PROJECT TITLE : ‘Hyperreality’
The term ‘hud sult’, meaning skin hunger in Danish was a starting point for the development of my concept. The dematerialisation of the world around into what Jean Baudrillard would call signs and simulations is leaving our skin hungry for the tangible real world. Questioning what is real in the world around us and playing with the current societal conditions of disenchantment, hyperreality and simulation are the themes of this project. The subjects in my images are caught in a purgatory between a real, tangible world and a digital realm, much like the actual world we find ourselves in now. I believe that we are currently in a state of flux between the digital and real and that the line between what is real/true and what is fiction is rapidly blurring. The book is designed to be a physical display of where we are now, a dramatised, surreal version of the actual world. I believe that society is currently lost in state it doesn’t quite understand with pulls from both the fake, simulated world and from the real, primal, tangible world. As we etch ever closer to the digital encompassing us I don’t believe that we fully understand the implications of what moving in the direction we are moving in will have, which is why I’ve tried to demonstrate that with a digital figure that is taken from reality and put into an infinite, strange and digital space. Some of the images are slightly disturbing and surreal whilst some are soft and gentle, this is representative of the contrast between fear of the future and embracing the future in the modern world. Perhaps we are engaging and living primarily in a simulation or perhaps the world has become so hypernormalised that, although we all know it is fundamentally fake, we continue our lives unfazed and accepting of those lies because we have no alternative. I have been exploring the idea of the world underneath the surface and trying to expose the possible world in which we actually do live beneath the superimposed world we have created for ourselves.
The ‘real’ that is in my pilot project book and that will continue to be in my project next semester, is represented in a few ways; the end result being a physical form, the figures in the images originally coming from reality and the re-photographing of some of the images which leaves traces of both the physical photographic materials such as chemicals and the digital shown in pixels and other digital matter. The human subjects are being taken from reality and scanned into the technology, the figures have been pushed into the digital, changed by it and then pulled back out into the physical tangible realm. My interest lies in the changes that the technology makes when trying to understand the real world and the human body, how it will never be a perfect replica as there is always something missing, strange or more unsettling. This is a similar aesthetic to technological endeavours such as AI and why they feel so queasy to look at and dystopian. The best way to turn all of my theoretical inspirations and ideas into a visual metaphor for this project was to create a purgatory space representative of where I believe we are as a society at the moment.
Next semester I aim to evolve my major project into a larger scale book that is an even more immersive and surreal experience for the viewer. I aim to test various paper types to find something viscerally interesting and to create a longer book with more exploration into the scenery in the purgatory I have made with addition of scanned props and furniture. I will also experiment with the landscape my model is trapped in, such as by using other images of mine as backdrops for the model. By May I will have a printed book of an immersive half digital half tangible world. I aim to explore different binding techniques in order to hand bind my book and print it at university.
This project is aimed at just above my generation and younger as the primary audiences. Acting as a warning sign or reflective opportunity for the generations which are most heavily engaging with the technology and society that is promoting the detachment from the physical world. The disenchantment with the real and move towards a fictitious world is primarily occurring with my generation and younger and therefore I feel it would be most beneficial to this audience. I see this book within an artistic context, shown somewhere such as the Wellcome Gallery as they specialise in technological and medical modern art displays.
PROPOSED FORM, MEDIUM, PRESENTATION :
My proposed presentation of my project is in the form of a photo book which will be roughly A4 sized, possibly slightly more square shaped. The book will not have a specific linear narrative, however the ‘story’ of the figure/figures being pushed into purgatory will be demonstrated in a more free, fluid overview of the digital space. Extreme cropping of specific images will be blown up to fill full pages, sometimes double spreads. This is so the details of the photographic elements combined with the digital pixels which are both present can be recognised, making the process the images have been through clearer and emphasised. A tension between the digital and the photographic will be present throughout the book, such as having images fall into the books binding/creases will demonstrate a tension in the physicality of the pages. The combination of digital screenshots and images taken on film will also provide a mixture of both the highly real and the highly digital. In the final piece I think all images will be printed digitally whether they were made in the darkroom or on the screen as I want to use specific tactile paper for the images to be printed on.
