FINAL WORK AND STATEMENT 700 WORD STATEMENT Contemporary art and design often looks at the idea of constructed binaries, such as man/woman, soft/hard, straight/gay, dirty/clean, organic/synthetic. Considering the history of these ‘pairs’, how can art and design interrogate these binaries and offers new insights? Continuing on with the topic of constructed binaries from my last assessment, I have decided to focus more so on black and white as opposed to multiple binaries. In my previous works I focused more on tactile works rather than digital, however through my experiments I took a more technological path, using a variety of applications. These constructed binaries are engraved into our heads from birth, we learn about opposites in our first years at school. We learn yes and no, right and wrong, black and white, soft and hard, light and dark and so on. However, this leads to issues later on in society, we have such constructed binaries in our world today that it is almost impossible to have a spectrum or anything positioned amongst the two ends. As a society we need to focus on dismantling these binaries to recreate the ‘norm’, as this is ever changing. In this day and time, there are hardly any constants, which is not a bad thing. These binaries which need to be blurred, especially in a post-modern society include gender labels: man and woman, and the constant issue of skin colour: black and white. Thus, art and design have the absolute power to interrogate and push the history of these binaries, and point out these relevant issues in society, which are generally ignored. As my previous works focused on a spectrum rather than a binary opposite, through my experiments, I have focused more closely on blurring these binaries in not only a literal but also a metaphorical sense. I first conducted some research on social binaries, and found that there is a large group of people who feel as though gender binaries specifically should be dismantled. Keeping this in mind, I started my experiments, my first was simple, I took some photographs where I could see a literal and visual representation of the binary black and white. I was shocked as to how many scenes in my daily routine captured this. Without realising it, we are forced to see binaries and associate ‘opposites’ constantly throughout our daily routines. I then worked with these images using photo shop and technology to focus on the black/white binary, and I started to blur these to mix up the colours and not see them as a separate image, rather join them as one. From this, I started looking closely at how I could blend gender binaries and also black and white, I created designs using ‘female shapes’ and ‘male shapes’; triangles and squares. I meshed them together and layered them so to not make out one shape, ultimately blurring them. I started to use another application called processing to create a blurred image with the colours black and white, however this didn’t fit in enough with my theme, so for continuing experiments I joined this design together with my others through layering on photo shop. For my final works, I used the gender male and female signs, and mixed them and layered them on top of each other so to not make them out. The design doesn’t allow you to make out where one starts and ends, joining them together, and ultimately blurring them out. I have created it in a black and white colour scheme also, however using a blurring tool, which alters the colour slightly, to show that it is not just black and white, there is a much larger range within. Thus, my overall concept is focusing on the fact that today in post modernity, society needs to dismantle binary opposites, focus on blurring out titles and accepting people for who and what they are. Furthermore, this highlights how contemporary art and design can interrogate and push the historical meaning of binaries, and ultimately change the way society views such aspects of our world.
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