Intercultural Design - Task 1 (Proposal)

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Jan 3rd, 2022 - Jan 17th, 2022 (Week 1 - Week 3)
Rusydina Fazlin Athirah Binti Fauzi
Intercultural Design
Week 1 [January 3rd, 2022]
Task 1 / Proposal

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INSTRUCTIONS

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Lectures

Week 1 Lecture:

In the first week of Intercultural Design, we covered the MIB with a number of lecturers that gave explanations on what the module will be offering to us students throughout these 7 weeks. Later then we were given our first lecture on Netnography by a guest lecturer, Mr. Charles.

Culture

Figure 1.1 - Culture examples

Culture is the knowledge that people have learned that they use to understand the experience and generate action.

In simpler words, a culture can be anything as long as it represents a group of people. For example:

• human activity within a community or social group
• symbolic structures
• significance to such activity

Ethnography vs Netnography

Ethnography

Figure 1.2 - Ethnography visual reprensentation

Ethnography is a subfield of anthropology that focuses on the systematic study of particular cultures. Ethnography studies cultural phenomenon in terms of the study's subject.

• It involves a researcher to witness that particular culture of interest leading up to first-hand experience
• Participatory of a researcher in taking notes and collecting artifacts
• On-site
• Observational

Netnography

Figure 1.3 - Netnography visual representation

Understanding social interaction in contemporary digital communications situations is the goal of netnography, an online study method that originated from ethnography.

Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to; 

• data collection
• analysis
• research ethics
• representations that are rooted in participant observation.

Data Collection

Data collection processes the gathering and measuring of information on variables of interest.

There are 3 types of data to collect:

Archive

    • data without researcher's involvement

Elicited

    • co-created by researchers & members

Fieldnotes

    • observational and reflective notes

Netnography lecture slides prepared;

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Task 1

Proposal

January 3rd, 2022

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Our first course of action for this module was to form a group and start a meeting a decide a culture of interest with the rest of the group members. 

My group included the members who are;

• Lim Jia Sheng
• Lui Hsiao Hui (Tressa)
• Rusydina Fazlin Athirah (Me)
• Lum Qian Tong
• Jodiann Yeoh Chooi Kit
• Tan Yi Yun

My group had a number of a few cultural interests we put out on the table. In all honesty, it took us a while to decide on a cultural interest to further our interest. So we settled on 'Drag Culture' to later then be consulted the topic of interest with our supervisor in the next class. 

Drag Culture Journey

January 5th, 2021

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The start of our Drag journey has begun, Mr. Vinod as our supervisor went over our group's topic with our explanations and our pitches into choosing 'Drag' as a culture to research and have a visual outcome too. 

Research on Drag Culture

Mr. Vinod assigned each group into writing a 200-word rationale along with 5 ideas within the theme of drag culture to start with what the outcome of visual can be. 

But first, each group member had to dig into what Drag exactly is. We had to understand what it was, what they did, what they have in their culture that made them what and who they are today. There were a few insights I gained on my own when reading through a few articles, websites, or blogs that contained what Drag is, in assumptions that each group member did so we came forth with the purpose and understanding of what Drag is, with its many different kinds of sub-cultures and sub-communities (like the LGBTQIA+ community) that correlate and lead into Drag culture.

Tressa, one of our members in the group, compiled all the research on our chosen culture for the group to reference off to come up with our ideas later on. (bless her soul)

Drag research compiled in word document:

Brainstorming on Preliminary Ideas

When our group got all the research down on our chosen culture topic, our group leader, Jia Sheng assigned each group member into coming up with ideas on what to do to pursue in our drag adventure, we all were to come up with an idea, at least one. 

 The aim requirements in our ideas are to somewhat have a "purpose", and be as open-ended + as visual as possible. Our group did our quickest to pick up a sub-theme in the Drag topic so that our research questions and objects can be formed. 

A way our group parted ways momentarily to form our ideas to later then be brought forth into discussing it together.

In summary, here are the ideas that the group came up with before it was all compiled and thought out much neatly in a rationale word document.

Yi Yun:

1. lip-syncing in drag
2. exaggerated make-up in drag
3. the overall purpose of drag (public attention? self-expression? monetary incentives?)

