FS2024 | Future
An Overview of the Creative Vision
Brett Borthwick - Creative Director
The FS2024 creative vision delves into the human relationship with technology. Identity expression through artistic mediums is intrinsic to human existence. From cave drawings to ancient portraiture, to the selfie and photography on social media. FS2024 aims to represent how technology is utilised as a vehicle for identity expression in our day and age.
Our generation has been surrounded by technology since we were children. It has shaped our experiences, the way we express ourselves, and communicate. Social media's rapid proliferation led to self identity projection digitally rather than physically in the 2010s. In 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic accelerated this adaptation, as well as the possibility of a true digital reality. Until 2020, the metaverse seemed like a far off possibility rather than a true reality we could already be living within. With the average human spending most of their day staring at a screen, philosophers and theorists have begun to hypothesise that there is little difference between physical reality and the digital. How do we identify ourselves in this new digital world?
FS2024 encompasses three phases, which mirror the development of the internet. Every 12 years, technology undergoes a fundamental shift. These shifts are often used to describe the evolution of the internet.
Emmanuella Ellia - FS Model
Web 1.0, roughly 1991 to 2004, describes the Static Web, as a period of consumption. The primary usage of the web was reading and sharing information, with few creators and many consumers. During this period, the internet represented a promise of true globalisation and hope of true inter-connection.
Web 2.0 is the Social Web, interaction. This period represents the emergence of social media and online communities where users can interact with one another. Through user-generated content, the user is able to create and publish content rather than passively consuming. This period reflects roughly 2004-2021. Social identity here is linked to physical reality, but expressed in the digital world.
Web 3.0, the Decentralised Web, is the future of the internet. The emergence of blockchain technologies and integration of decentralised applications, beginning in roughly 2021. In this phase, the user is recentered through ownership of their data, direct international, and removal of intermediaries.
Web 3.0 promises greater privacy for the user, and direct control over virtual identity. One’s social identity is thus reformed as an entirely digital identity. Through the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, users are involved in the process of connecting information.
Tommaso Bianchi - FS Model
The goal of FS2024 is to beautifully depict these three phases of the web, and comment on the ways our digital identity and consideration for technology has evolved over the years. As philosopher David Chalmers argues, “virtual reality is genuine reality” for our generation, and this is not necessarily damning. We have the unique opportunity to define how we choose to identify ourselves within the digital reality we find ourselves in daily.
By Maggie Nowak - Head of Videography