Brief One - Cybernetic Self

27/09/2016 - Lecture

Today I was given my first brief of the year called 'Cybernetic Self'. I was also given three key words/themes to consider and explore which could be useful to help me with this project.

The words are...

- Autopoiesis - It means a system that is able to reproduce and maintain itself e.g body cells. If we are talking about this brief, it's a way for us to 'self make' and create our identity. What defines us? How technology defines who we are.

- Sociomaterial - It is how people interact with technology, how technology affects us in different ways and the idea of not imagining a society/world without technology.

- Network Self - This is basically my self presentation and identity formed by the network. How we represent ourselves online and through the different social medias out there. We can create different identities that are different to who we are in real life.


Straight off, this brief is basically a way for me to consider self presentation and social connection in the digital age so how technology has defined who I am, how people interact and what it did to my self identity. This project is an interesting one because technology is a big part of my life but I haven't really considered how it affected me, I am intrigued in how it has.

To start off this project, I wrote down a plan of how I will set out my project with the remaining time I have. This will help me keep my project updated.

Week 1 - Idea generation - This part I will generate as much ideas as I can with the help of research, at this point, my ideas don't have to be perfect, just as long as I have some.

Week 2 - Formalise/develop ideas - This is where I pick my best ideas and start to develop them further to help me get an idea of what I want to do.

Week 3 - Begin composing - This is just a development from week 2. This is where I experiment with various techniques, see what works and doesn't work.

Week 4 - Refine/Finalise - This is the part where I have to make some key decisions on my work, see what works and go with that. This is crucial because it is the end so my final piece has to be perfect.

I thought of some key words that I think could help me kickstart my project like identity, self portrait, future, interaction and emotion. I think they are useful because they relate to this project, for example, identity is a good one because we are two completely different people when we are online and when we are in reality, I feel like when we are online, we are more confident and our ego is bigger because we are behind a screen and we can create our own and new identity online, this could relate to emotion and interaction so I have found a way to connect my key words together.

My first step is to simply research. I will look at how people interact online, how technology has affected people and effects it has on us when it comes to behaviour. I feel like this is a good starting point.