Essay Briefing
In today's lecture, we got handed the second brief of the year which is titled "Imminent Self". It was explained to us that the project should once again allow us to combine research and development to create a contemporary design idea. This project demands that you channel your intellectual and creative skills, through exploration and self-directed progression that demonstrates your ability and independence, as well as in-depth knowledge and understanding of aesthetic, environmental, marketing and technical requirements of design for the creative industries.
In this brief, we were asked to consider yourself in the present, consider perceptions of self in the digital present, explore what the idea of self is and how it disseminates in the current tech-climate. We are required to investigate the brief which has been separated into 3 different sections:
In this brief, we were asked to consider yourself in the present, consider perceptions of self in the digital present, explore what the idea of self is and how it disseminates in the current tech-climate. We are required to investigate the brief which has been separated into 3 different sections:
- Autopoiesis: The self-maintenance of an organised entity through its own internal processes. Consider your Autopoiesis your ‘self-making’ — ‘self-poetry’, your identity and its subsequent interactions with others. What defines you? And how does interaction with others affect that? Redefine the self-portrait, the selfie.
- Sociomaterial: Technologies are sociomaterial assemblages, an ensemble of people, materials, equipment, components, and institutions. The idea is that the technology is not reducible to the social, nor is the sociable reducible to the technical. How does the self — yourself — circulate in the sociomaterial world? Is it circulatory, or rhizomatic?
- Network Ego: Your ego, disseminated through a network – virtual and real. What is being said and what is being hidden as we endlessly curate and control the media perimeters of our lives. How has the acceleration and integration of social media affected the perception of ourselves and our egos?
First ideas of the brief include looking at the pyshcological effect of Social Media and Network Egos. I also think it would be interesting to look into how designers are effected through the use of a digital world, and how their clients, ideas and self-image is conflicted with an overly competitive design world.
