in{ex}form
Assuming information to be the formulated message that the sender purposefully arranged to communicate a particular idea in a particular way, exformation would then be everything related to the idea that the sender doesn’t include. In the realm of social media, where users are able to project their own image by exaggerating the good and downplaying the bad, people’s lives are crafted with partial truths. IN{ex}FORM takes a critical view at this phenomenon by exforming some typical kinds of posts, adopting the metaphor of charcoal as a writing tool for materialising the relationship of information and exformation. While the written message is the carefully phrased post on a feed, the remaining charcoal is all that is deliberately discarded and may potentially happen. It articulates the importance of recognising that information is always biased, and that acknowledging what information doesn’t include can provide a wider view of an issue.
Handcrafting the project left subtle marks of human imperfection. Fragility of the phone-shaped displays, with the layer of transparency delicately suspended by thin staples, denotes the ease with which a piece of 'good' news can be overturned by potential negativity. Selection of charcoal as the main material stemmed from its extensive history in human expression. The engraving was done by hand, with a needle that first plotted little holes in a paper stencil over the surface of the compressed charcoal to create an outline, then traced again with the needle to fully etch into the surface
