IS AMBIVALENCE ETERNAL?
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Is ambivalence a lifetime struggle?
Through this visual monologue series, I want to explore how slogans as a framing technique influence the choices people make about how to perceive reality and how personal frames interact with societal frames. This project reflects on the societal frames that I experienced while moving through the Chinese educational system and emotional capitalism, translating those frameworks into the visual monologue series.
Frame 1 GAOKAO
The National College Entrance Examination, commonly known as GAOKAO ( 高 考), is an academic examination held annually in China. It was an extremely intense studying period and it was my darkest time, as I also lost my beloved grandma. There was no time for me to mourn her or to deal with my sadness because they told me that time for a girl is too precious to waste; youth is short and I could not lose the time and chance. And GAOKAO only happens once per year. I had to handle my sadness to study and fight for GAOKAO. Another factor is educational discrimination in China is severe, which affects job applications. I felt like I got stuck in a can, in this frame. I had to follow the rules of this society; I had to accept that all my life was fulfilled by the 5 subjects of GAOKAO; otherwise, I would have had “no future.”
GAOKAO is one of the biggest annual events in China. Even advertisements use it as an important subject in marketing. For example, in a McDonald’s campaign, they wrote,
“GAOKAO is the competition which does not involve any face-judging in life.”
“GAOKAO does not determine your life, just try your best to do it.”
Although McDonald’s was trying to reduce the social judgments and provide a positive emotion in relation to GAOKAO, at the same time, they also enhanced this frame. This made me wonder if the state propaganda also mobilizes emotional responses more or less subliminally, and I was curious about how advertising slogans affect people’s thoughts and behaviors imperceptibly.
Frame 2
EMOTIONAL CAPITALISM
Educational slogans tell people what to follow and what to believe in; we are framed by rules. Similarly, capitalists tell people what is good in life, and we are framed by sugary illusions and do not realize it is creating standards and social values, affecting our subconsciousness.
The time in my life when I went to college in Beijing all alone, I had no idea what information I should take in and what information was just illusions. As a freshman, I was so eager to fit in in a new environment, I believed what I saw. I started to imitate what people did and what people bought. I thought that as long as I kept catching up with the majority, I could stand on the same line as others to gain social recognition. But I did not realize that I was losing my own frame.
The time in my life when I went to college in Beijing all alone, I had no idea what information I should take in and what information was just illusions. As a freshman, I was so eager to fit in in a new environment, I believed what I saw. I started to imitate what people did and what people bought. I thought that as long as I kept catching up with the majority, I could stand on the same line as others to gain social recognition. But I did not realize that I was losing my own frame.
Successful framing techniques can reduce the ambiguity of intangible topics by contextualizing the message and enabling the recipient to relate to what he or she already knows. However, slogans as a framing technique in advertisements may trigger our emotions and desires. When it manipulates human emotion, it is often an extremely vulnerable and irrational element of human thinking which lowers the private self- consciousness and affects consumer behaviors, weakening their judgments, intuitions, and making them lose their own frame. As if we are fruits in the can, all the members in this frame share a similar set of beliefs, values, and demographic characteristics.
OUT- OF- FRAME ACTIVITY: FLOWING
“Flowing” is the idea that I respond with to this struggle. It separates the self from the frames which control our perspectives. In my practice, I am showing how I stayed away from the distractions and illusions, focused on building connections with the objects around me, and with nature, to develop and enhance my frame. In the practice of flowing, I found that canned fruits have strong relevance to my stories, which represents the frames I met in my life. They look luscious and attractive, but they have been processed, like the filters of frames that affect the taste and the way we perceive reality.
Is ambivalence a lifetime struggle? After research and thinking for more a year, I think the answer is yes. Since the personal frame as an individual is evolving over time and the societal frames also changes in the meantime, the recalibration between the self- frame and social frames and the struggle that follows is consistent throughout our lifetime.