Hyperrealities: Brief Three
Explore and research:
- Hyperrealities
- The meme
- Millennials
Hyperrealities:
This theme particularly stuck out for me based upon the film examples referring to hyperrealities - this genre was one I was particularly interested in, such as Inception, Black Mirror, Interstellar, Shutter Island, all films that conform to the hyperrealities (an inability to distinguish reality from the simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies) Sort of the main relation is “what is real and what isn’t” - they blend seamlessly together.
My first initial idea reflected upon my favourite film, Inception, and either doing something related to this, or taking it further and applying the concept to other people that I knew. I knew this was early stages but the idea stuck out immediately and I already imagined working on it, so I wanted to research further into this topic.
An application of hyperrealities can be seen in The Fight Club, a film I’ve seen but not enjoyed due to the lack of plot, however it dictates a good sense of hyperrealities.
The Meme:
This was something I was really familiar with, being part of the generation based around memes, I’ve seen so many in my life time, however I was not interested in doing much research into this at all, I found it fickle, boring, and something that wouldn’t make a good project for my interests and style. Although I do find some quite funny, share them to my friends etc, consistently giving to this “trend” I didn’t know whether I wanted to apply my project to the meme. Though the definition, “an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture” could be taken out of the definition of a meme and in general sense, I still didn’t know where I’d be able to take this to an extent that I would enjoy it.
I was familiar with Andre the Giant Has a Posse, based upon watching Banksy film, but I feel this set in stone my lack of interest in the meme, I didn’t quite grasp the concept of them well enough, I felt, to do it justice.
Millennial:
This was one I was on the border about. Being a millennial myself, it meant I was quite familiar with the term and through living in a world of Social Media and in the western society, we have an “extreme rate of materialism, and technology addiction” (which I was all too familiar with) but I’d already done a project on myself - so I’d like to apply this to someone else.
I felt very relatable to the definition and research provided in the lecture “Generation Maybe”, seemed to apply to me alarming well. I wouldn’t know quite yet how to take this into graphic design, but thought it was a good starting point to research the differences of the term throughout the globe, and how this relates to me and my peers.
We’re a group of people who have been so educated, and risen in a society that is crumbling, growing ever more expensive and depressive, with fast rates of terrorism - yet we still manage to be the most open and supportive generation there is; which I love and find so empowering.
Though arguable with the “special snowflake” term (I already knew of this from the blogging site Tumblr) we were a generation that is easily offended, but we also change culture, set technology, can campaign, be educated, mental health is equally now a priority.
So…
My general approach to the research was to start by stuff I’d already known and grown to love, and then narrow it down based on what I’d found. I knew immediately a few ideas I’d wanted to do (but would have to wait to apply them, as I really wanted to thoughoughly research first) and was still a bit confused at how I could apply this to design, but I’d hoped with some research I could get going.
Immediate terms to research:
- Dreams
- Psychology
- Inception
- Black Mirror
- Christopher Nolan (theorists from him)
- Propaganda in our generation
- Women’s March
- The Matrix theory
It seemed rationale to research on things I’d loved and always been obsessed with, hyperrealities films are ones I’ve enjoyed the most so would be my main focus to begin with.
