FINAL REFLECTION (Austar Vannak | s3753838)
In this reflective essay, I will be reflecting on the process of the final project work that I produced for assignment four, the film, ‘How Are You?’ whilst also relating to the key concepts that we’ve looked over throughout the course. Moreover, this reflective essay aims to explore and analyse the practices and insight that I’ve gained as completing this course study and relating my understanding to theorist and scholarly readings that were provided throughout the course study.
In my blog posts, I mentioned being first interested and motivated to relate my work to the practice of digital selves or digital aesthetics. However, I encountered that my ideas were much more suited and leaned towards the concept of confessional art. As explained by Fanthome, she stated that “we are able to articulate more comprehensively in revealing the truths and offer a greater understanding if it is shared through the form of confessional art”. (226) Confessedly as one who has a lot on their mind but has a hard time speaking and thinking out loud, I figured it might be best if I took this opportunity to extinguish my thinking engine. Hence, I found it most fitted to utilise the concept of confessional media in sharing a part of me through producing my final project.
Provided that we were given access to various academic readings, I found my practice of understanding to well collaborated through Fanthome (2008), ‘Social semiotics’ reading and the additional recommended readings of Humpheries (2018), ‘The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life’. When addressing the course, autobiographical media to me is a forum where individuals can express themselves in their own distinctive way. For instance, even though we might not be professional artists making or selling works but we are constantly unknowingly expressing and forming our own character in say a movie. Particularly, for this film, I choose to record the snippets of my daily life although this may be banal and mundane but it can never be overlooked. Following this, I also choose to present my work in a 4:5 video ratio instead of the typical 16:9 video ratio. This is because I wanted to bring out a nostalgic feeling that you would have back in the days of entertaining our childhood selves through a 4:3 square format rather than the 16:9 rectangle view that we have today. Likewise, rather than recording the archives through the sharp image of my DLSR camera, I choose to record the archives through my smartphone device as this would bring out that sense of nostalgia and form that ‘homemade’ feeling. In other words, by including features of nostalgia, the audience may be able to enjoy a better viewing experience and relate more to. Further, in the authoring process, I choose to collage all of the recorded films together through each single frame with an atmospheric background instrument rather than presenting them one by one with music and voice narration. As accumulating over ten or more personally recorded video archives, I figure this would be the best way to present and allow the audience to better focus. Moreover, the video collage would also help depict our human brain as being silent, chaotic and complex.
Meanwhile, as for my artist statement, I mention the film ‘How Are You?’ being a form of invitation opening and appealing to the selective audience of individuals or groups who would often stay up all night having these random yet weirdly factual thoughts. Following this, in order for the audience to visualise and further understand the showcased film, I highlighted my aims for the film and included simple yet complex questions for the audience to wonder. As stated by Humphries, he believes that there is a “certain value for the viewers to respect and question as they are given access to come across seeing one entirety”. (46) Thus, the reason why I did this was that I figured would assist and allow the audience to question and revisit the film from various perspectives points.
The final project work of ‘How Are You?’ was well accomplished in my opinion. Indeed having to complete other assignments and creating my own work was hard to balance but fun was definitely evident. Nonetheless, if I were to have a chance to redo this video work, ‘How Are You?’, I would choose to pay more attention to recording more eccentric and decisive moments. Further exploring that ideal audiovisual diary that I followed for the project, ‘How Are You?’. Another idea would be that provided that Melbourne is an artistic city, it would also be an interesting initiative if I were to engage in collaborative work. This meaning that I could gather my courage and ask random strangers all through the campus with simple narratives such as ‘how are you doing today?’. Ideally, this autobiographical work would be quite challenging however it would construct a significant relationship between the creator and the audience as in this case the audience is also the maker.
On the other hand, it was indeed intriguing and engaging to see various different ideas and formats of other’s media projects during our pitch presentation. It was eye-opening for me, as each of us would have our own individualistic style in interpreting each autobiographical media practice. Despite not seeing the final produced work yet, I am confident to say that everyone’s work would be immaculate. Compared with others’ work, my project focused more on the relationship that I have with myself whilst others’ explored more of their relationship with their family members or friends. In line with collaborating, despite the course and our work being quite individualistic, we were able to analyse previous professional autobiographical work and comment on it all together during our study sessions. Moreover, we also had opportunities to exchange new ideas and gave each other critics points for improving each other project’s presentation.
Attending this course study, allowed me to look back and reflect on my way of living. Admittedly, it was quite challenging at first with each assignment tasked. As an international and university student, being a busy body and trying to finish a mountain of assignments was a daily routine. However, this course somehow gave me an excuse to view and look into others’ ways of living as well. In the light of Remond’s reading (quoting Furedi), he claims that upon “making self-discourse media or engaging in therapeutic visual texts, we seek and tend to treat these components as a therapy discourse”. (150) This statement brief correlates well to my insight as I indeed found and appreciate the course to be quite comforting and therapeutic.
Overall, I learned to know that autobiographical works can be sometimes hard and somewhat uncomplicated to produce. In accordance with Rascaroli, she claims that “self-portrait works are the artist’s ultimate personal form of expression as it is a form of self-analysis. Moreover, when creating self-disclosed media, it presents a chance for self-reflection and self-promotion”. (176) This project has indeed helped me grow my knowledge in creativity and self-reflection. Although the course was quite challenging for me, it has definitely taught me to not ignore the ‘just continue on living life’ motto but to self reflect and look back on life once in a while.
Total Word Count: 1212 words
Reference List
Fanthome, C 2008, ‘Articulating authenticity through artifice: the contemporary relevance of Tracey Emin’s confessional art’, Social semiotics, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 223–236, viewed 29 March 2022, Taylor & Francis Online Journals Collection database. doi:10.1080/10350330802002341.
Humphries, L 2018, ‘Sharing The Everyday’, The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life, MIT Press, viewed 17 May 2022, <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=5348982>.
Rascaroli, L 2012, The Self-portrait Film: Michelangelo’s Last Gaze, Wallflower Press, ProQuest Ebook Central database, viewed 11 March 2022, <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=909581&pq-origsite=primo>.
Redmond, S 2008, ‘Pieces of me: celebrity confessional carnality’, Social semiotics, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 149–161, viewed 29 March 2022, Taylor & Francis Online Journals Collection database. doi:10.1080/10350330802002192.
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