"Reward"
Interactive Animation (2023)
Medium: Procreate, TouchDesigner
In today's society, the expansion of capitalism has not only brought about prosperity and economic growth but has also profoundly impacted people's lifestyles and social relationships. However, within the capitalist system, labor is often seen as a commodity rather than a reflection of individual freedom of expression and creativity. This phenomenon of placing individuals into mechanized production and undifferentiated labor gradually leads to their alienation, depriving them of their uniqueness and self-identity. This project will utilize illustrations and interactive methods to visualize capitalism's control over labor, allowing people to reacquaint themselves with their intrinsic needs and sense of self, and avoid blind consumption and spiritual exploitation under capitalist control.
Animation Video
Concept: In the capitalist framework, labor becomes a repetitive, monotonous task devoid of personal satisfaction, leading to a loss of human essence and a fragmented sense of self for the worker. Marx argued that this alienation was intrinsic to capitalist modes of production, fundamentally disconnecting individuals from their work, products, and essential human connections. Beside work, capitalism also manifests its control over us on our lifestyle and consumption patterns. Three examples would be the marketing of diamonds, the control of medication, and appearance anxiety.
Process and techniques: Combining the alienation of labor caused by capitalism, create four animations using Procreate, featuring the elements of labor, diamonds, drugs, and appearance. The concept of the "Wheel of Fortune" refers to capitalism's packaging of products, while the workers are the group under control. Consumption is like gambling, and packaged prizes can also be traps. The "trophy", "diamond", "face", and "treasure box" stands for the alienation of work, marriage, appearance, and medication.
After the lottery is drawn, the corresponding production line will appear. The concept of gears is a metaphor that symbolizes the oppressed workers. On the production line, they become products packaged by capital, while surveillance cameras monitor their very essence. As the controlled entity, the workers lose self-awareness, disregard inner needs, and are reduced to a slave of production.
Interaction through hand detection by machine learning in TouchDesigner. When a specific gesture is detected, the animation starts playing. When the player's hand shows the gesture of spinning the wheel, hands will be detected by webcam through machine learning.
-TouchDesigner Plug-in: MediaPipe by domisjustanumber on GitHub
Animation: Make variations of the illustration by editing details, connect these illustrations and set the frame rate to create an animation.
Ideally, placing the installation in a public area in order to make more people aware of the phenomenon of alienation and re-examine their own needs. Due to the restrictions, implementing it in public areas is challenging. Here are some mockups that show how the installation would look at these public places.
