Reflective Review

My main concern for Coursework 1 and my aim has been to convey how peoples religious beliefs can be manipulated to make money and how easy it is to take advantage of those peoples cherished beliefs for monetary gain. I am not religious but I am interested in exploring why people may have religious beliefs and how those beliefs can be maintained in a secular society where logical analysis and scientific methods are so dominant. Through joining the christian social network Lifespace the first thing that caught my attention was the amount of products that are for sale and most of the products claim that if bought, would bring you closer to God.This seems to contradict the teachings of Jesus who was said to view the market place and money with great suspicion. The notion of a virtue gift seems bizarre to me, starting off at $5 this is an image you send to a friend for a particular occasion like an image of a birthday cake, and I find it concerning that these virtual gifts are actually bought by members of the site, under the illusion that virtuousness from God can be bestowed through buying it with money.

I found the Postmodernism exhibition at the V and A hugely inspiring and I saw several works that were new to me. In particular the collage and appropriation design stood out to me and I have used these techniques in my own work; these are appropriate mediums for stressing my point. My main aim was to create a piece of work reflecting the wrong doings of lifespace and put it onto the actual lifespace site in a form that was not obviously derogatory and thus would not be removed. It would act as a form of anti-advertisement to those with a keen eye.
I managed to put several different designs on to the website under a blog that I created and I was very pleased to have been able to do this.

I may develop this project further under the same general idea of corruption and fraud using beliefs. The idea of creating a piece of work which appears as one thing but means something different intrigues me as in this context it has the effect of being a process of illustrative subterfuge, whereby the actual meaning of the illustration can be hidden under a layer of false and apparently obvious meaning.