The brief for this project was to respond to part of an essay titled Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?

I was especially interested in the following section:

“At that moment, images changed their function.2 Broadcasts from occupied TV studios became active catalysts of events—not records or documents. 3 Since then it has become clear that images are not objective or subjective renditions of a preexisting condition, or merely treacherous appearances. They are rather nodes of energy and matter that migrate across different supports,4 shaping and affecting people, landscapes, politics, and social systems. They acquired an uncanny ability to proliferate, transform, and activate. Around 1989, television images started walking through screens, right into reality.”

I was interested in the idea of images having energy, shaping and effecting the real world, coming to life. I started thinking of how it’s possible to fabricate “facts” based how you transformed and presented the image—how can image can mean absolutely nothing it was intended to and something else entirely. After my first year of university, I became fascinated with the idea of breaking down a whole into its simplest parts, to be something else entirely, so this line of thinking was unsurprising. I wanted to deconstruct images down to small pieces and reconstruct them into something else entirely, and I did it with so many magazine pages and created many collages, some of which you can find below.

Finally, one collage stood out the most. Mainly made out of a coffeeshop’s Christmas offers ad and a watch ad, and I tried screen printing it onto black fabric in gold textile ink, and it turned into an abaya; a garment with ties to Muslim communities. I liked the idea of images from British magazines given out on the streets of England were repurposed for another culture and people group entirely; and how it meant people can always adapt and transform. Though over time I became more realistic (or you can call me cynical, if you’d prefer) and also acknowledged more and more the possibility to also manipulate and misrepresent via images, the internet, and media.

The abaya was exhibited in front of the original collage printed in black and white like a newspaper, as well as a silver sheet (similar to lightweight heat blankets), to communicate the idea of images and energy coming to life, as tangible multidimensional objects.