After 2 weeks of solid writing, I have returned to studio practice, and realised how it has triangulated. The body of practice now includes the web-building and content curation conducted during Y1 Summer Term; the in-situ moving image looking at the gaze and devotional quality of women’s [self-]portrayal on social media; and the idea of commodifying GCD risen from the writing practice.
The enquiry of Eudaemonic GCD has led me to discover many bodies of practices ceasing to inspire, define and proclaim Eudaemtonia. Usually the most prominent amongst all are marketing materials.
During the writing process I have learned that practitioners’ skills are quick to be deployed by capitalism, which has (regretably) become the most prominent model of GCD practice in the world that surrounds us. Approaching completion of the research paper, I decided to examine deploying GCD for the purpose of capitalism firsthand, after gaining insights in phenomenon.
Through commodification and capitalisation, the image of Eudaemonia has already taken a distinctive image – a sense of luxury revolving around commodities. I thus decide to start my own conceptual high fashion brand, with the merchandise line limited to materials gleaned from the streets – fallen leaves and broken concretes, objects that are initially free, but now comes with a handsome price tag after adorning a status.
Leaves will decay and concrete pieces will break down to dusts, leaving the consumer with a void that they have exchanged with money. So the money has essentially purchased the GCD practice effort – the everything that surrounds the product but not the product. I have realised that Dysdaemonic (adjective antonym to Eudaemonia) GCD practice share such a trait – GCD are deployed to inflate the price tag, to pander a small demography’s sense of status and push everyone else away; contrasting the truly Eudaemonic GCD practice: to decrypt, clarify and untangle complexity to ensure universal access.
For this merchandise line, I will not explicitly indicate any actual purpose of the products, instead I will use model photos as implicit communication. The images aim to communicate a rhetoric of luxury and mystique. I will dial the exclusiveness to 12 – one of such actions will be replacing ‘BUY’ with ‘REQUEST’.
To make the campaign a complete and well-rounded one, I will also allocate substantial efforts in naming and copy. Eudaemonia®️ (or Eudaemonica®️? For the sense of cheek and novelty) seems like a rather feasible name for the business – Good Life, but trademarked and commodified.
I will also look towards prominent practices in the capitalist market for convincing reference – such as Aesop and Nue Co. The former provides with an example of interaction (the layout the palette the animation etc) as well as imagery, whereas the latter provides reference of imagery.
I also plan to establish a consistent visual identity set for my ConCEptUaL LuXuRY hIgH bOUtiQue brand. References for such can also be drawn from these capitalising practices around us.