Luke Edwardson

I really appreciated how Zain managed to create a though provoking piece and engaged with the process. The focus on “Islamophobia, specifically how media outlets spread Islamophobia rhetoric and how they have the ability to influence public opinion and create misconceptions” is an important topic that is in need of exposure. The sensitive, intelligent and confrontational tones created a dynamic that is both challenging and emotive while adding exposure to an issue that is known but rarely talked about in mainstream media, especially from a progressive perspective. I particularly liked when the intensity associated with media cuts out to a more emotive and slow moment that allows you to catch the depth of the issue from a very personal perspective. The music cuts out to an interview of a female presenting person saying “I have to deal with this… for the rest of my life”. This really hits home on the gravity of the situation as it is not a personal issue that con be resolved short term. It is a societal issue, that is oppressive and dehumanising, taking away the right to identity in agency replaced by a lifetime of prejudice. I think this does an amazing job of connecting with the viewer, of any religion, to expose the dangers of prejudice. The juxtaposition of the tempo, fast music when the video is showing clips about the media against the slow music in the personal moments, is extremely effective. The fast tempo creates a chaotic and almost distressing narrative that reflects the trauma of having a narrative devised around you for the rest of your life. Whereas the slow tempo creates a human moment that encourages us to empathise. Ending the video on with the words “in the end deep down we are all the same” summarised the message of the video very accessibly and concludes the video with a statement for people to think about. For me, this project was all about humanising people, looking past stereotypes to see a person for the value of their character. With modern day society we are surrounded by so much propaganda and social media that we forget to value people for who they are and not what they are.

Zain has created a sophisticated piece that connects the audience with a critical issue in a sensitive and sophisticated way. The ability to progress the idea but change the approach, due to the pandemic, and create a trailer that Zain is still proud of shows great resilience, taking advantage of a bad situation and using it to develop a useful skillset in video editing.

During my critical design studies I decide to focus on looking at how popular culture relies on microaggressions to reinforce a consensus on beauty. A micro aggression is an indirect form of discrimination against a minority that upholds a popular consensus by reinforcing a popular consensus and results in a systematic imbalance of power. An example would be “You look handsome for a gay guy”. This a microaggression is an aggressive statement that is disguised as a compliment. It implies that it is uncommon for a gay man to be attractive and encourages a power bias for heteronormative beliefs by reducing the subject to their sexuality. Despite any intent of the compliment it develops an institutionalised and prejudice thought process. Microaggressions are the extremely regressive as they are hard to challenge as they are passive and systematic. Exposure is vital to confront a microaggression. My project is specifically critiquing the use of photoshop as an aggressive social function. The manifest function, the expected and observed consequence, of photoshop is to change the model’s face to look more presentable, creating the “best” result. However, the latent function, the consequence that is subliminal and implicit, produces imagery with a Western power bias that homogenous the cultural depth of beauty and is validated by a popular consensus when the final image, the “best” result, is presented as truth. We believe the “best” result to be an ideal to aim for and replicate. When this happens, we validate the biases behind the retouching and reinforce a systematic and standardised approach to beauty.

In order to change the fashion system to use fashion to create better lives for the general public it is important that photoshop is continuously exposed and recognised as a microaggression. By accepting the reinforced ideal of perfection, we create a systematic oppression. As we understand social biases better and recognise the biases that photoshop represents on a personal and social level we are open to challenging them. As fashion follows the same cycles as capitalism, where there is demand there is opportunity. society develops a conscious understanding of misrepresentation of beauty we empower realistic ideals by creating a demand for it within the fashion system.

For my project, I wanted to create an emotional and intense connection with the model as you watch her go through the photoshop process. Hearing her breath, her mistakes and unfiltered thoughts creates an honest atmosphere that directly juxtaposes the microaggression that is photoshop. The more of an emotional connection I can establish with the viewer the more impact I have and therefore the more impact the video has. This project was aimed at a wide and general audience of mature and critical adults and vulnerable young adults and teens. They will all have felt the impact of not being able to conform to a ridiculously narrow beauty standard and can empathises with the message. Overall, this critical design unit has really developed my ability to integrate social issues into my work by presenting a solution. As well as taught me new skills in adobe premiere.

