Looking back at all the works I did in Unit 2, I have realized that my work has gradually shift from investigating the idea of random into the topic of consumption and capitalism. I started with pixelating a photo and randomly rearranging each pixel within the artboard to investigate the meaning of random. Then after reading what Hito Steyerl wrote in the article “In Defense of the Poor Image”, where she explored the value of art, and concluded that manipulating iconic images through digital formats devalued them, and in turn affected how people perceived the works, I shift my focus into pixelating some of the most expensive paintings in the world and investigate the value of art. However, when I recreate that art piece into pixels and eliminate the details of the painting, the image is still in focus, but that decomposition process causes the painting to lower in value. Picasso’s paintings are worth millions of dollars, both because of the history, and the technique he used. Therefore, when I recreate these famous paintings through resolution pixel manipulation on a digital platform, the image might be the same, but people now see it as a poor image, and the value of the piece shifts.
This project intrigues me to investigating the topic of consumerism and consumption. Consumerism is a facade that tries to present economic prosperity while masking uncontrolled lending, and outflow of financial capital. In reality, people are the primary productive force, and their desire is the driving force. Artists and designers across every industry are committed to making attractive offers that make it extremely easy and convenient for people to spend overdrafts. Technology in digital media has made it fast and easy to reach consumers. Graphic design especially, has become a mind game that influences people’s idea of consumerism. In the end of last semester, my works were focusing on how the internet and big data that absorbs customers’ information, and applies tricks to control consumers behaviors and shopping habits through my video where I layered multiple footages and explored how it is reflecting the current society.
In my most recent work, I took a step back to investigate the meaning of “consumption” and “consumerism” from the consumer’s perspective through visualizing, interviewing, archiving. Apparently, consume means differently to different people. In my interviews with my friends, the most common words they use to describe what consume means to them are stress relief, guilt, impulse, satisfaction. However, we all forget that the most basic consumption is to live and to sustain life. And it seems like we are consuming more than we should. So, what is consume? And why we consume in such manner? In my book “the form of consumption” I articulate the meanings of consume and visualized each of them through collages. I also explore the pictogram Chinese characters in the middle of my studies this semester so I incorporate this idea in the book, by placing the Chinese characters on the side of the collages, I also wanted to investigate how the pictogram characters would tell the story of consumption for none Chinese speakers. David Graeber’s study of consumption share the same idea as mine which he believed that the chase of material goods has overtaken all other parts of social life, trapping people on a quest of desire that seeks to fulfill human vanity. However, he also investigated the merchant side of consumerism that helps the society to grow which is a new path that I can explore in my future studies. Now that I’m asking myself: Is consumption good or bad? What consumerism indicates about our attitudes toward ownership, desire, and social connections? How much consumption is too much, are we greedy for consuming too much, or should we consume as much as we can?