[Concept board 1]
1.Marimar Quiroa: The Beauty Blogger
Marimar Quiroa has a facial tumor called the cystic hygroma and the blockage of her lymph system has created a fluid-filled sack in her throat. Quiroa cannot eat or speak and in the past she used to talk to herself in the mirror. From this process, she began to accept herself and started activities that brought self-love and self-acceptance.
My topic is about girls and women, especially 18-25, struggling for the set beauty standard. Marimar Quiroa have overcome this illusion and obsession of fixed beauty, therefore I think it has a great relation with my topic. However, her opinion is subjective and this might provide a limited perspective, but I think it could be improved by researching people like Quiroa and have more wider view.
2. Hui Yuen Man
(http://www.yanki-rosepinky.com/feminist-theme.html)
“This art work intends to manifest how greatly materialism can influence our perception to beauty and how powerful can the media be in distorting our ways of thinking.”
I thought Hui Yuen Man’s artwork is relevant to my research topic because she thinks that many women are influenced by media and that “endless brainwashing” have set the unrealistic beauty that distorts women’s perception of beauty. The limitation of this could be the possibility for getting off the topic. Hui Yuen Man thinks that those “standard of beauty” makes women to purchase more cosmetics and fashion items that leads to the materialistic world. The artwork could be even stronger if the artist digs more deeper into a specific area of materialism.
3. Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty
(https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/marilyn_minter_pretty_dirty)
“Marilyn Minter’s sensual paintings, photographs, and videos vividly explore complex and contradictory emotions around beauty and the feminine body in American culture…The exhibition culminates in Minter’s ongoing investigation of how the beauty industry expertly creates and manipulates desire through images.”
Marilyn Minter’s work is related to my topic as well because she is producing works thinking that beauty industry “creates and manipulates” desire.
4. Hannah Altman
“The project is intended to be a pictorial representation of the unreasonable female standard of beauty. By creating set-ups that would normally be considered grotesque would it not be for the glitter, the sparkle stands out because it is the only facet of the photo that is abnormal. The women models do not seem to acknowledge the glitter as something any different than natural body fluid, which supplements the idea that women have been conditioned to go to any length in order keep up an attractive appearance. The project is meant to raise the awareness of such a ridiculous standard, and to question its morality.”
Although Hannah Altman and I have different approach to the topic, she has a similar point of view with me thinking that standard of the beauty makes women to keep up the attractive appearance. I think the limitation of the work might be the topic of beauty standard is too broad and she not mentioning the cause of such phenomenon.
5. Supervenus de Fréderic Doazan y Vandy Roc
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcGJWn2ihLE)
“Inspired by plastic surgery disasters, Frédéric Doazan’s Photoshop masterpiece Supervenus is a cutting (literally) portrayal of modern beauty standards and how they’ve evolved throughout the years.”
This has a connection to my topic because it is a video that demonstrates modern beauty standard and people, especially women, trying to match themselves to the unattainable beauty. The limitation of this project would be a slight different direction than my research topic. My topic is about cosmetic advertisement, while this project is about plastic surgery therefore it might be off-topic.
[Concept board 2 (more towards advertisements)]
1. John Holcroft’s illustration
(http://www.johnholcroft.com/)
John Holcroft is a British illustrator who uses illustration for social commentary and I think his work has a deep relation to my topic because my research question is about social media effecting the perception of beauty. The limitation might be the opened or maybe vague interpretation of the effect of social media.
2. A Global Democracy Idea 9 – Disclaimers for airbrushing models
“This video Created by Global Democracy.com in 2011, the clip which
has re-surfaced all over social media this week, demonstrates the full
extent of airbrushing techniques used on models.
The purpose of the video is to encourage “mandatory disclaimers”
in advertising which state that a model has had her body digitally
manipulated in the hope of discouraging the practice of airbrushing.
The creators believe that the “perfect” body types depicted in mass
media, which are digitally enhanced, have a profound negative impact
on self-esteem of young girls and are extremely misleading”
Advertising companies create an image of perfect women that matches the standard of beauty targeting girls and women. However, in the backstage, the images are manipulated and I thought this could be a great example for my research question.
3. Dove Real Beauty Sketches
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk)
“Do you see the beauty in yourself? If someone asked you to describe yourself, what would you say? Our body image takes such a battering that feeling beautiful can be hard – in fact, sometimes we just can’t see beauty in ourselves at all. We think our self-esteem is in serious need of a boost…And since we know that feeling beautiful is the first step to living happier, more confident lives, we decided to do something about it.
That something was a daring new beauty experiment: Real Beauty Sketches. We asked women to describe themselves to FBI trained forensic artist Gil Zamora (from behind a mysterious curtain), who drew a portrait of them based on their description. ”
Dove have created a series of film for finding “Real beauty” and is talking about women who were influenced by the media and/or society, which relates to my topic. They interviewed women about self-perception and opinion about the standard of beauty, but they do not actually ask what made them to feel such feeling.
4. SK-II Celebrity endorsement example
(http://trendinsight.biz/archives/1577)
Cosmetic brands often use the word “비밀 무기 or secret weapon” saying that the cosmetic could be one’s secret weapon and makes one attractive. SK-II is one of the most typical brand that uses such method. They use celebrities who are admired by each age group and create an advertisement as if the actress is telling a secret of her beauty. I thought this is one of the manipulation and illusion that advertising companies uses and thought it is relative to my topic.
Q. Based on your findings so far, how can a designer make an impact on your area of research?
A.