I feel like I’ve made big progress throughout the four weeks of the project. Starting as a semi-random collection of items, it narrowed down to the aspect of athletics and self-care in times of isolation.
The systematization and cataloging were rather easy since all the items were somehow connected to the subject of fitness and make-shift gym. The visual narrative underwent some serious iterations.
I felt like I had to keep pushing myself beyond the usual boundaries of visual delivery. It was a challenge to deconstruct and twist the usual perception of familiar objects.
The fringe idea of a video delivery was too far fetched in terms of technical abilities but remained in my mind.
Influenced by the Videodrome (1983) movie, I connected the fact that this new reality eventually becomes translated through screens. We connect via zoom and other digital platforms where our physical work becomes homogenized in the united digital substance. What’s on the screen becomes real and what’s real becomes the screen. Here is the link to the outcome.
Hello Alena. Really interesting path you took. I feel like having weekly task allowed you to challenge yourself more and more every time. There is a consistency in the work, the content, the approach, but a clear evolution of the aesthetic, that I enjoy. From something simple and refined, almost editorial style, to this final outcome, with the sharp red lighting and the play around vintage elements like the old camera frame or the TV texture.
The website is really nice and functional. I like that you didn’t choose to present a single thing (could have been just the video), but arranged all your work into a page, reusing elements from previous weeks.
I love the collages with several pictures of you: you can really feel movement and effort in them.
Nice fonts you used as well, I’m wondering why you kept some of the text (the properties of the objects, for instance), in a more classical one? For reading purposes?
I think this very text could also enjoy a little bit of white frame, so it doesn’t touch the borders of the pictures – unless you did it on purpose.
Anyway, really good work!
Hey Lili, thank you for the feedback! The text behind the object is the same type I used in the description. I re-edited it though, with using bold for highlighting the categories. It looks more readable now!
Alena!
Isolectics! A great title! Your final outcome has consolidated, converged and synthesized the ideas and approaches that you have explored through the project. The use of ReadyMag is an appropriate format that suits the content; elements of moving image, interaction, collage and text. It appears that you have pushed yourself beyond the format of the publications you explored in the previous weeks, which is great and has yielded exciting results.
Your reflection and observation is insightful — how our world, reality and contact has, in lockdown, been mediated via the screen > Zoom, Instagram and the plethora of digital platforms have become how we interface or interact with the world — it is interesting that you have used an old television to locate the work, could a laptop or smartphone have been used? That said the aesthetic of the retro television set aligns to your Videodrome reference… One other thought I had was the images; the red overlay communicates an almost night vision military aesthetic, which at times obscures the content (when you talk about the colour of the trainer, the actual colour is not visible.) The image compression is exciting though as it feels very raw and locates it back to the screen.
Exciting work Alena!
Now the Internet is so developed that the whole world is connected by the Internet. In ancient times people communicated by carving letters into objects; And then communication through letters and now communication through the Internet, which is a really amazing and interesting development; I think we can continue to fantasize about how people will communicate in the future