △1 – W3 & Continuing

Post author By Adela Julisova
Post date 21st October 2023
No Comments on U2.5 – △1 – W3 & Continuing

The goal of my work development for the final crit was to:

Communicate the pervasive/ overwhelming nature of data collection and surveillance that’s quietly in the background

Explore the role and question of identity in surveillance society through self-surveillance, data collecting

Use my own experience as a mirror, but create suggestive work that prompts discussion

-> ??? How to use data collecting + paper and print as a medium communicate my goals?

Collecting more data, experimenting with type, layout, form to break the “neat” and communicate the amount and overwhelming factor.

1. Experimenting with content – layout, type – sizes, positions,

Over the week, I was collecting even more data. I was collecting data not only from my phone, but also from third parties such as my oyster rides, nectar card points, gps location. I use these data, the data form the previous week/s and also some of the visualisations to create a new booklet, focusing on experimenting with the layout and type to break from the neat

I continued in using print / booklet as medium, I also iterated on the size of the booklet to explore how the size of the printed material can affect the communication of my goals and the perception of the work by the audience.

The name “Quantified (my)self” was inspired by resources: “THE QUANTIFIED SELF” FROM 2016 “ & DATA-SELVES: MORE THAN HUMAN PERSPECTIVES” FROM 2019 by Deborah Lupton. The books explore the topic of the “Quantified Self” – which refers 1. to our self, that is formed and described by numbers and data and 2. A movement and practice of individuals using technology to track and measure various personal data related to their daily lives. She talks about how that is changing and re-framing the way that society behaves, records itself, and reflects on its own behaviour.

”The Quantified Self” term started with Gary wolf and Kevin Kelly, editors for the magazine wired in 2007

The booklet in printed versions – A5 and A4

After printing my booklet out, I realised even after the experiments with type, layout and size, the outcome was still too linear as a book / booklet is usually meant to be read from the beginning to an end, focusing separately on the content of each page, which wasn’t my goal – my goal was to communicate the topic in the unsystematic amount of information and data that are being collected.

For further iterations I was working with the following questions:

How can I break the linear narrative of the created booklet, create more engaging, suggestive material?

How to visualise the overwhelming, amount of data, draw on the constant procceses, that shape/manipulate our identity?

2. Experimenting with the medium, exploring ”craft”

Moving further with my project and reflecting on the latest outcome, I started iterating on the booklet. I used the booklet to create engaging poster – the poster was inspired by foldable brochures.

Research on foldable booklets / brochures, experiments:

The iteration on my booklet was a hybrid between a poster and a booklet, that can be engage with in different ways, leaving space to the viewer for interpretation.

The logic behind the poster:

Sides – the booklet / data archive. The poster can be folded and read as a booklet, when unfolding, it reveals the “whole picture” and the identity hidden behind.

The whole picture – the identity these data and numbers create in the background

A lot of information – overwhelming, takes time to orientate

After creating the digital version of the poster, I printed it out on A3, folded and then iterated on the sizes to see which one is the most effective. I printed on A1 and A0, and folded all of them the same way. The outcome offer a physical material for a viewer to engage with, it offered different ways to engage and broke from the linear narrative of a regular booklet.

*Unfortunately the A0 and A1 versions needed to be edited to reduce the printing cost, so the black background behind the shopping bills and the portrait had to be removed for these experimental draft versions. However the full design can be seen on the smallest version (in the top right corner) or in the digital version of the poster above.

2.5 UNIT 2

U2.5 – △1 – W1&2

Continuing the outcomes, brainstorming and research after the Positions Through Dialogue brief, I decided to focus on a thread that connects identity / social research / surveillance. I decided to explore self-surveillance as a tool to collect data. The idea was to collect as much data as possible, focusing on quantity -> Using my own experience as a mirror to data collection. The first week, I was focusing on collecting different types of data from my phone and I started with visualisations. Following to the week 2, I collected and visualised more data and printed them into a publication that serves as a diary/archive.

W1&2 – collecting as much data as possible from my phone, initiating self-surveillance

This experimental and exploratory publication is in response to the first two weeks of methods of triangulating brief. It serves as a diary and archive of self-surveillance-driven visualizations that can be continued, and expanded. It investigates the idea of identity and self-surveillance through data collection and data visualization. The publication operates as a real-time data diary. The data were gathered and collected by observing and engaging with the data on my phone during the period of 4/9-8/10/2023.

By collecting and visualizing data from my phone, my aim was to explore different angles of the topics of surveillance and identity, which I had been researching in my previous studio practice. Focusing on personal and introspective aspects of surveillance, the goal was to find ways to advance my research and open new possibilities for the direction my work can take. The idea was to create a project that monitors my actions and provides an understanding of my own digital behaviour and how it relates to my identity. In my previous work, I focused on collecting data from others through interviews, so this shift in focus allows for a more personal and introspective exploration.
The activity of collecting my own data, visualizing it, and giving it a physical medium serves as a parallel to the constant data collection happening in today’s surveillance society, highlighting the pervasive nature of surveillance.

Feedback from the class and from talking with student teaching assistants:

Needs more story telling / be clearer in what I am communicating / how to communicate the personal experience

If you want to communicate that the data collected shape our (digital/shadow) identities, how can you do it?

A little bit too neat and linear – considering I want to communicate the overwhelming, pervasive nature of surveillance

Tip: Try to focus more on a type and layout, rather than data visualisations to create the overwhelming feeling

Continue in data collecting to collect bigger amounts and also more persona data too, to communicate the pervasive nature

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XY – Languages 1

Tags Cross Year Studios

2.4 UNIT 2 Written Components

U2.4 – Written Response

Find the written response for the Unit 2.4 Positions Through Dialogue brief below:

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