<aside> 🖌️ Mask/Headpiece

</aside>

Inspiration and Concept

This week, Wendy and I paired up to design the mask together. The idea first came from all the NFT works and virtual art pieces that are only accessible online. In this project, we’d like to materialize those virtual accessories.

Moreover, both of us are particularly interested in the “fluidity” of identities: similar to what we saw in Paris is Burning, human beings have different sides and different ways to apporach themselves when living in the society, and it is sometimes not controllable, or noticable by ourselves. For example, some of the figures in the film was trying to convince the audience that they are the unique ones and they are “exclusive” themselves, which is unsubsituable by the exclusiveness of luxury and high fashion. Nevertheless, they also have the desire/eager deep down to bring their design and fashion understandings to places like Paris, the iconic city of luxury brands. Here, we are not trying to judge or criticize anything. Instead, we’d like to convey the idea that “identities” and “people” as a creature can be changeable and dimensional (with all different sides), and we ourselves don’t even realize the fact most of the time. Therefore, we want to create something similar to the shape of “water” to externalize this abstract idea.

Furthermore, we added the element of “snake” as the decoration. On the one hand, the metal material can balance the lightness of the glue (or plastic). On the other hand, it works as a metaphor because there is a lot of suspicion and doubt in human interaction, so people have to put on "masks" to confuse themselves and confuse others.

Inspiration example

Working process

If we want to create a transparent, light-looking mask, then in theory we need 3D printing technology. But neither Wendy nor I had any experience in fabrication, so we looked transparent nail glue. We started by sketching out the design on the plastic sheet with a marker, and filled the 2D drawing with nail glue. Once ready, we use a UV spotlight to make it dry quickly. We started with a small test ⬇️

It worked well, so we started the actual designing and making:

And we put on the snake

This is how the final work looks like. Notably: it can both be a mask and a headpiece depending on the users’ choices

<aside> 🖌️ The Fashioned Body Response

</aside>

Anonymity increases the emphasis placed upon appearance and indeed, with the development of large sprawling cities in Europe in the nineteenth century, two strategies for dealing with the anonymity of the city begin to pull in opposite directions: the idea that character is immanent in appearance (Finkelstein 1991), an idea that pulls one in search of the authenticity of the ‘other’, the ‘truth’ behind the appearance; and an alternative desire for artifice and play with appearance, through fashion and disguise, provoked by the anonymous nature of the city.

After reading this paragraph I immediately thought of three examples that I have discussed with others in my life.