Better Lives

What is individuality within a society conditioned by popular consensus. While fashion has become a more diverse scene the prominence of a hierarchy that brainwashes through social conditioning is more powerful and more relevant than ever. In western culture, we are constantly subjected to the ideas of others and appropriating them as our own, from social media influencers to artists. Social media makes it easier to stereotype an idea into a commercial product, we feel the need to conform to this and validate our own insecurities. Ideas have become a source of currency and the value attached to that currency is the success defined by social media recognition, in terms or likes views and shares. Never has the adage “any publicity is good publicity” been so apt. Social media encourages us to value a social hierarchy by manipulating our anxiety attached to media recognition in apps like Instagram. Entire departments of social media brands are devoted to finding ways to increase our spending times within each app while competing with other big media to monopolise our free time. The biproduct of competitive businesses manipulating our anxiety to create a dependency on social media is the reinforcement of a superficial need to adhere to out our own popular consensus. By enabling large platforms to tell people what to think, we respond in the same way act in the same way. Similar to how a person can find comfort in being told what to do, we can find comfort in being told what to do and how to act. The more common what were told to do is, the more we feel it is correct and the more comfortable we feel. Fashion through social media, creates faster trends, faster fashion and faster styles. Recycled and reused ideas. By adhering to popular fashion the more comfortable we feel. This is where my personal problem with fashion in the age of social media occurs. We create an equal platform that allows for universal expression and criticism. However, we validate expression by recycling it and killing the individuality that made it important and human. While rejecting critique of popular consensus because it challenges our comfort, within a conditioned society that relies on social media for both anxiety and comfort, social medial becomes a comfort zone and addiction at the same time. To fully appreciate the boundaries of individuality in fashion we would have to reject our own addiction and accept critique. Which will never be as appealing as aiming for validation and the temptation of manipulating the power of a popular consensus. It is human nature to conform, to conform to a popular consensus, to fit in.

Is it possible to define the success of a piece of art without the need for a popular consensus?

In our Better lives lecture on culture we discussed the impact of fashion on a human scale, the impacts on sustainability, culture and society.

For me the fundamental take away from this project wasn’t the criticism of fashion as a system but the people that support and sustain the system. Not to criticise what we want to see change but why we aren’t seeing the change we want within fashion at the pace or standard society wants when we have a progressive platform, even from a cynical perspective, would be easy to commercialise.

Commercialism prioritises capital over humanity and is one of the flaws within a modern society that thrives off advertising and consumerism. Commercial fashion provides jobs and is the main source of opportunities to get paid for many photographers. Changing a system that holds capital over the people that support it is more than just about good lectures and encouragement as it is often easier to stay the same and accept consequences than to enact change. Moreover, is it morally right to ask people to give up their jobs, reduce their income or reject opportunities for another person? It’s human nature to follow the path of least resistance. How are you going to get thousands of students to take the harder path to create a progressive industry?

As fashion students many of us are inherently the children of commercialism, we represent society as a hierarchy founded upon consumerism and capitalism. Our focuses are following, reputation and appearance. Fashion plays with the anxiety of not being good enough. The anxiety creates an addiction and obsession, that has a similar mental impact to an abusive relationship. As long as we associate fashion with anxiety, we will depend on it and return to it, because we want to reclaim a part of our individuality, we subconsciously feel fashion has corrupted. Social media has furthered this impact as it creates a sense of competitive validation, that your worth is defined by likes and your place in the hierarchy of human worth is quantifiable. As a student, as a photographer and as a person we do not want to give up these positions of power within a social hierarchy, so we compete. Our human attachment to power, money and reputation has been exaggerated by commercialism and social media, which has consequently corrupted fashion as a system and a community.

For this “Better Lives” project I want to look at how to progress effectively and not use progress as a commercial aspect within an advertisement. Starting with the critique of teaching fashion students a new set of morals, as well as encouraging commercial fashion by accepting students into the system that prioritise the social hierarchy in fashion. To what extent is it possible to create progressive fashion ideas and also have a sustainable living income that encourages photographers and artists to think naturally about creating better lives. Or is it that society is too wrapped up in our own anxiety of self-image to want to appreciate anything other than fantasy of perfection?