Rome Abstract_Cyr, M.

Marie Genevieve Cyr, Parsons School of Design, The New School

Theme: Fluid Fashion aesthetics and new languages

Title: “E-appropriation and recontextualization: on the relationship between Post-internet art and Fashion
Design Practice”

In the constantly evolving fashion industry influenced by online forces, one can only question and re-assess
the meaning of fashion and its role in society. In this increasingly complex period of globalisation and
digitalisation, Fashion serves as a voice for young creatives. This study challenges the changes in the study of
fashion, globalization and digitalisation. It underlines recent questions related to economic, social, and cultural
logics related to consumption and communication of the constructed significances of fashion. The intangible
space of the internet has propelled the most significant cultural shift of the twenty-first century. Theses seismic
cultural shifts have produced, consequently, viral fashion imagery which have become treasured design
objects.

While the art world has identified the Post-internet movement in 2008, the fashion industry has yet to define its
creative relationship to the online social space.Through general translations and recontextualization, the
design process is now a spirally negotiated interaction between artists, designers, manufacturers and
customers creating a digital and virtual vortex.

This research looks at Post Internet Art as an artistic movement which is consciously created in a context
which assumes the centrality of the internet as a network. The Post Internet engages in and comments on the
changing nature and saturation of the image, the circulation of cultural objects and of the self, the idea of
hyperreality and the obsolescence of the physical. Responding to current events and popular culture,
Post-Internet art, such as GIFs, youtube videos or hyper-realistic visuals, is often performance-based or
performative, and offers pure layers of commentary.

Parallel to the irony that entered fashion in the 1990s where an ad-saturated culture, not mainly digital, today,
WeChat, Instagram, Facebook, Google, Weibo, Taobao, encourage and therefore affect the design and
aesthetic, and comment on social political online capitalism. The irony in fashion has taken multiple forms
such as imagery, physical expression, and encouraged cross-industries corporate collaborations and the use
of everyday brands in fashion. Fuelled from the association with nostalgia, they are e-ppropriated in fashion
context in an attempt to produce attention-grabbing visual statement. Designers and communication
managers are increasingly starting from the question: will the collection, the campaign, the testimonial hook
my followers on Instagram? Are we all designing for online fame?

The image object, Post-Internet, promotes ubiquitous authorship, the development of attention as currency,
the collapse of physical space in networked culture, and the infinite reproducibility and mutability of digital
materials. In the saturated visual online explosion, filled with the sentiment of pseudo-authenticity,
Post-identity conceptions, and the crave for “Original, genuine, sincere, or authentic” continues. The
“Artisanal” or “untouched” is now an object of fantasy. In Fashion design context, uniqueness of the handmade
object or the “complex” emerge as sites of intense cathexis.

This research asks new questions on how do post-Internet artistic strategies are influencing fashion design
practices. There has been a fair amount of writing about Post-internet art. In the context of fashion, a
preliminary literature review shows that past studies primarily focused on consumer behavior, marketing,
branding, but few propose a theoretical and conceptual framework for fashion design practice. Fashion “In
reaction to”, “After”, “in the style of “, “an extension” of the internet is yet to be defined. Theoretical
frameworks will draw from Baudrillard, Debord, Barthes, Cornell, Kholeif and look at recent artists essays.

By documenting and tracking the emergence and development of current social deconstruct, conceptual
fashion, exposing interdisciplinary practice, industry collaborations and the use of mixed imagery (branding
logos, art, cultural meanings), this study will explore new ways of thinking aiming at raising awareness,
exposing assumptions, provoking action, sparking debate.

1
 Rome Abstract_Cyr, M.

Bio:
Cyr is an Assistant Professor of Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design. Her work focuses on
abstracting the notion of hyper-consumerism, with a focus on Asian popular culture. As an
interdisciplinary practitioner and academic, her interest lies on the investigation of experimental
design processes and in understanding the current state of international design practice.

Emails:
cyrm@newschool.edu
mariegenevievecyr@gmail.com