This was my first time presenting a fully theoretical outcome to people who had no prior awareness of my practice. I attempted to use visuals and paint a picture of my work up until this point, then I ended with a chapter breakdown.
Further below is my rough script I followed.
I didn’t really get that much feedback, however the actual process of constructing and communicating my presentation helped in itself.
Hi, so my working title is Digital Materiality and the performance of a Phygital Self. This is a theoretical outcome with a practice-based research area.
I want to begin with my research question which is currently “How are Gen Z performing Self through smartphone facilitated Phygital experiences?”
Just to break that down a bit, first looking at the Phygital Experiences aspect, where I am referencing specific instances of using digital media, where the lines of existing virtually and physically are blurred. For example; when we are engaging with AR facial filters, our virtual self is both mirroring our physical self and simultaneously being visually altered. Instances like these interest me.
So now looking at Self, I am focusing on exploring digital iterations of self, which are a dimension of our own being. Particularly multiple iterations and projections of self as the human condition is subject to constant change.
In order to make the project more succinct I am specifically focusing on analysis of Gen Z as I am using the current emerging demographic to theorise on a future one. Gen Z are also the predominant users of the media platforms I am analysing and they also engage with the phygital actions I mentioned earlier.
These platforms and these actions are where the idea of performativity comes into play, with screen acting as stage.
In terms of a critical framework and contextual understanding, I am focusing on the Material Turn which, in really basic terms, is a philosophical movement dealing with objects themselves having meaning. The object I am focusing on is the smartphone and the material within it, which I view as a technological extension of the self.In a bit more detail, The Material Turn reopens highly relevant issues for the study of fashion. It links practice-based methodologies, embodiment and experience – which are all key themes within fashion as well as my personal practice. Another key area this explores, is our agency which takes place through material things and objects – such as clothes, and in the case of this study – a smartphone. This is a small extract which briefly addresses the purpose, aims and objectives of the study
My Scope of Research is a Mixed Methodology, which includes a literature review, and phenomenology-based ethnography as well as the practical aspects I mentioned earlier. The ethnography overlaps slightly with my practice, which is to do with my active observations and then further engagement with these practices, ie constructing and posting images and videos of myself and utilising beauty filters etc.
A lot of my initial practice-based research involved a wider range of themes (for example I explored ways of production by filming images loaded onto screens to employ movement and layer iterations of self.) seen here
I also collaborated with a Berlin based sound brand called Playtronica, using their device called Touch Me,‘the future of touch’ which when used, can turn touch into sound and the body into an instrument.
I studied Affect theory with regards to emotions and subjectively experienced feelings, where a piece of digital content affects the viewer physically – this aligned with the idea of physical touch juxtaposed with virtual space. The work here uses that device to create a soundscape based on still life imagery and giving agency to the object – which links back to materiality.
I built a digital avatar of myself using The Fabricant’s virtual scanning technology, the fabricant is a digital dress site – this led to thoughts surrounding dress and materiality and a sub research question of whether virtual material constitutes as dress (this is revisited later on in my thesis).
The Practice based research that I am taking forward, is to do specifically with the mobile phone and the technology within, in order to ensure the study is succinct enough. This is me actively engaging with filters and the media platforms, almost a method of auto-ethnography. I became interested in things like the filters coming off and glitching, so was documenting some of these times – I found the buoyancy between filtered and unfiltered interesting, as my work explores overcoming binary fixed categories and dualism.
I also began to contemplate the time involved in traditional dress. By investing time in an adornment ritual, you are directly showing the value it holds, so the fact that AR filters are instantaneous and require very little investment of time seemingly suggested an increasing amount of freedom and fluidity.This is the actual posting onto the media platforms, here I began thinking about atemporality etc. For, once published, a post remains anchored in its position in the reverse chronological order of a profile. The atemporal conscious present of a profile links back to my exploration of multiple iterations of self, as they are always there in many varieties.
If you look again at my methodology and the main components of my literature review, I am interested in drawing theories from established thinkers and re-applying them to current digital media and user behaviours. I have examined the works of Donna Haraway and her theory of the cyborg, and I considered Judith Butler and her theory of performativity in terms of a gendered identity ‘constantly made and re-made through daily acts of repetition’.
Currently, I’m looking at the sociologists Simmel and Goffman, as my writing has become tightly focused on overcoming dualism as mentioned before. Also, the idea of performativity is even more relevant in terms of social media.
Simmel’s theorizing of everyday life was informed by dualism and helps us understand the logic of fashion, as once fuelled by the desire to be like someone else, but also different from someone else or, as Agnes Rocamora said, ‘fashion is as much about sameness as it is about difference.’
This is a really good way of articulating the buoyancy between these dualisms that this study explores eg Virtual vs Physical, Fantasy vs Reality, Human vs Cyborg etc. So with these texts in mind, I conducted my interviews and found relevancy in the lived experience of the users of these spaces. This is just a brief Chapter breakdown of my thesis, which is approximately 17000 words.