In the tutorial, the tutor emphasized the need to clarify the purpose and audience of my work: is it merely a personal exploration of everyday imagery, or does it carry social, cultural, or political intentions, requiring me to define a more specific research focus? He suggested I look at The Rodina’s project Sonic Acts Academy (2018), which transformed graphic identity into a performative, game-like experience. Through immersive visuals, layered typography, and interactive design, it created multiple narrative digital spaces (The Rodina, 2018), shifting the work from static images toward spaces of narration and critique. He also encouraged me to explore the possibilities of installation, sound design, and multi-sensory environments.
Following this discussion, I began researching Metahaven, a studio he recommended. Their experimental short film Information Skies (2016) blends reality and virtuality, animation and live action, with graphical overlays that continually add new visual layers to the image’s surface. The film constructs an “information landscape” suspended between the real and the virtual, exploring how digital communication reshapes perception, emotion, and reality. It made me realize that images today are no longer just mediums of documentation or storytelling—they function as information mechanisms capable of altering our perceptual structures.
During the summer, I also reached out to Wu Ziyang, my undergraduate tutor and a talented young visual digital artist, to discuss the intersections of image, identity, and sensory experience. We talked about how photographs today feel like external organs of the body, belonging both to our physical selves and our virtual identities. This dependency, he noted, echoes Lacan’s Anxiety, where the image that seduces us can suddenly reveal our lack of autonomy. This inspired me to consider how my work could use this sense of uncertainty to make viewers feel the subtle tensions between image and identity.
Finally, we discussed how accelerated online reading habits have reduced the time audiences spend engaging deeply with a single narrative image. A picture can be “seen” unconsciously, or it can be “written” in the mind—a slower, reflective process. Today, the former dominates. My tutor suggested employing a “dual-layer structure”: one layer offering fast, sensory experiences for quick engagement, and another introducing pauses through text, sound, or interaction to guide viewers into slowing down and contemplating the hidden meanings within images and graphics.
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