Category: Media Design

Diese Vox-Serie befasst sich mit den unterschiedlichsten Themen, Explained Season 3 Episode 10 “Plastic Surgery” beleuchtet das sich durch Instagram verändernde Schönheitsideal und das Mittel Schönheitsoperation um dieses zu erreichen sowie die Ursprünge und Auswirkungen jener Eingriffe. 

Ein perfektes Instagram-Gesicht und formschönes Gesäß Schöneheits-OPs verwandeln Beauty-Trends in Realität. 

Vor allem das InstagramFace wird heutzutage angestrebt. Millionen ähnliche Gesichter aufgrund von Mandelaugen, und vollen weiche Lippen. Immer mehr kaufen sich dieses Filtergesicht auch im echten Leben und so wird das InstagramFace mehr und mehr zur Realität.

 Die Grenzen des Normalen werden immer enger gesteckt, denn je mehr Leute sich operieren lassen desto eher werden Eingriffe als normal angesehen und desto mehr wächst der Druck sich diesem Ideal anzupassen – da es ja möglich ist. Schönheitsideale sind heute ohne OPs schwer zu erreichen. Frauen wollen jetzt Gesichtsstrukturen, wie sie die Filter zaubern- große Lippen, perfekte Augenbrauen, die richtige Nase und Kieferpartie.

Uns steht eine Zukunft bevor in der wir unser Erscheinungsbild drastisch verändern können da Eingriffe dieser Art risikoärmer und erschwinglicher geworden sind. Plastische Operationen muss man nicht mehr verheimlichen.

Die Maßnahmen die wir ergreifen um „gut“ auszusehen sind unterschiedlich extrem.

MakeUp, Körperpflege, Haarfarben , Push-Up BH
(Natürliche Schönheit unterstreichen)

Botox, Filler, Cool Sculpting 
(Minimalinvasive Eingriffe)

Brustvergrößerungen, Po Lift, Knochenformung
(Operative Eingriffe)

Je mehr man sich dem Schönheitsideal beugt desto mehr wird es gestärkt. Wie etwa vor etwa 30 Jahren unbehaarte Körper normalisiert wurden, und zwar Weltweit.

Es findet stetig ein Wandel von früher extrem geltenden Eingriffen zur Normalisierung statt. Wie etwa bei Nasen-OPs. ->Eingriffe die Früher als Extrem angesehen waren sind heute Routine-Eingriffe

Reality-TV-Show “The Swan” aus dem Jahr 2004.

In der Show wurden die “hässlichen” Frauen komplett umoperiert und optimiert, und diejenige, welche am Ende am besten aussah, wurde zur Siegerin gekürt. Sie Serie erntete zwar viel Kritik doch für die zweite Staffel bewarben sich 500.000 Frauen.

Dieses Konzept ist nicht neu. Bereits 1924 rief eine Zeitung zum Operationsmarathon auf. In der Anzeige wurde die reizloseste Dame in NewYork gesucht um ihr zu Ihrem Glück zu verhelfen. Jaqueline Naagl wurde ausgewählt und bekam danach sogar Filmrollen angeboten.

• 

• 

Schönheitsoperationen wurden revolutioniert durch die Korrektur der Kriegswunden von entstellten Soldaten. 

• 

• 

• 

Prof. Dr. J. Joseph wird als Gründer der Plastischen Chirurgie bezeichnet. Er behandelte nicht nur Kriegsverwundete. Trug also dazu bei Operationen aus rein ästhetischen Gründen salonfähig zu machen. 

In manchen Ländern gehören Schönheits-OPs zum Erwachsenwerden dazu. In Südkorea hat jede dritte 20-Jährige bereits mindestens einen Eingriff hinter sich. Es gibt dort einen sogar einen Begriff für „Employment Surgery“ – Eingriffe die einen helfen sollen leichter einen Job zu finden. 

