Intention & Influence
Intention:
We often make decisions in our lives, and often, they are influenced by other people’s thoughts and decisions. Sometimes, without even realizing it. This artwork’s purpose was to intervene in a public space to make people more aware of their decisions and how it may be impacted by others. Societal pressure and influence can sometimes make people make bad decisions or not think rationally. Unfortunately, I was one of those, what you call, sheep for a large majority of my life thus far because I wanted to fit in. I remember specifically this one friend that I had. Whenever she got into a fight with someone, I would take her side because I didn’t want to lose her, even if she was in the wrong. I snuck around and stole things with her. I lost people who really cared about me because of her influence. Then, after she left, I attached myself to other people like a parasite and agreed to whatever they said. When I couldn’t do that anymore, I began to agree to whatever the majority did. You must go to college, otherwise you’re a failure. You can’t wear this because it makes you look fat. You can’t do this, you must do this, do that. Eventually, it takes over your life. Now, as I’ve grown, I learned to have my own individuality and through this artwork, I wanted people to think about their decisions and how they may be influenced by others, to be more conscious of it. Nevertheless, no one is truly individual as we live in a society that influences all our thoughts, morals, and individuality.
Influence:
Like my other pieces, this artwork was influenced a lot by me and my own personal experience. I’ve already mentioned that above in my Intention category so I won’t mention that in this section. Another influence comes from the guest presenters we had in class and their lecture on “Tactical Media”. Tactical media is interventions in a public space that challenges social norms and disrupts ‘normalcy’. That was essentially what our piece had to be. So, I took inspiration from one of their numerous examples of interventions. The one that stood out to me the most was the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO). I thought BLO was funny, almost like it was a prank. The BLO altered Barbie and G.I Joe toys’ voice boxes so that they would be swapped. The G.I Joe toys would have the Barbie voice and lines while Barbie would have G.I Joe’s. It was goofy, as we know that isn’t their voice, but it still tackled what was the social norm back then, which were gender roles. The person who created BLO was Igor Vamos, and he created it in response to the voice lines the new Barbie at that time would say, such as “Math is hard.” With this intervention, BLO successfully invaded children’s homes in a harmless way, helping to break those gender norms/stereotypes or make parents and children alike to think about the impact of these norms. Similarly, I tried to make it fun, a little ridiculous, and it was like a prank, however at the end of it all, they would think about it and be proud they didn’t change their mind, while those who did acknowledged it. I was also inspired by C.Carr’s On Edge, which we read a little bit about. When reading On Edge, what I took from it was that art should explore discomfort and address the harder questions. That’s what makes art so thought provoking and meaningful, is when it breaks into what is normal, this little box that people are in, and tear down that box to expose them to the difficult topics that you just usually don’t think about. It’s uncomfortable to hear that you just fell to peer pressure or the influence of others and puts you in a position where you have to confront your decision making process and biases.
The famous BLO intervention put on display.
A poster for the BLO intervention.
Process
This artwork was one of the more difficult ones. I thought about three to four different ideas and was never satisfied because I felt like it didn’t really hit me like the other three artworks did, hence why this was the last one I completed. I was uninspired. During the time of this artwork, it was the 2024 election between Kamala and Donald Trump. This election was also the first time I would’ve been able to vote, so I did a lot of research and found myself very passionate about politics and who would become our president. So, I wanted to create an artwork that was somewhat based on politics. However, that was a sensitive subject and despite all the research I did, I still felt unprepared and uneducated to be talking or making my artwork based on politics. Then, there was the iteration where I tried to make it about censorship (that was my first pitch), but I also didn’t feel too strongly about it because it wasn’t something personal to my life and thus far, all my work has been something significant in my personal life. It wasn’t until my friend had mentioned that similarity contest that it inspired me to make this artwork. It’s not my best one because of time constraints (I couldn’t walk around to random people as much as I wanted and couldn’t get clips) and other issues I was going through, but I think it wasn’t bad. The results were also something I definitely did not expect, in the best way.
Playtests/Results
So, here were a few of the runs I had and the results! I tested around 10 people, with 4 people being in person and 6 people were online. Before that, I will tell you how this experiment worked. Firstly, I would tell them that this was an assignment for my art class and that I wanted their opinion. If they said sure, I would present them with an original color and two other colors, A and B. I would then ask them which out of the two colors, A and B, more accurately match the shade of the original color. Upon letting them answer which one they think it is, I let them know that the opposite letter they chose was chosen by a majority of people and if they were sure of their answer. They are then given a choice to change their answer. What the testers don’t know is that the colors are all the same and there is no difference so there is no right answer.
EXAMPLE
Original Color:
A:
B:
Me: Which one more likely matches the shade of the original color?
Tester: B
Me: Oh really? A majority of people chose A, are you sure you want to stick with your answer?
Tester: Yes/No
IMPROVEMENTS
I think I should’ve had more in person experiments. I know that this piece isn’t technically for research but rather just for more people to think about their relationship with peer pressure and autonomy, however I would’ve liked to see a more diverse peoples to enact the intervention on to see how they react. Furthermore, I realized that my piece wasn’t the best for those who are colorblind. Instead, I should have used an intricate symbol or drawing. I also wish I had more documentation for this artwork.
IN PERSON RESULTS
Unfortunately, I do not have photos of the people in person, but I enacted this intervention in the orange line in the evening. I chose this specific time as it was a Friday night and I wanted to document all sorts of people, whether they were people getting out of work or students going to parties. Two of the in person tests were students going home from a party and the other two were working adults, with one participant being an older woman in her 50s. The two students stayed with their vote, regardless of when I mentioned that the majority of people I asked chose the other color while the older working adults shrugged and said the opposite color instead. I thought this was very interesting. When I told them the point of the experiment, they all laughed or realized and would say “that made sense.”
ONLINE RESULTS
In comparison, the majority of people who got asked online actually stayed with their answers without changing them which I thought was pretty cool. I asked one older man who was in his late 30s, one who is currently in middle school and is 12 years old, and four other people who are around my age. When I told them the point of the experiment, they also laughed it off, as though it was a prank.
Me introducing the test to a tester.
My little sister’s reaction once it was revealed. I thought it was funny, hahaha.
When one of the tester’s let me know what was lacking…
Just a reaction to the test since the colors were the same.
Another tester and their reaction even after I revealed that the majority of people chose the other color.
The twelve year old tester’s decision and chose not to change it.
A group of testers’ decisions. Pink is me. This was an interesting test as they were each trying to convince each other it was the other, but no one was convinced, even after I introduced the majority of people chose a certain color.
OVERALL
Overall, I think there are many factors that come into play when someone is affected by societal pressure or not, from their background, to the anonymity, to age, location, etc. However, I thought this was a fun experiment as I saw or listened to all their different reactions. It also made me… feel a little more positively towards this problem that I thought heavily influenced us as from the couple people I asked, a lot of them stayed true to their answer. Perhaps some of us are healing.