Qian Tong:

1. Drag king show masculinity /male characteristics: beard and thick eyebrows
2. Makeup is a little lighter: no lipstick, no colorful eyeshadow but dark eyeshadow: brown, black, and no sequins
3. Purpose of clothing: suits, hats, shoes, and ties are to express the steadiness and modesty

Jia Sheng:

1. drag personality being different from regular personality
2. saturated colors used in imagery & fashion portraying drag
3. purpose of body language, & choreography during a performance in portraying/defying gender

Tressa:

1. drag ball culture + voguing

Athirah(Me):

1.  The invention of drag (why, when, how)

Jodiann:

1. Lip-syncing performances, imitating famous singers, actors, comedians of the female gender
2. Extravagant clothing and props

After figuring out what each member will be contributing in exploring and furthering their own preliminary idea. Jia Sheng thought of delegating tasks filling up the finalized rationale word document that he volunteered in taking up while the rest of the members of the group work on filling up the 5 ideas we suggested along with:

• one-liner (description)
• visual references
• sketch (detailed sketch)
• rationale(explanation)

First off, I'll showcase, my idea to contribute to the group covered the purpose of the invention of drag.

Drag's Rennaisance painting

one-liner (description)

To portray the whole idea of Drag’s “invention” throughout its events as it evolves from the start of it all the way into the present day, through a painting/or mural with the touch of a renaissance.

Gottmik Rupaul's Drag Race Oil Painting Gold Foil Art Print 12"x 8"(left), Children’s Games(right)

The best queens from 'RuPaul's Drag Race' are coming to Orlando for 'Werq the World' tour (left), A Brief History of Drag in the Art World (right)

Detailed sketch:

The way I wanted to visualize this idea of the painting/mural is to have that touch of oil paint or acrylics since it's well known to portray renaissance paintings (interpreting history). But the content and visuals held within the painting are all the revolutionary occasions that happened throughout Drag’s invention kind of complimenting and interacting with each other in the painting.

Rationale (explanation)

    Drag manifests itself in a variety of ways. Drag was never actually intended, but it was caught throughout theatre history (before women could perform in theatres) when men cross-dressed in women's attire and played female roles. So to speak, drag gained more exposure in an American vaudeville show in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with Julien Elton, referred to as the greatest female impersonator in theatrical history, winning critical acclaim for his cross-dressing role in the play the fascinating widow in 1911, and finally, to interpret the 'invention' of drag, men found plenty of underground places despite the outlaws of homosexuality where they could drink alcohol, be openly homosexual and dress in drag. With all of these revolutionary moments in drag history all the way up to the present day of tributing major occasions in drag culture, what better way to capture it than through a mural of all parts of drag culture? It should serve the purpose of getting a wide range of insights into the essence of drag culture!

Each group member's idea compilation

January 8th, 2021

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We compiled all our ideas along with the rationale into a one-word document so that each member can have a just of each of our drag themed ideas would be as a visual outcome, also used as a reference to further discussed any changes we will or could make to our ideas decided by us and based on feedback given to us by Mr. Vinod. 

After having a much clearer arrangement and format to what our ideas are along with explanations and understandings from our 200-word rationale. We then brought all the information into a slide presentation to later then be consulted with Mr. Vinod in the next class.

 Each member had all the ideas flat out on the table as seen above. We received feedback from Mr. Vinod from the 2nd week, where Mr. Vinod consulted each group member's idea in the word doc and gave feedback for each of us to process and dissect into it being our final visual outcome.

Idea Progression

We had our slides slightly-prepared since we were still deciding on a final idea, so we all brought forth a meeting of discussion into picking whose separate idea as a final visual outcome to choose from and to tweak it from there.

Mr. Vinod mentioned my idea and Yi Yun's idea to be potentially merged into one and at that moment our group leader saw if we could focus and do something with the feedback that Mr. Vinod gave in merging my idea with Yi Yun's.

Figure 1.4 - Art style moldboard, January 21st, 2021

My idea is to capture the essence of revolutionary events that happened throughout drag history and its evolution ’til this day in a form and style of a Renaissance painting.

Figure 1.5 - Collab. Art moldboard, January 21st, 2021

While Yi Yun’s idea executes the correlation of drag with collaborative art. Yi Yun saw the relation in drag bringing many different sub-cultures of drag adding up to drag as its own, just like how collaborative art brings many artists together to make up one art piece.

Figure 1.6 - Individual idea sketches, January 21st, 2021

Since each of our sketches sort of had the similarity in using canvases and traditional mediums to make up the visual outcome, we tried to maintain the medium of the art style of the idea but changed up the concept of the display and to test the different execution ideas proposed.

