The ideology
In response to the brief ‘Kiss Me Quick’, I responded by branding London through the ideology of consumerism and thus totemism within western society, and the natural/primitive instinct of wanting to belong to a group. I have decided to market London by depicting ten London locations and their variating habits through brands and inanimate objects.I wanted to focus on how locals view London as opposed to tourists, as I wanted my response to be truthful and not a false or typical depiction that a lot of souvenir shops thrive on. My ideology was heavily inspired by a Contextual Studies lecture by Roger Brown and through self-awareness, I was able to identify totemism during my London commute. I couldn’t help notice locals have a stereotypical aesthetic depending on their destination and travel route.
I want to expose that all humans show a readiness to be recruited by an ideology - a totem. London is packed with advertising which defines social groups through consumerism and our society allows objects to speak for ourselves and to define our groups and personalities.
My works subconsciously promote different locations within London, by exploiting the spectators instinctual anxiety of wanting to belong to a group, while providing them with a solution. “Do you want to belong to a group of Michael Kors lovers? Then head on down to Oxford Street”. Meanwhile, “if you would like to be in with a group of IT lovers and technology fanatics, then be sure to find your like-minded group in Old Street.’’
I want to expose that all humans show a readiness to be recruited by an ideology - a totem. London is packed with advertising which defines social groups through consumerism and our society allows objects to speak for ourselves and to define our groups and personalities.
My works subconsciously promote different locations within London, by exploiting the spectators instinctual anxiety of wanting to belong to a group, while providing them with a solution. “Do you want to belong to a group of Michael Kors lovers? Then head on down to Oxford Street”. Meanwhile, “if you would like to be in with a group of IT lovers and technology fanatics, then be sure to find your like-minded group in Old Street.’’
The technique
I decided to create ten pieces (instead of my deadline friendly idea of combining ten calling cards into one collage) as I wanted to challenge myself to meet the tight deadline and because I felt that a series of 10 individual, but linked, pieces would be more appropriate in reflecting our diverse London locations. To do this I clearly identified each location by using the nearest underground station in proximity; I selected my locations based on my knowledge of the area (the boroughs that I have most frequently visited) as I wanted to portray my view of the consumers within those areas as accurately as possible based on my visits, and for my research to be more reliable, as opposed to a biased investigation, judging a location and its inhabitants/regular commuters on an area that I had only visited once with changing variables that I would be oblivious to.
I roughly had the aesthetics in mind, as during this project, I was heavily inspired by artist, Vinz. I admired his technique of screen printing naked forms onto collaged newspaper, and then hand painting the final touches and wanted his composition to inspire my own.
At first (as an alternative to sketching) I used secondary sources to depict my idea/initial draft so that, visually, it was more clear as to how I wanted my series to look, and so that I then knew exactly what I needed to collect or create by hand. Once I had a general idea in mind by drafting Westminster, Oxford Circus and Camden Town (three very juxtaposing examples of totemism - business, fashion, and alternative), I hand collaged a variety of backgrounds. I deliberately decided on a collage as to me, London is a place where lots of other cultures, ideologies, styles etc. have been ‘cut and pasted’ into our City.
I used newspapers that I had collected from London that were heavily packed with articles covering London politics, including the Brexit campaign and the monarchy and carefully planned the layout of these collected samples before committing and adhering. Alternatively, I hunted through fashion magazines and pulled out British brand names (and other recurring brands) that you often see around London, that can be easily identified. Before committing to the layout, I laid the pieces over the ‘political’ collage and photographed, before trying lots of different layout ideas and photographing each version so that commitment wasn’t particularly necessary and that I had a variety of collages.
Knowing that I wanted a figure in the centre to enhance the sociological/psychological focus within the series, I decided to hand draw these and I wanted my work to be entirely my own and to have a raw feel to compliment the hand created collage; this is also why I wanted to incorporate acrylic paint as I wanted to really focus on mixed mediums and to consider different textures and finishes to enhance that. I drew one male and one female as I feel that London (while not entirely there yet) is generally accepting of gender equality. I kept the figures neutral in graphite as I didn’t want to define a location based on race and get my ideas lost within my own work.
Referring to my initial draft, photographic research and my own personal experience of London, I began to finally create my ten pieces within this series, using all of my materials. This process was more the concept of trial and error. Placing items, seeing what worked well visually through composition and balance.
I settled on creating these pieces for digital use, to further enhance the idea of advertising and consumerism, as digital advertising and marketing is becoming increasingly popular, particularly within London. My ten mixed media collages can be displayed on their own, based on location (possibly within the appropriate London Underground station) or can be collectively displayed as a repeating gif. They can also be used online, and thus viewed anywhere in the world on a variety of devices. By having flashes of changes, it also helps to grab your minds attention to notice.
I feel that if I had chosen to print my final designs, then the audience reach is reduced, it wouldn’t be cost effective, and has more of a ‘dated’ aura, as opposed to modern digital technology which is understandably linked with London. As I am challenging marketing and consumerism, I feel that it’s only acceptable to reach a wider audience in awe of that.
