FINAL PROJECT LINK

Link to Final Project - The Politics of Image

Thanks everyone for all of the work you did, this project turned out better than I thought it would! Our idea was really fun and interesting to work with and after a full day and multiple hours of working together on this video, it's finally complete.
I think we were really able to learn a lot through this project and working together and I think our final research was really interesting to look at. All of those meetings together and working together really paid off, so shoutout to everyone who did put the effort into meeting and working together!

We asked people to vote based on first impressions and based on the four questions proposed:
1. "Who would you trust to look after your child?"
2. "Who voted Brexit?"
3. "Who belongs to the LGBTQ community?
4. "Who is an immigrant?"

This project looks at how public image affects our lives without us necessarily always being aware of it. With this topic, we wanted to take a closer look at how people judge and why they make the decisions that they make. When we think about being in the public eye, we have a different image of ourselves that we expect to be seen. Visual cues such as how we look, our gender, our weight, or our clothing are just a few of the many things that affect how people see us every day. Our aim was to get people to realise the judgements that they make on an everyday basis, whether they realise it or not. We thought that this subject was important to look at as it affects not only our personal lives, but also those around us. The politics of presentation is very important in a world where first impressions are ever important. Image and presentation affect job opportunities, personal relationships, and stranger interactions more than it should. We wanted to see how much one person could take from a single image without actually knowing the person.

Have a look and enjoy! (Link above text in green!)

    Coming to an end of our wonderful project, I would like to share some thoughts and conclusions I came up with as a result of it.
I strongly believe the project is very much relevant and influential for the present day. It certainly provides food for thought as it is stressing out one of the biggest problems of modernity - increased attention to appearance.
    The influence of social media and the amount of faces we see on a daily basis, both online and in real life, makes us become more judgmental towards the way people look.
Even though not many people are willing to admit that they judge others by their looks, it is still rather hypocritical.
Subconsciously,  the first thing we notice about people is the way they look, especially if there is no direct communication involved. When passing by a stranger in the crowd, we notice faces, not the character or the inner world of the person. Various studies show that it takes less than a second for our brain to determine whether a person is attractive or not, which means that it is a common fallacy  that appearance does not matter and is not payed attention to.
     As much as I like to think that I am the type of person who does not care about physical characteristics of other people, our project proved me wrong.
During the interviews we conducted in the city center, I realized that I do make assumptions about people based on the way they look. Before approaching someone, I speculated about how friendly people looked. At first I only approached people I thought were willing to talk. With this in mind, it goes without saying that most of my assumptions were wrong and some people were not very happy to help us with our task.
My outlook changed completely, when I came up to a girl who I thought would tell me to walk the other way. I assumed that just by looking at her, however, when I started speaking to her, she turned out to be one of the loveliest people I were to meet that day.
    In conclusion, I would like to say that the project helped me alternate my thinking. It made me analyse and understand the way my brain works and notice how wrong it is to focus on physical characteristics  of people. I can certainly say that I became less judgmental and I hope that other people will feel the same way I did and maybe start focusing on what is more important than looks as a result of our group work.

We got feedback!

I shared the video on Facebook and Instagram and the general response was positive! Here are some responses I found really interesting, first being one from one of the people photographed, Katie -

She points out that she's learned that she doesn't like being judged by strangers, and I almost feel guilty about this. Although, one aim of this project was to highlight how judgements can make somebody feel, so in this way, I guess it is good to shed light on how being judged on appearance can affect people emotionally. The question that had bothered her was 'Who would you trust to look after your child?' but we looked closer at the photographs to understand why people made judgements the way they did - Lindsay pointed out that Katie isn't smiling in that photograph while the other person is, which definitely will have impacted the public's choices, particularly as the question asks who would be good at looking after children. I've known Katie her whole life and know she is funny, kind and caring, all perfect qualities to look after children. All the people we photographed have their own personalities, qualities and talents, but you can't possibly see that from a fleeting glimpse, a single photograph. After all, the intervention was designed to show how people make quick decisions based on appearance and prejudices, in real life people have different amazing qualities and personalities, and making choices based on appearance and image may prevent you from getting to know the person underneath.