Der brasilianische Chirurg Dr. Ivo Pitanguy wird als Papst der Plastischen Chirurgie bezeichnet und als Nationalheld gefeiert. Einst Operateur der superreichen und Inselbesitzer operiert Mittellose kostenlos. Jeder hat ein Anrecht auf Schönheit.
Er ist zudem Pionier der plastischen Chirurgie und entwickelte eine Bauchstraffung bei welcher die Narbe im Bikinibereich versteckt liegt, Minifacelifts und das Brazilian ButtLift – der Eingriff mit dem größten Quantitätszuwachs.

Bei keinen anderen Eingriff ist die Zahl der Eingriffe in den letzen Jahren so stark gestiegen wie beim Brazilian Butt-Lift (65.9%).

Forscher haben versucht die Vorteile von Schöneheitsoperationen zu messen diese sind jedoch schwer messbar aber bei einer Metastudie fand man zumindest herraus, dass die Lebensqualität nach Operationen anstieg. Das Ausmaß ist jedoch Abhängig vom Eingriff (z.B. bei Geschlechtsangleichende OPs steigt Lebensqualität mehr). Und jedenfalls steigern plastische Eingriffe das Selbstbewusstsein. 

I often say that I’m not in the business of making people look better, I’m in the business of making people feel better

_{Dr. Haideh Hirmand – Plastische Chirurgin}

Quelle: Klein, Ezra; Posner, Joe : Explained, Season 3: Plastic Surgery. Netflix, 2021. Available online at https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80216752

“Film Festivals have been around a long time. The first event was the Venice Film Festival in 1932, with other major fests launching within the years after WWII, including: Locarno (1946), Edinburgh (1947), Cannes (1947), Melbourne (1951), and Berlin (1951). “ (1) Film Festivals are not only a great opportunity to show a new movie to an audience, but it is also a notable way of making connections in the industry. Under the visitors are not only interested viewers but often also people representing companies and organisations related to the festival. At more well known festival like Sundance it is not unusual that upcoming filmmakers are discovered and have the opportunity to start their career as a filmmaker on a higher level. Besides that it is a great chance to get to know other filmmakers, take part in workshops and talk more about the message of your film in Q&A sessions after your film is screened.

One popular website to submit films through is film freeway, browsing through this site it gets clear that there are a lot of film festivals out there. Yet not every festival is for every film. When planning a film the director should have an audience in mind, so as the film is done at the end of the process, the right festival for this audience needs to be found. 

Most festivals do have a fee for submissions, so choose festivals wisely in order to spend your budget for the right festivals and increase the chance of your film being shown at festivals. It is also a good idea to think of where you want your film to premiere. “When planning your festival strategy, it’s important to think about them as marketing opportunities, but also knowing where you have a chance to shine. For example, while it`s great if you get invited to a top-tier festival, it can be difficult without a publicist or rep to get any attention with so many films. Yes, it’s always nice to get the indentation to Sundance, but too many filmmakers count on this. In 2017, they had thousands of entries for approximately 120 slots. Not good odds. And a number of smaller tests can give little films great opportunities.” (2)

Here a list of some documentary film festivals: IDFA, HotDocs, Full Frame, Sheffield, Silver Docs, Thessaloniki, True/ False, DC Environmental, SXSW, Doc NYC

Top 25 Film Festivals:

Sundance

IDFA & Toronto

Hot Docs

Sheffield Doc/ Fest

Berlin

Silverdocs

Tribeca

SXSW

Los Angeles

CPH:DOX

True/False

Full Frame

Ambulante/ Morelia

Jihlava

San Francisco

Edinburgh 

Thessaloniki 

Camden

Sarasota

Doc Lisboa

DokuFest Kosovo

Denver

Traverse City

Ashland

There are also a lot of smaller festival which are especially for environmental films like the Jackson Wild Film Festival (the nature equivalent to the Oscars), Suncine, Environmental Film Festival Australia, International Environmental Film Festival Green Vision, Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival (Canadian Screen Award Qualified), Colorado Environmental Film Festival, CinemAmbiente-Environmental Film Fest, Wild and Science Film Festival, Envirofilm, Save the Waves Film Festival, International Ocean Film Festival, Blue Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit, and many more.

