
Behind the mask - they all want the same.
When completing this exercise, the biggest news story was Elon Musk's takeover of X, formally known as Twitter. I found the comparison of characters and reasoning for hosting their respective social media platforms fascinating.
It is fair to say that both are larger-than-life personalities, but on the surface, it seems that Zuckerberg and Musk reflect on numbers gained from their competitors. Zuckerberg earned the first virtual punch but lately lost the followers he initially gained when Musk took over.
Ultimately, there isn't one winner but a continuity of blows to each other. Using this analogy, I produced a template of their self-portraits (selfies) and overlayed their logos with the title 'Behind the mask - they all want the same.' to signify that although each has their agendas, they only want the same thing.
Process:
I downloaded their images and logos from each website. After printing on inkjet paper, I overlayed the photos with relevant quotes from their respective sites using conventional cut-and-paste techniques.


Fig 3 - Image Source Threads / X (Formally Twitter)
Conceptualisation:




Reflection:
I've never attempted to create a piece quite like this artistically but I enjoyed the process and the end result. I felt that it covered the brief and also covered the current news story at the time. I'm looking forward to discovering what other new techniques I'll be involved with in the exercises and assignment in the future.
References:
[200+] Twitter Pictures, n.d. . Wallpapers.com. URL https://wallpapers.com/twitter-pictures (accessed 1.19.25).
BBC World Service - BBC News Summary, 29/07/2023 05:30 GMT [WWW Document], 2023. . BBC. URL https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172z2rr7nbwysh (accessed 1.19.25).
Chateau Despair by Lisa Barnard on Vimeo [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://vimeo.com/57283237 (accessed 9.3.23).
Contemporary Art and War [WWW Document], n.d. . Imperial War Museums. URL https://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/contemporary-art-and-war (accessed 9.3.23).
Elon Musk [WWW Document], n.d. . Forbes. URL https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/ (accessed 1.19.25).
Introducing Threads: A New Way to Share With Text, 2023a. . Meta. URL https://about.fb.com/news/2023/07/introducing-threads-new-app-text-sharing/ (accessed 9.3.23).
Introducing Threads: A New Way to Share With Text, 2023b. . Meta. URL https://about.fb.com/news/2023/07/introducing-threads-new-app-text-sharing/ (accessed 1.19.25).
Schiller, J., n.d. Ego-Wrangling the World’s Most Powerful Leaders for a Portrait. Wired.
X. It’s what’s happening [WWW Document], n.d. . X (formerly Twitter). URL https://twitter.com/ (accessed 9.3.23).
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