Here are my ongoing projects happening at the GSA, in interaction design. I’ll be documenting my learning journey, inspiration, methods and reflections on the project topics.

1) Animation using After Effects

1st of October. I lost access to my google account and can’t access my notes, some of them were ideas of visual imagery that could relate to this project. I have learned recently that lobsters can live a very long time, sometimes it’s even hard for scientists or animal researchers to estimate their age (Natural History Museum, 2025). I found this fact very interesting, as us mortals tend to be fascinated by the mysteries of our existence, or immortality. I have a fear of losing my memory, in other words, forgetting what my life has been, and often find my worries to be surrounding time passing and “not living enough”. Maybe it’s the fear of being unprepared for the future, maybe it’s about fearing the impacts the present will have in the future. I do realize that, I’m not the problem, (great!), I mean, maybe I can control my anxieties to a certain extent, but I think they translate to a larger issue, in short, the global north’s obsession with productivity, and time (efficiency). Who would’ve thought that seing concepts, such as time, as ressources, would be a bad idea? Infinite growth is impossible, we have reached a point of no return and the climate crisis cannot be reversed. However, the system remains the same, we value productivity and slowing down isn’t encouraged by society, or even permitted with the rise of the cost of living, in a lot of urban centers.

2nd of October. My idea is that : I’m walking in a natural yet urban landscape, (reappropriated by man) to see the lobster(s), and to admire nature and its fantastic properties. Here, I represent the consumer, or a woman, faced with the desire of having youthful and perfect skin. I don’t admire nature for what it is, because I see it as a ressource to be mined. I would then be confronted with the fact I’m aging, a natural process, and the film will finish with just the lobsters in the lake, representing how nature just is. As I’m going for an ‘“health walk”, I am surrounded by the effects of media and beauty marketing, conditioning me to believe aging isn’t desirable.

I’ve already done an installation project similar to the latter, on the conditioning of beauty through media, using the mirror as imagery that was part of the installation, and a face mask, and advertisement, so I’m going to reflect on how the advertisement can be more ominous and insidious, and how my longing for immortality can be, relatable to others, and humorous maybe, instead of doomed such as the caterpillarplasty (2018) short film.

October 3rd

I went to the fishmonger to film their lobsters. Upon my arrival, I decided to buy some mussels. I made great creamy white wine sauce pasta later that evening. The videos I took on my phone lacked clarity, but it was raining and the other fishmongers in the areas were closing. So I now had my fish footage (awesome), and could do more research on the theories relating to the project. As I wanted to show that, fear of aging, moreover, the assumption that one’s worth is tied to their desirability, the notion of sexual capital, impacts all women and is present as soon as girlhood, through social conditionning. I personally think that, these influences have grown stronger, as technology, specifically social media and online ominous advertisement is more than ever present, and many specifically target younger audiences, influencing them to buy beauty products, dress for the male gaze, and adopt consumerist values. So I conceptualized how these factors are present in advertisement and thought about how are women represented through media, and how the notion of sexual capital is defined. There is a “moral division” of women, present in mediatic representation. I don’t like splitting things into binaries and categorizing, but for this project I thought it would be interesting to bring the case that, many of us are concerned about our sexual capital, wether we are aware of it or not. There’s a return to traditionalism in culture, brought forth by the rise of fascism and populism in western countries. ‘Purity’ is now a bit trendier than it used to be, since Covid-19. Here, I will attempt to show these tropes of women, and how this categorization is useless as, value is a made up concept, although everyone is affected by a society of consumption in a way or another, wether you’re a virgin Madonna or a whore, and sexually free woman (there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m just repeating what Freud said… He’s wrong but these tropes constantly come back, for example, if we look at how Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were portrayed as opposites v.s. The same scrutiny they received when being interviewed). I’ve also noticed this ‘purity’ trend has extended to ‘healthy living’, being fit, eating well, natural organic foods. Everything vitamins, seratonin supplements available on amazon, collagen masks, protein fueled foods, beyond the daily recommended intake. Consuming ‘natural’ products such as these, in this toxic manner, go against their intended uses and represent our misunderstanding of nature, it’s properties and ultimately the claim that humans are ‘superior’ than other species living on this planet and have the moral right to steal ressources. Capitalism today treats life itself like an extractive ressource, and in this era of constant technological advancements, the anti-aging industry can use the language of data and science to frame biohacking as ‘peak’ human form. Here, biohacking is represented by the lobster river, where people can go touch them to reap the skin benefits. The irony is that through striving for self-improvement and the pursuit of perfection, we accelerate ecological decay. We say optimisation instead of extraction, and forget that were organisms, part of an ecosystem. We are in a culture that expects us to push through exhaustion and conceal signs of wear and tear instead of accepting that we are not machines and changing our behaviour, with ourselves and with the earth.

