Under the pressure of the current fast-paced society, people appear to show anxiety through various behaviors and lifestyles. Influenced by capital investments and consumerism, people attach more extra values to items which do not deserve the corresponding appraisal. For example, after the original design work of the brand designer was distorted by the commercial, it produced gross social value, when artistic works are turned into commodities, people tend to continuously pursue this social value to relieve from the insecurity caused by the stress of not falling behind. Usually, the way to resist insecurity is anxiety, which will lead to a kind of absurd social values. As a result, many people appeal to consuming commodities extravagantly. Also, through a series of self-deceiving consumption activities, many seek in vain to recover from their status anxiety. However, the more they purchase, the more they feel insecure and anxious and eventually, it forms a vicious cycle of vanity to anxiety, then to temporary fulfilment by consumption, finally to next level of insecurity. When this anxiety becomes a common symptom, it will change from personal pressure to social crisis or even a generational crisis.
My work intends to examine the relationship among individual values, social values, identities through observing the dynamics of different lifestyles and ideologies and thus to reveal the absurdity and distorted nature of the consumption-oriented value. I am inclined to regard my work as a warning, and the more people reflect on, the more people escape the potential consequences of this collective behavior.