As seen below, I did a skecth on how the idea merged and had a few changes into what I interpreted it.

Figure 1.7 - execution sketch (done by athirah [me]), January 21st, 2021

The skecth is created to test the different execution ideas proposed. Type A was ultimately chosen.

Moving into the composition sketch, Yi Yun sketched her interpretation of this idea, it's a quick visualization of what our final product will look like. Seen in the image below;

Figure 1.8 - composition sketch (done by Yi Yun), January 21st, 2021

Figure 1.9 - Collab sketch (done by each member in the group), January 21st, 2021

Each member is tasked with a “purpose” and is given the freedom to create a sketch (with an eye as the foundation), of how they interpret it should be presented in the final canvas. Each of those eyes is supposed to potray the 6 main purposes of drag that are;

• self-expression
• competition
• performance
• status
• celebration
• protest

In summary of all the idea explanation (rationale) and where our idea went onto next, to explain this visual outcome is;

    "Drag comes from many sub-identities to result in Drag's culture standing on its own as it evolves into the present day. With mixed mediums used in the collaborative artwork as a visual outcome, the portrayal of an eye in each canvas drawing and smaller canvases to support details to each main purpose in drag. This idea brought forth is a way to appreciate what drag is and to display the many main purposes in drag seen by drag performers or an outsider's perspective."

With the idea in hand, and cleared out a little to the rest of the group, we awaited to present and to be consulted of our final idea to Mr. Vinod.

Change in plans (Final finalized idea for visual outcome)

There were a few conflicts in the idea we set into with mine and Yi Yun's idea, therefore we pitched in on the separated preliminary ideas from the group, there were a few ideas that was brought forth as an alternative, Qian Tong and Jodiann had a session of presenting theirs in a way to intentionally work out mentioned by Mr. Vinod but it seemed to give a much more potential visual outcome to our group towards Jia Sheng's separated idea. 

Therefore we went with the idea of drag weapon skins. 

The idea will be based on 3 traditional weapons of countries that currently have the death penalty for homosexuality and will be aimed to "dragify" it, by putting fabric, paint, jewels, etc. 

Tress and Jia Sheng sketched up their visuals on the whole team to after then work into it together physically. (will soon be seen in slides and recorded video presentation)

Slide presentation compilation and video presentation

Finally, after all, that is said and done along with the numerous times of planning, assigning, and meetings. The group agreed on the final idea and worked their parts into recording the slide presentations and to have our proposal displayed as a pre-recorded video presentation no more over the time duration of 10 minutes. 

Drag Culture - Recorded Presentation

Parts: each group member

Intro + Initial explanations (contents, Theme, working title, the case, influences): Jia Sheng

Glossary: Qian Tong

Idea 1 (Tile-based collaborative art): Yi Yun & Athirah (me)

Idea 2 (Roots of Liberation): Jodiann

Idea 3 & 4 (‘Voguing’ Magazine & Visual Film): Tressa

Idea 5 (Drag Weapon Skins) + Outro (references): Jia Sheng

Drag Culture - Slides

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FEEDBACK
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Feedback

[January 12th, 2021, Week 2]
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General Feedback

* All good ideas, will be hard to pick, however, some need more thought put into it.

Specific:

1: Yi Yun

-May discuss with Athirah to mishmash together the ideas.

2: Qian Tong

    -Good idea, but might need some more thought.

    -Other than J, Q, K, A, there are no more characters to be able to be draggified.

3: Athirah

    -A good idea could implement something like splitting it out into parts & have everyone work on it individually.

4: Jodiann

    -Well articulated. The approach was explained clearly. 

    -The purpose is not as clear/ sufficient as it should be. Does he represent what drag is today?

    -May need more research to stitch together the use of this individual.

5: Tressa

     -A zine might be too safe.

     -You might get the group members into drag & either create a video or posters of it.

6: Jia Sheng

    -Might need some thought for the idea, as there are other platforms who possess the "defining factor"      of an invite system.

    -Amplifying the thought of drag as a weapon might be a lot more interesting of a prospect.

Feedback

[January 19th, 2021, Week 3]
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General Feedback

* The idea feels surface level.

* An idea should be thought-provoking, & should have a "click" moment for the viewer.

* We should employ metaphorical presentation instead of something literal.

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