Process + Methodology

from Material Aesthetic of Self Presentation

Conclusion

Questioning through Design

Through my journey in this thesis, I began to question how appearance can interfere and intervene in human life. While reading and researching about the topic, I started asking through making. The questions were broader and helped me develop a visual language for my thesis. The visuals primarily depict the research ideology rather than solving or finding answers.

Can physical presentation affect the hierarchy of power?

This Visual is an exploration of how people can be treated equally based on their physical appearance. It made me think, what happens if everyone wears the same clothes? Will equality be achieved from it?. If we look at the concept of equality through appearance, it can be observed through uniforms in school. Even though uniforms are created to create equality, many people over time transform a small part of it: through body language or a pin, or maybe they wear it to make their own. It may not be expressive as ordinary clothes, but it has the potential to make it it’s own.

How can the symbolic cultural presentation affect our visual identity?

History and culture are an essential and inevitable part of the human race. With the evolution of humans from the stone age, medieval times, and modern-day, our physical appearance has been changing and evolving. Diversity in culture, geography and religious beliefs have a prominent impact on our visual appearance. Does that diversity in appearance have an impact on our self-presentation?

If we look at native groups, it might not have a great impact. For example, wearing indian clothes in India would seem completely normal. Still, if we take the same person with the same clothes to another geographical location like the USA, it would impact a person’s selfpresentation.

In this visual exploration, the first row of elements depicts the culture. The second row represents a person moving away from it, and the third row describes the newly formed identity that they adapt in the new location. This phenomenon is highly based on contextual reaction and perception of past and current surroundings.

How does surrounding reflect our selfpresentation?

The surrounding here means the social group a person has, whether it is their family, friends, or co-workers. Self Image arises from how you see yourself as well as how the people around you see you. Other people’s validation or acceptance can play a key role in the perception of self. I have used a mirror as a metaphor for self-image and shot it in three different surroundings in this exploration. The movement on hand depicts how people in that surrounding play a role in understanding one’s self-image. I imagined this as a video piece in the museum with three channels. These visuals’ black and white nature aims to bring please closer to the display as it defamiliarizes the actual surrounding.

Self- Presentation Probe

This project began with the curiosity of how material choices inform an individual’s personality without discerning the physical body. Here, Material choices can be varied from the clothes or accessories you wear to physical things that you carry, including phone, laptop, sketchbook, etc. For this experiment, I asked a set of users to send me images of 3 things they think are their material extension or what they want another person to notice at their first glance? I also asked them why do they like that object or what makes it stand out from others.

This collection of photos from users varied from clothes, rings, shoes, laptops, purses, and sunglasses. I took these images, formed a collage of images, sent it to a different set of users, and asked them to write 1-2 line interpretation/ assumption about the person from the given photos.

They think about their material choices:

My laptop is my doorway to the world, specially in these times. It is also my digital workspace where i create most of my artworks and earn my bread through.

My headphones are my mood control device, i can regulate my mood and focus through the music i put on them, they can pull me into a peaceful secluded mindspace whenever i need.

My dunks are my charm of funk. No matter if there a bit older and tattered, that makes them just as much a femilier and integrated part of me, giving me that extra confidence and feeling of standing on familiar terrain no matter what environment im in.

Other people’s perception:

He is a tech savvy person, who loves to listen to rock music. Would call himself an audiophile. He also likes to exercise on a semi-regular basis.

They think about their material choices:

Shoes because they bring highlight to the whole outfit, even with the most simplest of clothes.

A pair of dark sunglasses because when people can’t see your eyes, they get intimidated. Also they look good, RayBans for the win!

Solid and simple tshirts, bring out the simplicity and minimalist approach.

Other people’s perception:

The rectangle lines in the middle suggest that this is a guy. He wears Levi’s T-shirt, dark pants, white sneakers and a pair of sunglasses. He seems like a person that goes with a very basic clothing style. It is neither trendy nor unstylish. He likes to drink ice coffee (or tea?) and documents his life with photos which makes him someone who cares about lifestyle or at least cares about showing other people his life. There is an illustration on the left. He might be an illustrator who likes to draw portrait. The colors in these photos are warm and easy to understand so he seems to be a straightforward person.

