How did the idea of this project come about?
The exact idea actually came about when I was flipping through magazines at home, trying to find inspiration for my graduation project. But the overall theme and concept of working with fake and real, physical and digital have been with me for years. I find it really interesting to explore how the self is expressed and takes form in a digital room.
You sourced all the images which you photoshopped yourself onto via magazines you like. Please elaborate, how did the process look like?
— I sourced all images from magazines that I have at home to somehow try to understand how much I’m affected by the images that I consume daily and to explore how my identity could be shaped in a non-physical world — where we’re no longer limited to our physical body or material things.
— The sourcing was important to me since I wanted to honour the original creatives. I think it is important to source and credit work in creative industries where people seldom do — whether you are a big or small creative I think it is important to credit everyone for their work regardless if it is an inspiration or a steal (lol).
— The chosen magazines are a mix of my first childhood boyband fan-magazines to fashion magazines that I bought ”yesterday”. I don’t think there was one specific magazine that I identified more with than another one but I do feel that my identity in the physical world resonates well with the identity that I built up through the magazines that I have at home.
What did you learn about your digital identity when doing this project?
— It gave me perspectives on how a digital self doesn’t need to be a false version of the self — I rather think the digital space is giving us new possibilities to explore our identities. In a digital world, where I am no longer limited to my physical body or material things I can choose to be whatever I want to be, It could even take shape in a non-human form.