Moving on, I wanted to hear the thoughts from people who had not heard about our project before, so reaching out to people on Facebook and Instagram was particularly helpful here!

This person clearly felt a connection to the video and their own behaviours, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve: for those judging, to judge themselves. In the video, a man talks extensively about how he could not possibly make judgements on appearance, which shows an important realisation that image is not everything. The intervention itself asked members of the public to make a judgement, which naturally left an impact on themselves and their day, so to see that by showing the video to people we are growing the impact of the intervention, suggests a great success. This viewer also mentioned the likeness of judgement to the 'swiping' culture on dating apps. Swiping left or right, deciding whether somebody is worth your time based on ONE photograph has become the norm for our generation, and I definitely feel like the rise of the swiping culture has seeped into our everyday life and how we judge someone, how we treat them, and how we give them our time. 

a bit of reflection

During the course of the project, I became much more aware of quick judgements I made on people. While questions such as 'did they vote Brexit?' or 'are they part of the LGBTQ community?' don't exactly pop into my head when looking at people on the street, my day to day life is often full of subconscious judgements. As someone who loves people watching, I sometimes make up whole stories about a stranger in the street in my head, but even innocent daydreaming can be filled with judgement - in my head, the tired looking lady in Tescos is an amazing but exhausted parent, and the suit-wearing, Rolex-bearing businessman in Central London is actually a sleaze-bag cheating on his wife, but desperately trying to hide it. All these stories really come down to a subconscious perception of that person's image. When simply people-watching, these are just stories to entertain me on a boring day, however when initial judgements on a person's appearance shape your interaction with them, then there is a problem. Examining my own judgemental behaviours in this critical way has highlighted the difference between harmless make-believe, and sinister misconceptions we can make about others. Sometimes, however, we make judgements to protect ourselves. Being a woman in any city at night can be a scary experience, and I among many other women have made snap judgements about men we perceive as threatening, for our own safety. Walking home from Surrey Quays on a Millwall match day, I keep my head down and avoid walking past large crowds of rowdy, drunk men. This is not because I'm judging them to be bad people, but because I've seen and heard of more violent incidents particularly towards lone women on match days than any other day. However, even when acting in a way to simply avoid a dangerous situation, I know its important to remind myself that everybody is a human being with a story and my initial judgement about them is based only on assumptions and past experiences. I think it is natural to form these assumptions, however, we should all take our judgements with a pinch of salt because we cannot possibly know them to be true.

Final Evaluation

Overall I was very pleased with the project, I managed to work with great people from different backgrounds and we were able to produce much more than we expected! We chose an interesting topic and was able to steer away from cliché ideas tied to image such as social media, clothing, and hair to construct an original idea which was both informative and politically charged. Our intervention was successfully able to make people aware of the judgements they make every day without even realising and the political implications that come with these judgements. 

The hardest task physical for me as it involved a lot of technical skill, however, I am glad that I was assigned to help with the editing process as it was great to see our entire project compiled into one film. I also believe it was a great medium to display our project as we were able to post it on social media and gain feedback, however if I could change anything I would give us more time to edit as well as hold an official screening for our film to gather more feedback on how people felt about the political statement as well as add ways that we could improve our project. 

Our intervention was successfully able to make people aware of the judgements they make every day without even realising and the political implications that come with these judgements. The project has taught me the importance of considering the everyday from a political standpoint, applying theorists to concepts, and theorising my own ideas. It has also taught me how to work efficiently in a group setting, and most importantly to not be too precious with ideas, but allow them to flourish by making room for them to grow through my team mates. 

Result of the intervention

27 people have been asked to choose between these people. They could also choose both or none in order to answer the question. 

   

4 people have not answered as they did not have or just did not want to make any judgements based on a single picture. 

23 answered:

·      Who would you trust to look after your child?

Left: 3/23

Right: 18/23

Both: 1/23

None: 2/23

·      Who voted Brexit?

Left: 10/23

Right: 12/23

Both: 0/23

None: 1/23

·      Who belongs to the LGBT community?