They think about their material choices:

I feel it adds beauty to my personality. The cuter the earrings the kinder I look My hand bag if I carry. It makes me look a little smart because I am carrying it for utility and purpose Cause of it’s simple look My dress the day I wear one cause I don’t regularly wear them so if I wear them it’s a special day for me or my mood. And it enhances and expresses it.

Other people’s perception:

I feel like this person is very clean/organized in their personal space. I would assume that this person probably identifies as a woman. I would assume them to talk/walk/move rather slowly.

After collecting back and comparing all data, I noticed that some of the second set of user assumptions’ were quite apt regarding the person. I could come to this conclusion as I collected data from people I know or have interacted with in the past. This design probe’s results were quite surprising as many people rightly interpreted people’s personalities from images. Many common assumptions came from pictures of a laptop making a person more tech-savvy, or sports shoes stated they would be athletic during the process. The composition and environment of images played a slight role for other people to form an assumption.

Our material possessions have some power to tell a visual story of ourselves. It speaks to the observer before we can. Self-presentation is nearly a design medium, like a poster or brochures that tell a story, but here the story is of ourselves or how we want to be seen in the world.

Inside of the Outside

I further explored the idea of “what is inside of an outside? “ In the process, my topic evolved from the outside and inside of a home to what is outside of our physical body and inside of it. This project was a quest to look for the potential answer: what is inside? When does it end? How does our inside affect our outside? I started thinking about human nature and how we have different personality layers that we show to different people.

I took that idea and used various materials to explore it visually. My project then started with a white box and multilayer installation made from plastic, cloth, felt, clay, paper, and foam sheet. These materials were mostly chosen because of availability and explored various forms to have an element of surprise as we go through them. These layers of material depict different layers of self. It explores different geographical, cultural, and religious layers that one had adapted over time from their surroundings and how those layers manifest our identity.

When somebody observes a person for the first time, they see the outer layer, which is our clothes, accessories, and the body itself. Then they perceive the nuances from the outer layer and make assumptions of who the person’s inside. As they begin to talk and share more stories about themself these layers keep opening up. The inside is not a treasure chest that, once open, we get to see everything. It is more than that; it has layers in it like a never-ending game, a level up as we solve one. We shed our layers in front of people as we know them more. Even when we show our full selves to someone, there is something which is only yours on the inside.

For the final presentation, I took a video of the performance of opening the layers, which ended at a white cube, which was looped over to the first frame as I believe that the inside is a never-ending quest. The inside is knowingly or unknowingly formed by how the person belongs in their social environment. The layers keep up building with the growing or changing pace of their surroundings and keep reflecting in their various visual or mental personas.

The Dark Room

This project is formed by the approach of creating a hypothetical spatial experience. It is designed to amplify the conversation about self-presentations and different personas that we put on around other people. It creates possibilities for emotional resonance.

Space itself is an enormous dark room where you can’t see yourself but is designed to intervene in your thoughts about appearance. It is an abstract and immersive space that invites users to enter a different world and headspace. It makes users think, question, and reevaluate their opinion about how visual appearance plays a role in physical interactions. It allows the participant to look beyond a physical self on themself or others.

In The Dark Room, there are streaks of light that will help you navigate the space. The visuals in the room are formed by partial words, questions, and concepts would float disembodied in the air as one moved around. These visuals can guide the participant’s thoughts. The floating words consist of question like “Does appearance matter?”, “What defines you?”, “Material extension” and so on. These visuals will be projected from the ceiling of the space and keep changing as one moves in the space. To amplify the visuals, they are accompanied by voices that will overlap, get louder, become a whisper, only be one person speaking, or many. The sounds are a mixture of questions and personal stories.

The questions in sound amplify the concept of floating visuals. Some of those voices are:

“What do you want people to think about you at first glance?” “Do your material possessions define you?”

“How many personas do I have?”.

The Personal stories in sound are collected from participants at the end of the experience in a phone booth area. This area has a phone booth where participants can share their stories, thoughts, and concepts during the process. It is an anonymous recording that will be guiding sound for other participants.