Week Three: Ideas Generation

Here is an example of what would be expected from your initial post on Ideas generation 

Title: Ideas Generation: Exploring the Doppelgänger

Dante Gabriel Rossetti  (1864) How they met themselves 

A Doppelganger is ‘an apparition or double of a living person.’ I first became interested in this concept when I was young and reading ‘Mysteries’ by Colin Wilson (he actually came from Leicester!) The stories he told of instances of Doppelgangers were absolutely fascinating. Here are a couple of stories:

Goethe, wrote in his autobiography that 'one day he was riding along a road in Alsace, having just said goodbye to his sweetheart, when he saw 'with eyes of the spirit' his own apparition coming towards him dressed in a grey and gold suit. (The phenomenon is known as the Doppelgänger). Eight years later, on his way to visit the same girl, he passed the spot and suddenly realised that he was now dressed in the grey and gold suit. He had seen his future self.' (Wilson 1978:380)

'Perhaps the most striking case in the whole literature of phantasms of the living is that of Emilie Sagée, an attractive French schoolmistress who lost eighteen jobs in sixteen years because of her strange - involuntary- ability to be in two places at once. One day, as she was writing on the board, her pupils were astonished to see two Emilie Sagée's standing side by side, both apparently writing in chalk. As Emilie turned startled at the sudden noise, the 'double' vanished. On another occasion, as Emilie was helping fix the dress of a Mlle Antoinette de Wrangel, the girl looked into the mirror and saw two Emilies, she fainted.' (Wilson: 1978:380/1)
There are many many other examples of doppelgangers appearing and strangely I have been followed and approached on at least three occasions by people saying that I looked just like someone they knew. The strangest one was a man who insisted I looked so much like his sister he thought I was her and when I laughed he said I even laughed like her. Also online you can search for your doppelganger and even find works of art that look like you. This fascination with finding ourselves is really quite interesting.

So to create a project using this concept this is where we can start getting really creative. So let's consider some different continuation routes.

Photography

I could do a double exposure project
Slow shutter speed to create 'ghostly appearances'
Simple photoshop to appear twice in the same image

Fashion

I could look at the concept of twins/Gemini and use imagery ideas for the collection - creating perhaps mirror pieces that reflected each other

Fashion Styling & Communication

Fashion shoot using twins/lookalikes as a concept for an editorial

Animation/Comic Art

Create a character with a doppelganger and then create a postmodern adventure - create a comic illustration piece or a short animation film

Film

Use split-screen editing to create conversations with myself

Graphic Design

Create a set of six book covers that were the doppelganger detectives with titles like 'Double Trouble' . 'Twice as Nice', 'Double or Nothing'.

As you can see the concept is far more important so that you can then apply the idea to your subject.


Now it's your turn create a post that explores your ideas first before moving onto creating a milanote for your ideas board and initial research.



References

Wison C. (1978) Mysteries, Hodder & Stoughton, London.