Left: 8/23

Right: 12/23

Both: 0 /23

None: 3/23

·      Who is an immigrant?

Left: 13/23

Right: 8/23

Both: 0/23

None: 2/23

the halo effect or the psychology of the first impression.

The halo effect is a psychological concept created by Edward Thorndike in the first half of the 20th century. the effect represents. "The halo effect is a type of immediate judgement discrepancy, or cognitive bias, where a person making an initial assessment of another person, place or thing will assume ambiguous information based upon concrete information". This concept can be applied to people, products, brands and companies.
In other words, it is our ability to judge at the first impression and have then an impact afterwards both negative or positive.

The halo effect is a very broad concept that can be related to a lot of different aspects of everyday life in general. In politics, this concept is related to how faces shape politics.

This article suggests that this concept provokes the "polarisation" of the American political system. The author explains that" a large majority of the American Population has no outside knowledge of politics. What we know about politics we get from new agencies that, in this generation, put their spin on stories".

How appearance affects your pay

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tykiisel/2013/03/20/you-are-judged-by-your-appearance/#73bc83486d50

Another great article that is focused on the studies carried out by a bunch of leading universities that show how the way you look can influence the amount of money you get paid.

Some of the studies, for instance, show that people who are taller, are getting paid more than their colleagues, who are not as tall.

The main point of the article is to show that the more handsome you are (according to the standards our society sets out), the better the pay.

Long story short : if you are Tall, Dark and Handsome, you are bound to succeed.

But the main question is : WHAT IS PRETTY? WHAT IS CONSIDERED BEAUTIFUL?
When it comes to me, I have a very particular taste. By that I mean that I see beauty where others don't.

There is a notion of "universal beauty", which means that a person is just pleasant to look at, but I truly believe that everyone is beautiful in their own way. And I do not mind if someone disagrees with me, I just think that it is very unfair and utterly irrelevant to discriminate because of their looks, especially in the workplace. Nevertheless, it is happening and will be happening, unless we address the issues collectively and change our perspective.

How faces shape politics 2

As Veronika mentioned previously, faces shapes politics. Indeed, faces in politics are nowadays hugely important for any political processes and maybe rather more than actual policies and political parties.





Here's the link of an article that threat on that subject. According to the author, "in theory, politics may be a reasoned contest of ideas, but in practice, it is an emotive contest of personalities. Appearance matters in the impressions we form of candidates, and the face perhaps most of all."




The media are obvious sources of this phenomenon as they usually put emphasis on emotions and personalities. I personally think that politics has been shaped by our interconnected society of endless information exploited by the media. And the result of this leads us to wonder the effectiveness and legitimacy of political bodies.

Nevertheless, this article also regroups a number of studies that demonstrates how appearances are one of the primary concerns that political personalities.

The author concluded by quoting Machiavelli: "“men in general judge more from appearances than from reality”. 

https://theconversation.com/a-face-for-politics-do-our-leaders-looks-influence-our-votes-17068

Gathering Data & Footage

Veronica and I went out in the middle of the Extinction Rebellion protests in Hyde Park/Marble Arch to gather data and footage of our survey. We got to interview a wide variety of interesting people, this event really helped for getting volunteers to take part in this. Can't wait to see how our project turns out and see how all of our footage and data comes together!

Rape by Yoko Ono and John Lennon

Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Rape provides insightful commentary into the volatile and offensive nature of surveillance. By calling the reader to engage with issues of male privilege and the violence and violation existing in paparazzi, they open our eyes to our perception of celebrity culture and politicise the matter of public image in today’s contemporary society (Ono and Lennon, 1969). This inspired me regarding the intervention, as it was a simple yet effective way of engaging with the public. Filmed in a low budget style, the unspectacular nature of the film added to the raw, crude effect that Ono and Lennon were attempting to create. The film was also smart in the way it manipulated the camera angles to produce an invasive atmosphere. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJiDDe8vcH8

How faces shape politics

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171018-the-hidden-ways-that-faces-shape-politics

An extremely important article that shows how looks influence political processes.
A lot of people nowadays say that the appearance is less important than "inner beauty", which I believe I a huge hypocrisy. Mainly because when we see someone for the first time, the thing we notice first is the way the person looks.
This is acceptable in our day-to-day life but is it okay to use the same tactics when it comes to electing politicians for instance?
I personally think this is some form of rational ignorance, when a major part of the electorate does not even know what candidates have to offer and are not able to distinguish between them.
My view is that voters, who pay attention to the appearance of the candidate, just waste their votes that can be determining for the future of the country.

