Fragments: On The Waste Land
Multimedia
Thanks to the fourth industrial revolution—the adoption of cyber-physical system and the Internet—never before have people had such convenience and opportunities to establish social connection, indulge in entertainment, and polish their self-presentation. At the same time, never before have people been so fragmented by “virtual networks”, as every bit of our attention can and will be “transformed into capital”*. As a designer who understands the enterprises that count human attention as capital, I aim to visualize that alienation and dehumanization born to technological development.
My thesis project, Fragments, uses T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land, a canonical text addressing social crisis after the second industrial revolution, as a basis for revealing the social crisis in the contemporary information age.
Typography
The typographic component of my project leads to printing and publication. To further emphasize the “fragmented” nature of the poem as well as the contemporary way of retrieving information, the typography is divided into four sections, each in its own artist book.The booklet is 2.79” x 5.65”, in the size of an iPhone X, which has become one of the most common reading devices.
Alternative printing sizes include size of iPhone X plus, iPad, and maybe Kindle. Eventually, the scaling reaches the size of a screen, which leads back to the other component of the project, the video series.