Christian Ernst, Lars Harmsen, Andre Rosler, Ulrich Weiss
Summary
BASTARD Choose my Identity
Tell me who I am and give me a face. In it you will find facets of me, but also see a reflection of yourself.
The idea behind BASTARD was to bring together photographers, writers, illustrators, graphic designers, musicians and typographers to create a solid and unique book that also functions as a work of art. The profoundly personal impressions of the authors and artists have become intertwined and their distinct and individual visions have served to shed light on our modern culture -- on daily life, on the themes of change and continuity, and on the pervasive branding that is all around us. We must define who we are, be able to form both national and personal identities for ourselves, and in this journey we may come to see that globalization is not a completely negative force. Instead, the trend and phenomenon of globalization offers us proof that we are living in an era as exciting as one could imagine.
What happens when all of the disparate places and faces of the world "shrink" into a global village? What happens when cultures begin to merge and traditions start to dissolve?
Searching to define cultural identity and cultural bastarding, Christian Ernst, Lars Harmsen and André Rösler traveled to various hot spots highlighting the globalization trend. Writers with personal histories of emigration contributed their stories and poems. This book has been published with more than 50 unique typefaces, which have been created by typographers from all over the word. An engaging musical soundtrack is also included, as well as 50 high-resolution images, which serve to visually and aurally complement the book’s ideas.
Conceptually...
This book made me think about what exactly identity is, by discussing topics such as Globalization, Consumption, Culture, Identity, Individualism, Community, Communication, Cognition, Authenticity, and Identity. Working with these concepts, I'd like to raise curiosity and interest over the topic of Identity. I'd like to make the viewer question Identity, and also question various of these concepts, since this is the sole focus of the book.
Some concepts that arise:
A human being is a person as a personage with an accumulation of masks.
Community is formed when there is a continuing agreement on rituals. Community is the responsible integration of individuals.Culture means participation in a community.
Culture is a reflective process specific toe very community ensuing traditions and serving to differentiate its society and social subsystems.
The processes of social reflection are processes of communication.
Communication is a coherent multilogue. Perception is an individual prerequisite for contact. Perception is a subjective action. Action is the result of the individual process of cognition through primary experience.
Education is theguided individual process of gaining knowledge. Communication of the process of cognition is participation in the processes of social reflection. Education and primary experience are cultural processes which form identity.
Identity is the ability to reconciliate the individual and the person. Ideals are abstractions as cultural absolutes and are (collectively accepted and derealized) constructs of reality providing a society with meaningful common dreams and visions (objectives and wishful thinking.)
Visually...
I noticed that this book contains a huge mixture of photography, writing, and illustrations. The illustrations are drawn all over the photographs and are apparent throughout the entire book, so I'd really like to focus on making this particular trailer oriented around illustrations and imagery.
I would really like to express how much of an art piece this book also functions as. It exists to provoke thought, and isn't a novel. Instead it's more of a collection of works that revolve around the concept of identity. Many short stories are also included, which are written by authors who come from various different backgrounds. The stories tend to illustrate what sorts of struggles their authors experienced, and any identity crises they encountered.
I'd like to also try using layers of plexiglass for this project. My idea is to place it in front of the images and stand behind the glass as I draw on it. I'd also like to play with the manual focus on my camera to gain different effects. I'll have to kick around in Aftereffects as well, to see what other things I can do to my imagery & footage.
Here's an idea of styling, as inspired by some of the spreads:
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