Anonymousociety is a social critique design project. In this project. I created a non-existent secret organization named Anonymousociety. While creating this project, I am using a mockumentary-perspective to document the existence of Anonymousociety. This series of design works include a “fan-made” website, a magazine, a set of instructions and flyers etc.
This project started with some moments I have been through: who is the real me? Is it the one shown under people’s eyes, or the one hidden away from people’s gaze? Am I shaped by other people’s gaze, or am I shaped myself? People now live in a world that’s overly exposed to social media, reality TV shows, and YouTube... Society forces us to unwillingly expose ourselves, regardless of whether we are in public or in private. When people have to constantly serve as the exposure itself to gain recognition, being in others’ attention becomes surveillance. Because everyone in this society is experiencing this social control unconsciously, he/she has to internalize that surveillance by changing his/her actions, not because they want to, but because they know that they are being watched by others’ expectations.
People have to act their daily life role to live. When living in an indifferent world where people are too numb to realize that they are only acting their performance identity, Anonymousociety wants to create a safe house where people can hide from the spotlights, escape from the attention, and let go of themselves. Unlike the usual social organization, Anonymousociety members don’t need to meet up in person, and they even don't need to know about each other’s existence. People who join the organization all want to have some moments of escape from the exhausting performance, and this kind of escape is called "Psychological Anonymity".
All design works:
1. Magazine”Existence”: In this project, Anonymousociety is an ancient secret organization founded around the 1960s, recently discovered by a magazine named Existence. This magazine collected all the materials from all ages to prove the existence of Anonymousociety. In the featured topic “Anonymousociety: another escape?”, I wrote the interviews stories, history and criticism articles. The magazine is the main carrier of all the design works.
2. Instructions: By making things and adopting ready-made products and rolling them into this project, I started to think about what already makes us Anonymous. I designed a set of instructions, instructing people how to transform their daily objects into Anonymousociety items. And this moment of transformation is actually the moment when people are seeking psychological anonymity, and it is also the moment when they are acting as organization members. The existence of these works is to emphasize the existence of these moments, make people reflect and rethink. The instructions that amplify daily behaviors to make the audience aware of the moments of social surveillance in their lives so that the audience can reflect on the current social situation.
3. Flyers: a tiny flyer that can be hidden everywhere. The purpose of this flyer is to attract more members to join in Anonymousociety. The flyer contains an introduction and the website information.
4. Anonymousociety website: Anonymousociety website contains all the Anonymousociety items from any time period. I use the catalog style graphic language as the main visual element for all the archive images to deliver a message of the anti-brand brand.
With all the attention around us, we are being watched by people’s observations and expectations. We are trapped in others’ watching and fulfilling the expectations that we don’t want to fulfill. We should be able to live in the cities in normal lives that have a way to reveal ourselves from all the attention, expectation and social surveillance.