John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapter 7
“ It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in someway richer even though we will be poor by having spent our money.”
“ The spectator buyer is meant to envy her self as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, and envy which will then justify her loving herself”
I hate capitalism. I don’t know who doesn’t, maybe people with money. I hate that we’re raised into a society with the need to buy and sell and profit and yearn for materials. I’m vulnerable to it myself, if I see a cute thing, I want it. I used to think if I bought straighteners and foundation and tons of things to alter my appearance I’d be happier. I wasn’t. My mother is the same. She isn’t happy. It doesn’t change anything for me unless it’s practical. But I’ve realized over time, especially in my family, materials matter a lot more to them. Money has always been a struggle. While I worry about basic necessities, they continue to worry about value of product. My father won a lawsuit for an injury, got some money and got a better car for himself. He asked me his opinion on it and I just.. see a car? No context. I asked if it was a generally better car and shrugged and said it’s nice. He was looking for me to compliment it for visual aesthetics I guess and my mother and him got mad at me because I wasn’t fully invested. They took it as a personal insult. I don’t care about the look of the car if it’s going to be as bad as the last one. Even then, why ask my opinion? Because it seems to be about presentation. I watch a lot of videos and read up a lot on consumerism and especially about how poor people who are more vulnerable to buying designers brands because it makes them appear to have more money than they actually do. The 1%, for example does not have to dress rich and flashy for them to be rich. The feeling of looking like you’re in a better situation than you’re actually in is likely comforting but especially with these designer brands, brand loyalty is rewarded after spending thousands of dollars on product, meanwhile they slash their own products so dumpster-divers can’t get to them. The supposed scarcity of the product is manufactured and false. The image of the product becomes itself a social construct. Not to go off onto a tangent I just feel like this sort of perspective in our interactions with consumerism, capitalism, and presentation of our socioeconomic class is very interesting and sad. At the same time we are all vulnerable to it under this system.
Nicholas Mirzoeff, How to See the World, Chapter 5
“For Valla, we are already in the matrix. Google Earth does not look like Earth but resembles other digital materials. Because we spend so much of our lives looking at these materials, it becomes real”.
I’ve never directly thought about Google Earth this way so this part interested me. Maps, location, and digital portrayal of space interest me because sometimes I look at the space around me and think of locations in connection to one another and it’s simply strange to me. Locations feel so far yet locating them on a map or seeing them from above and viewing it from a different perspective helps me to rationally see space and connection. I don't know why it’s so weird to me but it is. Also, slightly unrelated but this reminded me; I recall randomly looking up my address one day in street view and seeing a still image of my mother and I walking down the street from our house. It’s strange to think that’s still there when I look it up, and that a camera of some sort had been surveying and recording the area.
As someone who has little connection to my background, I struggled with this one. I thought of this project as a sort of challenge to relate to more of a mental space or subculture. I do not have much of a connection to my Cuban or Italian background, as my parents aren’t very into it anymore considering most of my extended family has passed. At the same time, I feel a disconnect to my own town and neighborhood because I relate a lot of it to trauma.
Instead of a culture from my background, for one, I chose to portray my connection to people online I’ve met through internet subcultures from adolescence into adulthood. While I do have negative experiences online in the past, I’ve found a lot of fandom subcultures have influenced my art, friendships, and myself over time. From cosplay to online art communities, I’ve made connections that have made me grow as a person. I portrayed those friendships through the aesthetic of maps in combination from Chile, to Florida, to New York. Each spot is meant to represent close friendships I’ve made from online subcultures such as the art community or (prepare for cringe) even something as silly as the Five Nights at Freddy’s fandom. I found these people, many of whom live nowhere near me, online and have kept communication for years simply because of shared interests and fixations. I feel my interests and history of fandom culture have become a big part of my identity because it’s influenced how I consume and think about media, and fans of media. I didn’t want to just make a collage of literal pictures from each type of fandom so instead I strung associated maps and countries which I associate with them due to the connections I’ve made. My community may be digital but it’s real nonetheless.
For the other, because I feel neither of these are strong enough to stand alone, I tried a different approach inspired by Wendy Red Star. For that one I used a photo of when I went to Comic-Con, because that’s one of the days I felt most unmasked and less judged. Considering most people go to conventions in cosplay or whacky outfits, I felt more comfortable to dress however I want without people staring at me like they do when I wear what I like normally. I use visual identity in relation to my aesthetics of childhood, as alot of the accessories and aesthetics I like now are nostalgic for me. I don’t remember much of my childhood anymore, and I know most of it I felt self conscious and judged, so some days I try to go to safe spaces where I can sort of reimagine the aesthetics of childhood in a way I can express presently. Hopefully it doesn’t come off as an appropriation, I was just interested in replicating the note-like style of writing on the cultural artifacts Wendy Red Star annotated.
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| Pink Lines |
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