Doll Face

Is there an element of exaggeration in the image you have selected or is it suppressed in favour of 'realism'? How is this expressed? What cultural values do you think are expressed through the use of exaggeration in the image you have chosen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl6hNj1uOkY

Im struggling already to write this blog. Its not my thing. I know what to talk about, in association to the question. But I find it hard to write it down...In my head I know exactly what to say, but its another story about it being on paper, or in this case a blog. So I might as well start learning now. Ahhhh contextual studies, what can I say? I loved it. I guess I assumed that it would be alot like Art History at school. But as the saying goes I made an ass out of you and me!! From the moment I walked in I was captured by the ideas and challenged by the questions. Majority of the lesson was spent watching the first episode of the BBC series 'How Art Made The World' which I must say was insanely intriguing. This episode was entitled 'More Human Than Human'. This episode reinforced the idea that humans like to exaggerate and our world is dominated by unrealistic images of 'bodies' or the human form. This primal urge relates to all humanity, so we are 'hardwired' to exaggerate. To sum it up in a simple sentance, 'WE HUMANS DONT LIKE REALITY'.

A friend suggest I watch a short animation called 'Doll Face' by Andy Huang. This is an animation about a machine, or rather robotic like figure in a metal box with a doll face or rather human actually. The Doll Face is pale and has a lifeless quality to it. It is faced by a television and is soon captured by the different images shown on it. The Doll Face takes an immediate liking an image of a woman, the face of the woman is pale and lifeless like that of the Doll Face, but has lipstick, blush and eye shadow. The Doll Face immediatley mimics the face on T.V. The Doll Face is satisfied with her new image. Almost immediatley after the Doll Faces transformation the T.V moves backwards and presents the Doll Face with a new image of a face, the Doll Face is now unimpressed by what she looks like mimics the new face once again, this time the face on T.V lacks the pale lifeless quality of the Doll Face, this new face bares the natural colour of a human, and also has eyes [which the Doll Face doesnt have] this new face is what the Doll Face strives to be. The Doll Face does as it sees, and now the T.V starts to move backwards, the Doll Face is stuck in its metal box and tries its best to reach the T.V. The Doll Face tries in vain to reach the T.V and eventually sadly breaks and that is the end of the Doll Face.

This Doll Face video shows that the idea of wanting unrealistic prefection is something in society today that we are all constantly exposed to. In the average day since the day we are born we are faces with thousands of images that promote unrealistic perfection. The Doll Face is a visual account of our desires, which are misplaced and fractured by societies obession with perfection and the desire to exaggerate. We are constantly looking to the media and accepting their message that we should better ourselves, even at the expense of our own well being.

I agree 100% that we as humans are 'hardwired' to exaggerate even to the point where this 'perfect' image is unattainable, but yet we still try to our best ability to reach it but without exaggeration how would we have art, music, and literature?