The way of working with graphic design and dance seems opposed to each
other; in the case of graphic design you organise a given content and create a
visual communication for the content, within the discipline of dance you
physically train and work towards a choreography. Where these two meet is
in their construction and in their presentation of the visual. In the discipline of
dance we call this performance, in graphic design we call it visual
communication.
After quitting dance and starting to design I started to think about
self-design as a way to perform the 'self’. There are many different ways
of performing and there are many different platforms to perform on.
We can perform through choreography in theatre but also through the
presentation of 'self’ in public and social spheres.
During my bachelor I analyzed many celebrity identities. I look at celebrities
as an enlarged example of us, mortals, in which mechanisms and
strategies of self-presentation are exposed on a bigger scale. I was interested
in the division between the private and the public professional
persona and the aesthetics and strategies used to presume authenticity
in their artistic alter-ego.
This carefully constructed public identity of the celebrity functions
as a presentation model, their segregative design, presented through
a multiplicity of presentation channels. Some situations orchestrated
for the construction, production and publicity of images. And others,
like the paparazzi, attempt to break this carefully controlled facade and
seek to show what is hiding behind the surface. The “real”, the “truth”
of it all, the un-camouflaged, un-aestheticized and undesigned reality.
When we think about celebrities, what is the relationship between form
and content? And when do people become form?
As an artist in contemporary times we are invited to deal with similar
aspects of self-presentation, we are no longer deemed to function solely as
an authentic producer of art but are invited to take part in these
very same structures of calculated visibility. What does this mean for
the relationship between art and artist?
The past year I have been working on the overlapping aspects between
the person as a presentation model for the self and the exhibition space
as a presentation model for art.
Dualities such as authentic and constructed, private and public, autonomous art
and applied design are among my main fascinations.
Details, I know its not for everyone.