There are many things to think about when submitting a thing, the three most important ones are:

-the budget: When thinking of the film festival budget, it is important to not only focus on the costs for submissions. When the film gets selected the director and some members of the crew might want to make appearances at a couple of the festivals. Some festivals do pay for accommodation or transport, but in general, it’s better to plan a budget for appearances.

-the timing: The timing of the release should be planned after knowing to what festivals the film is going to be submitted. Festivals do have deadlines and most festivals are yearly, so if the deadline is missed the release has to be pushed back a year. A lot of filmmakers plan the release of their film based on the Sundance deadlines, if you choose to do so, have a back up plan or more than one. Most filmmakers submit their films to a lot of film festivals expecting to get accepted at a few, which is a realistic point of view, especially if the film does not show any revolutionary footage or has a world star in it.

-the goal: The goal of the film should be clear from the beginning, the right film festival can bring the filmmaker closer to reaching this goal. It could be to find distribution opportunities or just to show the film to the wanted audience.

There are several reasons why we should use this technique instead of just playing real musical instruments.

For example, for people who build instruments, they could simulate various changes in an instrument (shape, material etc …), to already know how it would sound, without actually building it. This would reduce costs and production times.

Therefore, it is also possible to simulate something that is not possible in the real physical word, but it would lead to unique and interesting sounds!

Even just doing tests to see if our physical modeled instruments really sound like a physical (real) version is a great motivation to explore this topic. This also leads to a better understanding of the instrument itself.

This also opens up the possibility of playing instruments with slowly changing parameters. We could also do a real Morphing between instruments, not only in the studio, but also during a live performance. Obviously this will lose the realistic part of the instrument itself, but it could work perfectly for an experimental performance (and not only).

What exactly is modeled?

Real instruments are “broken down” into their components such as string, sounding board, tube, mouthpiece, hammer and so on, in order to model them all separately.

It is also important to add some non-linear components (such as diodes, transistors, inductors and iron core transformers), as most tools contain them, but they are really difficult to manage analytically. A bit of randomness is also a really important part, as if we had total control of all parameters, we would lose the reality of the instrument. (there is always a small percentage of randomness in the real word!)

This is the first commercial physical modelled synthesizer (1994), it calculates model of wood instruments:

Sample oder Physical Modelling?

Here are some other examples (VST):

Based on physically modeled acoustic resonators

Piano

Strings

Drums

References

Wikipedia – Physical Modelling

Physical Modelling – Seminar Klanganalyse und Synthese, TU-Berlin, 2001

You may have heard this two words of it before, especially if you have already been confronted with some engineering project or some synthesizer.

But what is it about?

In summary, physical modeling is a way to model and simulate systems made up of real physical components. It is a simplified material representation, usually on a small scale, of an object or phenomenon, for analyzing it.

But why? This model can be used to simulate the physical conditions involved (temperature, speed, etc.) and to predict the particular constraints of the situation. These constraints can be considered and tested and solutions implemented before the final stages of a project.

It is used in various fields, for example in aeronautics, urban planning, construction but also for sound synthesis.

In the field of design, its main goal is to test aspects of a product against user requirements. Physical modeling not only allows designers to explore and test their ideas, but also to present them to others.

In the sound field, physical modeling seeks to recreate a musical instrument using a model and the laws of physics and to simulate its behavior. The algorithms are then simulated on a computer and the data stored or played as sound in real time.

We will go deeper into the theme of sound in the next part.

Resources



Futura-Science – Physical model

MathWorks – Physical Modeling

DesTechWiki – Modelling

For the practical part of the master thesis, I’m working on an animated short film. Before diving into the specific visual and technical execution, I’d like to give some insights into the thought processes and theoretical approaches to its concept.

Initially, I planned the concept based on the saying “everything you need is already inside you”. From the early beginning on, I wanted to include floral elements, their growth and bloom motions, and having all that as a visual metaphor for us humans.