On Sunday the 5th, I took photos with the looks meant to represent the teen trope used in advertising, representing youth, the Madonna representing preservation, and the whore representing the other archetype embedded in western religion and cultures (I’m generalizing). These are all concerned, whether aware of it or not, about their sexual capital.

On the 6th, I started editing my footage, I tried eliminating the footage using mocha, but it hasn’t worked well, I will use rotoscope. It took me so long to figure out how to properly use the brushes, but I finally got the hang of it.

On the 7th, I was able to eliminate many backgrounds and manually create animations, as well as creating png’s where the background was removed for still images I took at the botanical garden, as the nature present there was beautiful and they relate to our fascination yet misunderstanding of the natural when we see in in capitalist terms. I’ve now done most of it, I split the animation into 2 parts, where I’m walking from the side, and where I’m walking from the front, and I now have all my assets. I also downloaded the song; I dream of it often: by Telefon Tel Aviv, off Bandcamp, as I like the industrial tones in the piece and find them eerie and fitting, as well as a nice contrast with the natural landscape.

On the 9th I was able to track for one of the advertising tropes, although it did not work so well so I manually did the rest (it becomes a little shaky…). I separated my file into many different compositions so my laptop would stop crashing. I’ve decided I will export this scenery as is, reimport the file into after effects and continue that way, so my laptop runs efficiently and I can achieve the effect I want : oversaturation of information, relating to the fact that I feel hyper aware yet distracted constantly as information is so accessible, as well as pressures to be productive (or sexually valuable), as we are constantly watched. The ads in the piece will be animated to represent surveillance (hello Big Brother). It’s taking a really long time to export. I think I will collage everything in premiere pro after this as I’m used to that software, once I’ll have added all my I think I’ll add a pixelated effect when I turn the camera, so you can’t tell it has been manually tracked (as I couldn’t achieve the wanted effect).

I did not end up adding a pixelated effect, but added flowers to ease transitions. I also put the lobster river sign at the beginning so there’s a bit more foreshadowing. I forgot to explain that, the character (me with the face mask), once having been confronted by the fact she will inevitably age (by seing her 90 year old beheaded self floating through the longevity stream, or forever river), needs to control her appearance. So the universe, or universal forces meant to represent easily accessible instant delivery, sends a mirror her way. By scrutinizing her appearance, she gets sidetracked in sorts. Nature takes over, but is then overcome by the city’s force. Nothing can ever be ‘pure’ again, the greenery fades, the lobsters have become an attraction and humans have gone extinct. These are possible interpretations, of the short, which helped me get my bearings in after effects. I now understand what I can do with it, and more specifically, how to plan the steps to fulfill my goals, how to work faster and easier as well. I want to specify that I took most images myself, except for the odd png that was used for the adverts. I used chat GPT to help me structure my ideas, and used Bylo AI to generate a picture of me at 90. I want to thank my roommates for lending me their lighting, tripod, and helping me film as well as hand me props (the mirror I drew). I also used pastel to draw the lobster. I thank my friends that help me resist conforming to patriarchal ideals of beauty and the women in my life for being vulnerable about these topics.

Here’s the link to the project. Hope you enjoy it.

Are Lobsters Immortal? | Natural History Museum. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-lobsters-immortal.html. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.

OrbaChunder. Caterpillarplasty (2018). 2019. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMB0fZH7v1k.