Intercultural Design - Task 1: Proposal

on
3/1/2022 - 21/1/2022 / Week 1 - Week 3
Lui Hsiao Hui (Tressa) / 0342003
Intercultural Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Task 1: Proposal

LECTURES

Week 1: Netnography

Lecture by Dr. Charles
Fig. 1.1 Netnography 'nutshell'


Fig. 1.2 Netnography approach

Ethnography: Internet study (online observations)
- A way to organise information to support your hypotheses 
- Technology-mediated research and communication 
- Requires you to be in the culture
- First-hand experience
- Participatory
- Face to face
- On-site


Fig. 1.3 Types of data collection

Data collection: Write notes, collect things, pictures etc.
- YouTube comments are considered archival data.
- Filter off opinions.



Fig. 1.4 & 1.5 Data analysis and example


Fig. 1.6 Advantages of Netnography


Week 2: Culture and Us

Lecture by Dr. Jinchi
Fig. 1.7 External and internal culture

Culture:
- The cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.

- A way of life of a group of people - behaviours, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.

- A symbolic communication. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions. 


Fig. 1.8 Attributes of culture

Layers of culture:
  1. Generation: The differences between grandparents and parents, parents and children.
  2. Social class: Educational opportunities and differences in occupation.
  3. Corporate: The particular culture of an organisation. Application to those employed.

Cultural frames: Socially shared assumptions of the meaning of particular events and actions (Goffman, 1974) through which individuals come to understand what is relevant for a particular time, place and community (Diehl and Mcfarland, 2010).
- When framing a culture, it means to focus on understanding a specific aspect of that culture, in a way how the participants of that culture assign meanings and then determine the appropriateness for your context.

INSTRUCTIONS



Task 1: Proposal

1. Culture of interest
During our first meeting, we suggested different cultures that we could base our project. The suggested cultures were:
- Egyptian/Greek culture (mythology)
- Y2k music
- Gang culture
- Thrift culture
- Gender nonconformity (which lead to the idea of drag culture)


2. Research

Fig. 1.1 Planning in WhatsApp, Week 1 (5/1/2022)

After settling on Drag culture, each member was to focus on a specific area within drag. I decided to focus on drag ball culture and voguing (vogue dance). I discovered this genre of dance years ago when I saw a video of AyaBambi (Japanese dancers) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDPFVKGXFo8

At that time I did not know its true origins, and I'm also interested in this particular dance genre hence begin my interest to research.


Fig. 1.2 Paris is Burning (1990) documentary film

I began by watching a popular 7 year documentary on drag called "Paris is Burning", which details the events of underground drag ball culture and the birth of vogue dance in New York City. The documentary also had the drag artists/performers explain main terms such as "mother", "house" and "shade". Through this documentary, I learned that the dance itself serves the purpose of self-expression and acted as a creative way to throw an insult. It also acted as a "battle of the houses", by means of dance battle.

This documentary showed more than what drag ball culture is. I discovered that it also had a lot to do with racism between white and black people. A few of the drag performers/artists talked about how they never get to experience the same privileges as white people. This was was also one of the reasons the drag balls were created; a space for them to escape and experience the professions they never got the opportunity to be, such as company executives and runaway models - roles that are very rarely given to black people of that era. 

I also watched some modern-day drag balls/drag competitions to find out how different it is from the old balls of the 20th century, what has remained and also what has changed. From the performances I watched, they appear very similar to the ones in the Paris is Burning documentary. The difference is the number of people attending the ball, along with the diversity in the performers and crowd, whereby in the documentary, there weren't many cis women performers.

  1. Butch Queen Vogue Fem at The Revolution of Colors Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkroAKHJw5E&t=1338s
  2. New Way at The Paris Awards Ball 2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGJcZ0kENOo
  3. Streetstar 2015 - Inxi vs Kiyana - Vogue Femmes Semifinal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56FcecuBrAc

I also observed vogue dance's influence on other cultures such as pop culture and kpop culture:
Though these have different levels of 'distilled' voguing. For example, the music video "Forever" by Snakehips features AyaBambi voguing, but theirs focuses more on hand performance. While "Stay Tonight" by Chung Ha features several vogue dance elements, executed in her elegant style and fusion of girl style choreography.
  1. FKA twigs -­ Glass & Patron (Official Music Video­ YTMAs) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNbFc-fa-ww
  2. CHUNG HA (청하) 'Stay Tonight' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ww-aw-VjE
  3. Snakehips - Forever (Pt. II) [Official Video] ft. Kaleem Taylor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWb8oUwubWg

Fig. 1.3 Drag ball culture and voguing - research notes, Week 2 (9/1/2022)

Besides the documentary, I also read a few articles and compiled all findings into a document. I used MyBib to store all references.


Fig. 1.4 References in MyBib


3. Individual ideation and sketches
Idea 1: 'Voguing' Magazine
  1. Detailed illustrated poster showing the vogue battles in drag ball culture (illustrated cinematic art tribute) *tough to do as a group.
  2. “Voguing” (Vogue) Magazine: To show the significance + purpose of vogue dance in drag ball culture (magazine acting as a documentary of the art form).


