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Graphic Design

Yu Huang

I am Yu. I am a graphic designer.

I studied Visual Communication at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Currently I am studying Graphic Design at the Royal College of Art.

I like to discuss the current emotional confusion and living conditions of young people in social media. I usually use visits or interviews with different groups of young people as my main research method to conduct in-depth studies. I like to express the thoughts and perceptions of young Chinese people about themselves and their surroundings through book design and video narratives. Most of my work is inspired by a large amount of first-hand written material, including tens of thousands of words of interviews and social media messages. Each of my works is also a mirror that reflects my own doubts, thoughts and opinions about myself.

Show Location: Battersea campus: Studio Building, Ground floor

Yu Huang-statement

With the development of technology, any actions of love can now be done online .

As a young woman eager to grow in an intimate relationship, I began to think, about are algorithms and social media making relationships harder or easier? What kind of free will do we have?

In my practice and in this specific project I researched and observed young women's intimacy skills and emotional privacy on Xiaohongshu (a Chinese social media platform).

I begin to reflect on the relationship between young women's perceptions of intimacy and internet technology online. We now prefer to get our knowledge about love from social media rather than others. Sharing becomes an absolutely positive approach. Does sharing emotional confusion online give you all the answers? Is using technology to get answers quickly always the best way? Behind the scenes is a battleground for young women's self-worth and the struggle for free will regarding love.

The work is divided into two sections. The first part of the film is about a young girl searching for an exit in a labyrinthine underground, a metaphor for the 'rabbit hole' of the Internet through which modern young women are constantly navigating until their self-worth is lost.The second part of the work is a conversation with fifteen women about intimacy, encouraging young women to maintain a feminine critical attitude in the face of online information about love.

Break Up
Break UpResearch thinking
Conversation texts
Conversation textsI interviewed fourteen young women in a variety of social roles and capacities: company employees, university staff, counsellors and my mother.
Everything reminds me of holes and tunnels. We generally agree that getting quick answers and solving emotional problems is of the utmost importance. It is important to share and watch what others sha
Everything reminds me of holes and tunnels. We generally agree that getting quick answers and solving emotional problems is of the utmost importance. It is important to share and watch what others share. Sharing emotions has become rife. They are shared by bloggers every day. On social media, we get answers through sharing faster than self-reflection, like a tunnel that takes us beyond our own speed and quickly links us quickly to answers.
Quotes
QuotesIn the text of this 40,000-word interview, I have selected a few excerpts and quotes as a glimpse into young women's views on intimacy and themselves

In an age of overwhelming information, we have easier access to information on all sorts of girl-getting and flirting techniques, and we are building relationships with more people, yet it is also happening, as behavioural scientist Logan Ury suggests that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to build intimate and lasting relationships.

This story comes from my own experience. I fell out of love. When I was consulting with my friend about my troubles, she recommended me a video, 'Ten minutes to make your partner love you forever', it tells you how to make your boyfriend love you forever, it has top hits and fans in some social media. People are already unknowingly in an environment where they are constantly being shared and shared about intimate relationships online.

I joined one such social media chat room made up mostly of young women and I observed that young women tend to be very emotional in groups. Through social media, emotions are gradually moving from the private to the public sphere, and people are stepping into a post-emotional society with their emotions, which often affects how individuals view intimacy.

Through conversations with fourteen women in the chat room, I find that many young women prefer to be in a cyberspace like this to have someone listen to them tell their love story, or to get quick answers from others to solve problems without scrutiny. The desire to eliminate your own blind spot in a relationship sometimes ignoring your own feelings, and becoming that blind spot yourself. When they enter such a group, they enter such a discourse construction rules space. The more answers they get from others, the less space for their own thinking. They doubt their own value and love in the words they exchange. The way they love.

Once there is a shadow when young women know themselves but can't interpret it, the self- worth will fall into the trap of sharing. I want to use these ideas to inspire the thinking of the girls behind the sharing, and encourage them to maintain a critical attitude when facing information.  

Medium:

image

Size:

Multiple
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love MagazinesI have edited the dialogue into fourteen separate romance magazines, where the audience can pick up any book and read the stories in it; they are not in reading order. The design of the book I referenced playing cards, the rules of which are filled with a sense of fate, chance and effort, which also reflect some of the young women's views of themselves and intimacy.
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
Quotes From Magazines
Quotes From Magazines
Quotes From Magazines
Quotes From Magazines
Quotes
Quotes
14 Love Magazines, Book
14 Love Magazines, Book
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines
14 Love Magazines

Medium:

Book

Size:

195mm*255mm;number 14
Photography
Photography
Sending
SendingAt the exhibition I made them into postcards. And I selected a lot of language that women in the online space communicate with and printed it on the back of the postcards to simulate the action of sending messages in the online space
Sending
Sending

I created this image of a lost young girl. She might be every one of those girls I mentioned who are addicted to learning about intimacy online, or maybe it's you and me. She is constantly travelling through various online spaces and still feels lost

I photographed this young girl lost in an underground station, the underground space of which metaphorically represents the many passages and complexities of the linear space. Although we can find our way around with a few signs, most of the time we still get lost.

Medium:

Postcard

Size:

Variable size
Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole"Technology allows us to find the answer to love beyond the speed of our own reality, like going through a tunnel. But sometimes the other side of the tunnel is not the exit, but the endless depths of the rabbit hole.”

On many social media outlets, there are many young girls who use social software to search to learn about intimacy. Technology allows them to outpace real life to find answers related to intimacy, and the oversharing of the internet encourages women to endlessly share their stories and opinions. Too much discourse allows female values to be dissolved in the midst of this, a fantasy world that nevertheless squeezes the space for young girls to reflect on their self-worth through discourse. The rabbit hole is a metaphor for a myriad social media spaces. The video tells the story of a young girl searching for an exit, running and getting lost in this labyrinthine underground space.


Medium:

Moving Image