Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity
Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity

Theme

Play and self.

More specifically, it requires us to explore an unusual direction of identity or self representation. In my work, I reviewed myself from memory. I believe my memory and my experience shaped my personality and identity. Thus, I chose to use photos as a medium to convey my selfhood.

Context

The work I produced this week is started from thinking the connection between self and portrait. Instead of the outside of myself, I focused on the inside – the memory which shapes me and defines who I am. This idea is inspired by the concept of surreal photography. Surreal photography is a kind of art work which can share your vision of world or imagination to people who don’t see it the way as you (Bowker, 2013). Thus, I decided to create a piece of artwork to share people my vision of myself.

In terms of play, Henricks (2014) stated that play behaviors express the need of understanding the self and self – realization. From the my practice, the satisfaction I felt are from the process of reviewing and expressing myself in another view.

Method

In practice, I picked photos and manipulated them in photoshop. Then they are composited to a surreal portrait. When it is done, those images from different photos and printed as an album. When I received the album, I cut out those photos as I designed. This method has two aspects of play. Designing the album is a process of idealization of myself and crafting the paper cut out portrait is a kind of play like origami.

Reflection

In general, the final result of it is not bad. It kindly achieve the what I planned.

The issues include:

  1. I am not good at cutting paper as I thought. The edges have been really messy. Besides, I cannot cut out all the stroke which is used to identify which part I should cut out.
  2. The material I chose for printing is gloss paper, I expected it will have a better color. Turns out, it largely increased my difficulty to cut.
  3. The thickness of gloss paper is not enough. The shadow between pages I expected is not clear enough.

As refinement, the material should be reconsidered. Something thicker should be used in printing. Also, a perforation cutter should be used. As for the image itself, illustrations of photos should be drawn instead of filters to photos.

References

Bowker, D 2013, Surreal Photography : Creating the Impossible, Ilex Press/ Ivy Press, Lewes. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [27 July 2021].

Henricks, T.S. 2014, "Play as Self-Realization: Toward a General Theory of Play", American Journal of Play, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 190-213.

About This Work

By Xipeng Niu (Xavier)
Email Xipeng Niu (Xavier)
Published On: 28/07/2021