Fig. 1.5 Cover sketch, Week 2 (9/1/2022)

  • Concept: “Battle of the houses” - sketch shows a drag house/family.
  • The only one in ‘full’ drag is the mother in the center, the rest are her children.
  • Shows that in vogue battles/voguing the fashion is not as extra and restrictive because they have to dance.
  • Layout and poses show the generational hierarchy, intensity, beauty and grandeur.
  • Background: Ballroom/stage lights.

Fig. 1.6 Moodboard, Week 2 (9/1/2022)
  • ‘Retro’ minimal look - hard to describe but this kinda vibe
  • Vogue dance poses
  • Old images of actual balls

Idea 2: Visual Film
After feedback of my first idea, it was considered a safe outcome and would be great if it could be put into a sort of visual film or music video as suggested. I was originally thinking of doing a visual film because dance is best shown that way. However, I thought if we were to have the entire group do a performance, it feels as though it would miss the theme of 'purpose'. So I went with the idea of doing a visual film showing the history, purpose as well as modern-day voguing battles, with the format of a music video.

The one huge inspiration I had was the Black Widow opening scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R5kUVj4MEw) in which they show Natasha growing up while switching back and forth between symbolic imagery. For example: From surgery, pigs to baby - which alludes to them raising the girls as pigs for slaughter. The idea for the visual film is to have a similar approach of telling the history of drag ball culture with intentional imagery and editing to convey the purpose of vogue dance being a battle between the houses and self-expression. Further inspirations are listed in the proposal slides.


4. Other idea sketches

Fig. 1.7 Drag eye 'competition' - sketch, Week 3 (18/1/2022)

Our first pick for our main idea was Yi Yun's and Athirah's combined idea of collaborative art - tiles. Each of us was to focus on a purpose of drag in our tile, be it competition, performance, status, etc. More on this in our proposal slides.

I chose to do competition, integrating my idea of focusing on conveying the purpose of vogue dance. The concept of this sketch: Gazing upon one's competitor, examining their voguing before it is their turn to vogue.


Fig. 1.8 'Dragified' Janbiya - sketch, Week 3 (20/1/2022)


Fig. 1.9 'Dragified' Keris - sketch, Week 3 (20/1/2022)

After week 3 consultation, we decided to go with Jia Sheng's drag weapon skins idea because it was more thought-provoking compared to the collaboration artwork. The idea was to 'dragify' the traditional weapons of countries that have the death penalty for the LGBTQ. More on this in our proposal slides. The outcome would be physical, 3D printed.

I thought of 'dragifying' the weapons with fashion besides painting them since I'm also interested in fashion. I think it would give a much better impact compared to if they were only painted. We could also try messing around with their silhouettes using fabric or DIY padding like in drag.

The idea I had was to base the outfit's looks on the shape of the swords. In the Janbiya sketch, I was trying to make use of its shape and turn it into an hourglass body shape, a popular body figure in drag. Whereas the Keris has a ribbon/mesh fabric wrapped around its blade, following its curved pattern. Each weapon would have a different 'outfit' or theme, to be planned in detail later on. 

The 3rd sword is the Saintie, which is sketched by Jia Sheng and may be viewed on his blog (or in the slides).


Fig. 1.10 Group 9 Proposal: Drag Culture - PDF slides, Week 3 (21/1/2022)


Fig. 1.11 Group 9 Proposal: Drag Culture - presentation, Week 3 (21/1/2022)

FEEDBACK

Week 2
General feedback: All good ideas, will be hard to pick, however, some need more thought put into it.

Specific feedback: A zine might be too safe. You might get the group members into drag and either create a video or posters of it.


Week 3
General feedback:
  • The idea feels surface-level.
  • An idea should be thought-provoking, and should have a "click" moment for the viewer.
  • We should employ metaphorical presentation instead of something literal.

Week 4
Specific feedback: Demonstrates an understanding of research methods, resourceful and has a wide scope, yet focused. Evidence of brainstorming or idea exploration is implicit via the presentation and it seems extensive. Effective written communication, clearly stating and justifying the selected theme, concept & approach of the research, supported by relevant citations. Presentation verbally was good with Jia Sheng's passion in dilvery evident eventhough pronunciation was sometimes encumbered. 

REFLECTION

Experience
The hardest part of this project was coming up with diverse ideas and converging 2 different ideas in the later stage (after feedback). There was a lot to consider such as each member’s strengths and weaknesses, and the do-ability and dynamism of the ideas, which was of course challenging to adhere to. I was also more worried about the do-ability of the idea because we had to make sure everyone could do it. I think that was what destroyed my idea generation. For the beginning research, thankfully it wasn't too dull of research because of drag having elements I was interested in - fashion, performances and dance.

Observations
Drag as an art form born of defiance and freedom. These communities were so pressed by society to the point that they had to make their own world to live in. When watching the documentary “Paris is Burning”, I noticed that the history of drag ball culture was interlaced with racism between the whites and blacks. It has a lot to do with social hierarchy and racial privilege.

Findings
Through this project, I learned of the origins of vogue dance and had a better understanding of its beginnings. Besides that, while working as a group I found that we weren't having the same definitions of "purpose" which led to some members struggling with inputting ideas and also understanding the task. Furthermore, with the feedback given, I found that our ideas were very surface level and it would be better if we did something louder. It remains challenging, and I truly struggled with making the idea something more without needing to come up with another idea completely.


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