Hidden Faces

Concept

I started to think about the camera using the guiding questions given to us in the design brief.
- What does it mean to design a camera that is meant to capture a specific person, place, or object?
- How might we document our domestic life while we self-quarantine? Has the selfie culture and photography carried on different meanings since the start of the pandemic?
- How can camera filters change the way we perceive ourselves and the others?

During the last year, we have relied a lot on modes of communication through screens. Video calls were the closest we could get to gauging others' expressions and understanding what they were expressing or not expressing. Different social media filters also made their way into different communication channels. Appearance in photographs has always been a concern for everyone, especially in the social media culture. What we hide, what we show, what we alter, every photo is a curated display.

Through my experimental camera, I want to portay how we choose areas of our realities to hide or modify while we still want to be seen and heard. It is a complicated conjunction which is displayed. On moving the mouse over an image of yourself, you can see these dynamics.

Reflections

The thought process and approach for this assignment was very abstract. I struggled with visualizing and conceptualizing using the tools I already knew and finding the right balance. Once I understood the scope of the tracker and the camera in p5.js, I was able to experiment with colours and shapes more comfortably to create this concept.

Captures: