Final project: How we are different in different context and #tbt to 2007

On a peaceful Sunday afternoon around 2 years ago, I went onto my Facebook profile and browsed through the photos. For some reasons, those photos did not look authentic and personal. I could not find the photos, the cool ones, I uploaded myself under the photos in my profile section. Feeling strange, I clicked back to my profile again and finally noticed the existence of 2 photo sections in my Facebook profile: tagged photos and photos I uploaded. Of course I was aware of hundreds of tagged photos on my wall which some had to be manually taken down due to inappropriateness but up to 2 years ago, the tagged photos did not bother me much. It was 2015 when I started connecting myself to various professionals on my Facebook as consequence of my military service, internships and family visits. Upon writing a post about my new journey at Emory University, I got at least 10 comments from such professionals who was wishing me luck for my college life. That was when I started to be subtly conscious about how I am perceived and depicted on social media.

2 years later, now in 2017, as I re-looked at my Facebook profile, I noticed a substantial contrast between tagged photos and my photos. In my photos, I was portrayed happy, trendy, cool, and handsome at various locations around the world, indicating my love for travel, family and friends. Marwick asserted in his Instafame that “Photographs are especially good for impression management, since the myth of photographic truth lends photography a credibility that text lacks.” In contrast, the intoxicated me occupied the majority of my tagged photos, also in various locations around the world such as the Octagon nightclub in Korea, the Tongue and Groove nightclub in Atlanta, the Karaoke bar in Shinjuku Japan and so on. The professional facade I was implementing on my photos were completely pointless if one were to simply access my tagged photos. This, however, initiated a spark in my thought process: I am a different person on different context, in here being the tagged photos and photos I uploaded on my Facebook. Despite one being "controlled' and the other "not controlled", the same principle applied. I am not who I actually am on my social medias. The real-life Koby Han is way lazier, fatter and clumsier. But my audience on multiple social media platforms do not need to know that. Such realization led me to another thought: What was I like before the social media? I started using Faceook and uploading confession posts in 2008, so 2007 would be the most recent pre-social media era for me. Looking back in 2007, I was a chubby grade 7 student in a neighborhood middle school in Singapore where disciplinary teachers conducted occasional random checks on students for knife, cigarettes and lighters. I was an avid drawer back then; almost everything that I felt emotional or attached to was translated back on the canvas. Although a serious movie, cartoon and anime addict back in 2007, my drawings were rather realistic. A decade ago, I believed a good drawing is the one that looks as realistic as possible. As of now, I do not think so. Good drawings are the ones that best reflect my inner visions and thoughts on a given subject, the theory which I have not actualized on canvas for multiple years. Hence, the direction for my final project has been set: Let's translate photographs I took onto canvas, that would best convey my inner thought process and best evoke #tbt (throw back to) the 2007 me when I was still not a digital gadget.

First, I picked dozens of photographs that I personally took over the past 2 years. Since I noticed about my different self in tagged photos and my photos on Facebook from 2 years ago, I believed the photographs taken between then and now would best portray my subtle consciousness about the digital facade. "In the case of photography, its introduction affected only one type of cultural communication -- still images. In contrast, computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulating, storage and distribution; it also affects all types of media -- text, still images, moving images, sound, and spatial constructions”, asserted Manovich in What is New Media?. Instead of digitally reproducing, I wanted to portray my photos with my hands on a drawing pad. I wanted to affect the mentioned all stages of communication with traditional drawings: especially the manipulation and spatial constructions. 9 photos have been selected in total which my inner eyes instantly caught a unique view and interpretation. All drawings were completed on 8.5X11" sketchbook with drawing pen, pencil, and watercolor pencils.

This is a narcissistic photo of myself, uploaded onto Facebook and Instagram page in summer 2016 during our family vacation in Guam. I look super cool with flashy sunglasses, white cap and a cigar in my hand. I wanted to appear sophisticated and masculine with such setup and no one has to know that it was my first time smoking a cigar, and I passed out in the bungalow for good 2 hours by the sudden surge of nicotine and alcohol from the cigar and 3 beer bottles. In contrast to the blazing summer weather in the original picture, I depicted myself in a winter environment. My inner eyes could myself in shades giving out Christmas presents with red-nose reindeers and a Christmas-themed sledge. I wanted to make it look like a Christmas holiday season advertisement from Macy's where I am the model. Hopefully someone would see this and contact me about our future contracts and careers.

A casual photo feature 2 Starbucks coffee at the Starbucks cafe in Emory University. This picture, I believe, was extremely Instagram-worthy. In my reproduction, I wanted to get rid of all the warm colors and leave it almost black and white. Instead of the usual Starbucks lady who greets us on the gloomy Monday mornings, why not Morty from the popular cartoon series, Rick and Morty? Such manipulation would have been possible with photoshop but I wanted to portray my vision and secret love for the cartoon series in my project.

The original photo was taken around late November at Carlie Yates Golf Range while waiting for my Uber driver who took 20 minutes to pick me up due to GPS failure. Instead of using dark colors to depict shadows, why not with a simple text "SHADES" and sunglass (Shades). Picture says a thousand words is a cliche I wanted to avoid and sometimes word can represent an entire picture. I did not have to draw the road nor car from the original picture; words were sufficient.

This is another narcissistic picture of myself indulging a wonderful cup of Pina Colada at Cancun over the spring break in 2016. Sometimes we do not need to fully elaborate or portray a scene; a simple sketch suffice the description.

This is picture of my mom, taken over a sunset at Venice in Los Angeles over the fall break in 2017. I often come across very intensive artsy works on social media that contains numerous symbols, letters, and shapes only with black ink. This was my attempt to actualize that; the sun has turned into Mayan-like symbols and my mom was portrayed as a clock since her pose reminded of that. Drawing this made me realize how much art talent I lack and that I should focus more on my studies.

This was taken over the Thanksgiving break in 2015 when I visited the famous LAMCA in Los Angeles after an intensive pre-game session at bar, as evident from my glowing face. I vaguely remember posing for this picture but it had to be reproduced like an artsy photo collage. In monthly magazines I read, such as the Maxim Korea, I encountered many collages like this that evoke substantial artsy sentiments. I tried to mimic that.

This is a photo of a highway in Atlanta, taken around mid-October 2017. I re-drew the picture in just one-penning. Although not visible in the picture above, the line begins from the zig-zag like on the very left, and ends at the line marked with red ink. It was a concept I came across on Facebook once.

This yummy acai bowl with a cup of Goose island beer was taken in Venice beach around summer 2016. I wanted to reenact the various filter apps we use in our phones. Some makes photographs extremely abstract, some make them clearer. I chose the abstract side and removed dimension from the original photo.

The last photo was taken around late November at Sundial bar in Atlanta when my friends visited me. I just wanted to fill the picture with social medias I use. The glasses are topped with Facebook like, Facebook flag and like button from Instagram. While the Adblock on my Chrome tab occupies one of the napkins, the '23 hours ago' depicts what I often see on my Instastory. The 'Preme' on bottom left is, nonetheless, the "Everything supreme" fancy that is viral around the world these days.

In overall, reproducing photographs in drawings evoked substantial #tbt sentiments within me. Not surprisingly, I had to upload every of the process and results on my social media when my final project was to go back to my pre-social media days. I am the living digital gadget, without a doubt.