The effects of racial profiling

A huge issue society is currently facing is racial profiling. With police forces being exposed to implement racial profiling in arresting citizens, it has woken people to how the race problem is still prevalent today. With our project focusing on the politics of image I believe this is a relevant video commenting on how institutions can specifically use image to target people and inflict unnecessary force, even going so far to wrongly convict purely based on the colour of one's skin

the link below is a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences and led by Jami Jivani. Police forces around the world have often been criticized for racial profiling and for acting with unnecessary force. After being a victim of racial profiling himself, activist Jami Jivani wanted to change the way that the police engage with local citizens. In his TEDxToronto talk, Jamil discusses the importance of mediating the relationship between the police and the public. Though there may be fundamental flaws in the system, Jamil believes that by developing a dialogues with police officials, we can initiate positive change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCX_Th-IjjE

WHY CLOTHES MATTER

I was doing some research into politics involved with personal image and I think that this video did a really great job with their creativity in explaining how clothes allow people to create their own image. The video, called "Why Clothes Matter", I think is an important piece to consider when talking about the politics of image. I think that we could really experiment this with our final project (similar to how Lucy photographed the same person in different outfits) and see how the public reacts to this. I also thought that the production of this video was really cool and unique and maybe we could use some more inspiration when putting together our final project!

Media representation of image

A really interesting article I found on an all-female campaign fighting for media representation. Project #Showus has gathered women from 39 countries to compile the world’s largest and most inclusive photo library in order to smash society’s idea of what it means to be beautiful. 

https://www.graziame.com/style/beauty/project-showus-is-the-all-female-campaign-fighting-for-media-representation

Strangers rating each other's apearance

An incredibly powerful video by one of my favourite channels on YouTube - "CUT"

What I personally find unbelievably interesting about this episode is that demonstrates how critical people can be of those they barely know. Most of us are so quick to judge and rank people according to our own standards and understanding of what is attractive and what's not, what's acceptable and unacceptable, what is right and what is wrong.

It is very easy to jump to conclusions when you are not part of a situation or person's life story, but would you be critical of your friend or someone you know and care about? How do we not see the flaws our beloved ones have but notice every little thing about stranger faces? Why do we love some people with all their imperfections but hate those things in others?

Imagine how much of a better place the world would be if we learned to encourage and empower each other, helping one another improve and become a better versions of ourselves? 

China's Survaliance culture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNf4-d6fDoY

BBC News provided a coverage story on China’s digital dystopian dictatorship, highlighting the Chinese citizen’s day to day life containing cameras and spyware, constantly keeping a watch on every footstep as well as the potential future of the public being controlled by a system which constantly records their behaviour. Creating a system which monitors every movement in the public sphere, and gives a credit score on each task performed, Chinese citizens have already started to alter their public image to appear perfect in the eyes of the government. 

Evaluating the trial run

The trial run was very successful as it helped us solidify plans for the final project. We decided to take the photos against a plain background so the participants will not gather any inclinations that could inform their decision. However, we did decide to let the people in the image wear their own clothes as we felt that clothing is an important part of a person's overall image and that to strip that away would weaken the purpose of our project. Saying this, we did not want the sole focus to be on the clothing hence why we decided to only take the upper half of the body. From the trial run photographs we decided to allow them to choose whether they would like to smile in the image as we believed it was their prerogative how they choose to present themselves to the public. We also found that the crossing out was very effective in portraying the raw brutality of judgement.

We have also decided to film the intervention because we thought it would an efficient way of documenting displaying our findings as well as giving us the option of screening it and gathering people's feedback on our project.