So…to say that PB4 has been a bit of a struggle is probably an understatement. Initially, I had planned to interview a street art/mural artist about their process and thoughts on how social media and technology has effected or changed their art. However, out of the two agencies that I contacted, one wouldn’t allow filming in their studio so the interview could only be phone based. The other one tuned out to just be a service that connected companies to their network of freelancers – so they didn’t have in house artists readily available to interview. At first the owner agreed to refer me to an artist, but later ended up backing out. To add to all this, my body has decided to grace me with a fever and cold that makes everything hurt but also feel both hot and cold simultaneously, conveniently timed just as every final assessment is due.
Nevertheless, I have come up with a new plan on what I am going to do. I am still going to stick to the interview format because I wanted to go out and find people to talk to, but with only a week left until the project is due I don’t think I have enough time to find and schedule meetings with other professionals. Instead, I will just bring equipment down to Hosier Lane (tribute to initial street art idea) and interview the people passing by. This way I still get to explore my interest in societal cultures, and get to connect with people and their thoughts directly. I’m also still sticking with my idea of wanting to explore social media as an opposite phenomenon to the type of relationships that I saw in The Dancing Dog – focusing on what people think of its effect on modern lifestyle.
At this stage, I have decided a time to shoot next week, organised booking a Zoom H4 from RMIT (since the sound from our last project wasn’t too great without an audio recorder) and locked in a friend to help with operating sound and camera during the shoot.
I’ve written down the following questions to ask my subjects:
- How often do you use social media?
- What do you use it for?
- How do you think it is affecting our lifestyle?
- What is changing about our society and different generations because of it?
- Do you think it is making us more or less social?
To get a bit of a better understanding on social media, I have also compiled some videos that were helpful to my exploration:
Social media is not always what it seems. What gets posted is definitely not real life – they are carefully curated, constructed images that show a highlight reel of someone’s best moments. This is a short film that demonstrates some of the ways this editing and facade is exhibited in Instagram culture.
ASAP Science is one of my favourite Youtube channels, but besides this, the video gives a scientific take on how social media is changing us. Things like how it is actually a psychological addiction for many people and the real existence of something called “phantom vibration syndrome”.
In this TED talk, media historian Allison Graham gives her case on how social media is making us less social. She talks about our shortened vocabulary, how abbreviations like LOL are making us lose the nuances in our language that gives us the opportunity to express ourselves and our personality. Another point I particularly took note of was the discussion on ‘likes’, how teenagers nowadays have so many unspoken rules about various platforms to ensure the highest amount of engagement/exposure, and how this has inspired the peak of a culture of comparison.
