The final group crit was useful, I used it to communicate my specific ideas in relation to new materialism in context of dress. I tried to specifically give exercises and examples which would engage the group as I’m aware that with my theoretical outcome, it can seem like a lot of droning words. I have grown really comfortable presenting my ideas and would love to do this further as a lecturer.
- I’ve spoken a lot about my theoretical motivations and secondary research during the previous group tutorials, as well as in the presentation to first years, so for our final presentation, I wanted to give you a kind on brief phygital representation of my thesis, focusing on the primary research aspect of my methodology and what it all means.
- So, as you know, my working title is Digital Materiality and the Phygital Self: How are Gen Z performing Self through Smartphone facilitated Phygital Experiences? A brief synopsis is that from a sociocultural stance, this study explores the fluency between virtual and physical space and how this relates to the performed Self. In addition to this, new definitions of dress are established, with a particular focus on technological extensions of self and our evolving social space which, in contemporary life, exists across physical and digital dimensions.
- This is a brief overview of my project, showing how I’ve broken it down for my essay and also how all the concepts are interlinked. I would like to demonstrate how they are interlinked and cyclical – with reference to my definition of phygital experiences.
- Even when reading a physical book on paper, you are actively engaging with the book as you read it, participating in the meaning it creates, likewise when you engage with a phone or computer. So now I ask what would these words say to you were you not hearing my voice speak them? If we were not engaging in an online group crit, how would they materialise as something different? To those of you viewing my presentation, my digital self and the contents of this presentation are perceived by you. You can physically control the digital me (alter my volume, minimize me, drag windows in front of what I am presenting, or completely shut me down etcetera) however I will remain here as I am presenting in these realms. This demonstrates how, the author/creator/presenter, me in this case, is not in full control of the meaning they are communicating. Your role as readers and viewers experiencing this presentation and the context in which it is experienced demonstrates how meaning is in flux and technology extends meaning across realms in a fluid manner.
- So, with this little anecdote in mind, my study proposes that Instead of thinking “about media”, we must think in media. We as members of contemporary society, are always in the middle, mediated, unable to fully grasp the trajectory in which we are engaged because we can’t step outside of material reality and take a view detached from our daily lives – this is phygital.
- Understandably, the fields of dress, self and media require a range of theoretical perspectives in order to analyse their multiple facets. Thus, my mixed methodological approach to this study is an intent to address both individual lived experience and macro societal behaviours. The methodology is therefore roughly split into three definable sections; ethnographic observations, embodied practice-based research and phenomenological analysis.
- My ethnographic observations have been spoken about and you’re all aware of them, likewise the theorists I mention (I draw from Goffman’s theory of the presentation of self in everyday life, where he argues that there is no fixed self, only constant performances where meaning is in flux, Eicher’s classification of dress which defines dress as any alteration or addition of the body and Simmel’s theories regarding fashion in society claiming that people want to conform as well as stand out). The phenomenology aspect has also been spoken about frequently, through the conducting of interviews with Gen Z participants.
- I’m now going to briefly demonstrate through snippets of my practice-based research (which I’m calling embodied practice) how I’ve attempted to experience the phygital and performed self myself. The concept of performativity is a key theme, drawing reference from and applying to the process of dress, adornment and beautification, which align with the Phygital experiences mentioned earlier.
- Schechner notes of the anthropological foundation of performance studies that ‘the relationship between studying performance and doing performance is integral’. Utilising the specific aspects of the media I am examining (digital self-portraits, augmented reality filters and external editing apps) I experimented with dressing myself using these technologies.
- Building on Eicher’s classification of dress outlined at the beginning of the thesis, selfies and their practice are considered a type of digital adornment involving staging, angles, lighting, editing, posting and captioning. To acknowledge this is to accept that the narrative which has been created is fine-tuned and the specific techniques which are employed are performative.
- Judith Butler’s theory of performativity in terms of an identity which is instituted through a stylised repetition of daily acts and gestures, is highly comparable to the repeated gestures involved in selfie taking and posting, as well as engagement with augmented reality filters.
- Not only do filters and self-editing processes function as a cyclical collaboration between performer and observer, these two modes operate within a continuous cycle – referring back to the phygital experiment I asked you to think about earlier.
- Inspired by Andy Warhol’s screen tests, which served as types of moving portraiture, I created a contemporary version as a piece of embodied practice, utilising my smartphone and Instagram filters.
- To conclude, human bodies are dressed bodies, and I encourage you to consider dress beyond its physicality, thinking of it more as a process inherently linked to the body. As my study argues, self is performative, and dress is both social and personal. Not exclusively to do with physical materiality, rather as technology and social structures evolve, the phygital materiality.