This blog is ment to recollect and display the research materials for my final degree. You can see the final result here.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE TIME AFTER NOW
The meaning of wisdom at times of crisis.
My degree project will focus on communication practices, which are today the way knowledge is mass-produced. I will concentrate on how a society perceives a change of vital importance, trying to visually display the gap between fiction and reality. I will work on the country I belong to, Italy, which has a only partially-free information system and is undergoing a time of economical and cultural crisis. I will give special attention to the way how things are presented (e.g. short-term information which is not ment to be discussed, the importance topics are given both in the size of articles, in the choice of pictures, in the agenda setting, etc.) On the other hand, I will find correspondence of the facts in the everyday reporting whether lifestyles, behaviours and objects reflect the media or not. The results will be likely recollected in form of a book since it is the medium which requires slow consulting times and attention for details. With this project I do not demand for any standard-scientifical goals. I have been trained to work with visual media and therefore wish to get a more critical insight on them, merging the medium with my personal experience.
As many friends in my age I really feel displaced in the world of today, especially in my mother country, where I can see how things are dramatically changing, or sometimes just incredibly persist the passing of time. Still, this age may reveal to be a moment of reflection, giving the chance to focus on the “now” and not on the future as we are used to.
At the very beginning I aimed to create a guide to the present times. I was interested in the many ways how somebody can save money, get advantage in using internet for both working and learning purposes, get acknowledged in environmental-friendly practices, contribute with his or her opinion to the public discourse, etc. However, I soon realized that this was a too ambitious project and that I had no peculiar knowledge on almost each kind of topic, since I am no specialist. Besides, there are already examples of successful projects for alternative information or general disinformation already underway like some bloggers´, writers´ and comicians´work.
So I started thinking about the idea of wisdom, which is perhaps the key point of my research. Since I am young and unexperienced, how can I find my way beyond all these matters? How can I be wise despite the lack of experience? As a reaction to this, I switched to a different approach to the problem. I stopped looking for information and I rather asked to myself how information and the every day relate to each other. I found many weak points in the way reality is represented through the Italian media system. I therefore wish to compare parallel representations of reality I personally get in contact with, working with both human and medial attestations in form of visual, audio, audiovisual or written materials.