Muzzles of Social Media

Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:

Dialogue is used everyday and one of the most common means of dialogue is communicating through social media. I wanted to create a work that represents how social media takes out all the emotion of a conversation and how we do not use out actual mouths to talk through it.

I combined social media icons with icons i created in a similar style, but the icons i created show images of things that are used to stop people from being able to use their mouths; muzzles, gags etc.

I ended up with eight different icons (all the same colour) that i placed in a random pattern on a colourful background to create a retro style poster that is to become wallpaper.

Every now and again there is a darker shaded muzzle icon that is placed on top of a social media icon. This is to show how social media is putting a muzzle on our physical mouths. This works with how the actual work is wallpaper, muzzle and gag icons covering social media icons and wallpaper covering walls, which becomes a metaphor in itself. Creating a mask for a wall.

I also put it different quotes to reinstate my point a couple of examples are "Have you heard your friends voice?" and "Talking with a closed mouth." etc.

The final of this wallpaper has no specific size it can be enlarged or shrunk and columns or rows can be added.

What kind of communication approach do you use?

A retro-style pattern in the from of wallpaper or a poster. Visually appealing to the audience, which makes them stop and look into the message the work is conveying.

What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?

The benefits are simply awareness of what we are doing, which is not communicating with our mouths, but rather our keyboards. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, people just need to see that it can be unhealthy to not have a face to face conversation.

What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?

Through the process of this work I started out with heaps of complicated ideas and in the end it became very simple, I learned that just because something is simple doesn't mean it won't be as effective.

Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?

Because it is eye-catching and makes the viewer think. When first looking at the work it would be easy to mistake all the icons as social media ones because of the similar style and same colours. One of my favourite aspects in a design is when it makes the audience stop and think, that's what I tried to accomplish.

Where and how do you intent do implement your work?

It is supposed to be wallpaper, I intend it to be placed on walls. I don't think it would be great for a normal house except maybe a quirky room of some sort, but i vision it to be placed in different sort of art and design exhibitions, different events and also in outdoor urban environments; slapped up onto any sort of gritty brick-wall etc. The digital version could also be used as a screensaver or desktop wallpaper.

Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)

No, not yet anyway.