When I talked to my family about the concept, my cousin (who is quite into philosophy) told be about that philosophical idea where in every seed lies the power to become the most beautiful flower. That saying is a translation of the philosophical concept coming from the nicomachean ethics by Aristotele and the broader idea of eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia as a term translates to “good spirit” and describes the highest good one can reach in life. It’s about doing and living “well”, striving for excellence and living up to one’s unique potentials. In other words: becoming the best version of yourself – or the most beautiful flower.

He gifted me two books (Nicomachean Ethics and De Anima from Aristotele), which I’m currently reading (it’s quite difficult to read even the translations to english). However I did some extensive research online where the ideas are described in an easier digestible way.

With all that new knowledge I could not only broaden my own horizon, but also the background of my animated film, and finally articulate more clearly what it’s about in the most recent synopsis:

The animation film from within pays homage to one’s own, inner strength or the belief in it. With abstract storytelling, it invites on a multifaceted, visual journey.

A journey that shows that a single seed can become the most magnificent flower. A journey that impresses with the most diverse flowers and plants. A journey that might make you wonder whether it this is still just about plants or whether the plants could be symbols of something human. A journey that reminds you once more: everything you need is already inside you.

The animation film from within can be understood in many different ways, but in one way for sure: as a call for optimism.

On a personal note: Having just very limited knowledge in philosophy myself, I was quite astonished that the concept for my animated short from within could be described with nothing less than one of the most fundamental ideas in philosophy. While I only had one sentence (“everything you need is already inside you”), I learned that I actually have a whole philosophical concept as a background for my animation project.

One final thought that surely isn’t relevant, but came across my mind at some point because it stretches the whole philosophical background across the philosophy in my film’s concept itself: Could it be that this initial sentence translates to the seed and that the philosophical background translates to the most beautiful flower?

This Blog post is about some parts of the “Handbook of intercultural communications and cooperation” written by Alexander Thomas. It begins with an interesting conversation between two colleagues, discussing about whether to read a book about to do’s and not do do’s with Chinese people. One of them is convinced with the idea that people are all the same and these books are unnecessary and another person claims that cultures can differentiate people from each other. 

Firstly, it is good to describe the meaning of culture. Cultures could be described as different human interaction developments in different countries. These rules are nonnegotiable and applying wrong rules in the host country, can cause big misunderstandings. Kroeber and Kluckhorn found more than 150 different cultures in the year 1952 (Schroll-Machl, Thomas and Kinast, 2018).

Different researchers and psychologists agree with this term that cultures can cover vast area of important humanist factors in different places such as, language, philosophy, values and different interactions between subjects and objects (Schroll-Machl, Thomas and Kinast, 2018). 

If an individual’s life is under a “normal” circumstance, which means that the individual has kind of grown up in a society that the norms are taught in everyday life and understood with other members of the society in addition, they are interacted with other people. On the one hand, appropriate behavior can lead to an acknowledgment on the other hand, inappropriate behavior can be a failure in the society. However, when two individuals with two dissimilar cultural backgrounds interact with each other, it can happen that their actions seem alien and unknown for the other individual and cause unexpected behaviors and unknown situations (Schroll-Machl, Thomas and Kinast, 2018). From my point of view, this situation is called as a culture shock. 

Research and witnessing of German-American work group (Zeutschel, 1999), has found five different cultural indicator standards, that are almost similar in different places (Schroll-Machl, Thomas and Kinast, 2018). The majority of the society members share a similar pattern that could be seen in the way they think, judge, communicate, interact and percept, which are normal and typical behaviors in that specific area. 

• Native or unfamiliar behavior is judged by the native cultural patterns.
• Using cultural standard provides us a mastering and regulating behavioral pattern to deal with different people in different situations.
• Personal or group cultural standards within a group can only fluctuate in a range of tolerance.
• Different cultural patterns out of the standard form cannot be accepted.

When two different cultures meet each other and in some cases it leads to misunderstanding or difficult situation, better to say when a cultural overlap happens, they have to build a third culture to enhance their way of interaction (Breitenbach, 1975).

Schroll-Machl, S., Thomas, A. and Kinast, E., 2018. Handbook of Intercultural Communication and Cooperation (Handbook of Intercultural Communication and Cooperation). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.