2018

Our world is always changing. New ideas and inventions are typically created to improve our society as a whole; however, sometimes what is intended to be a positive improvement, turns out to be a major setback on an entire generation. The point of my piece "2018", is to highlight the negatives of the world's recent spike in technology and social media usage. My age group is known as the "plugged in" generation and each section of this mixed media piece symbolizes how and why we are "plugged in". Technology was created to improve issues of the world, however, if abused, it is addicting and toxic (the pills). Social media is often used to put oneself out there, and results in comparison and focusing on outward appearances (the bikini woman leaning on Instagram). Social media and technology separate relationships; they are a block from reality and are used to avoid face-to-face interaction (the couple divided by Snapchat). "New!", "Gossip", "Look!", and the smoking advertisement represent peer pressure and how social media is used to push certain beliefs, ideas, and companies; they also show the ways in which social media can be distraction. In this piece, I cut images of people from a 1950's magazine to emphasize how our world used to be. For the background, I cut definitions and words from a dictionary that describes technology; some of these words include ''addiction", ''consume'', and ''self''. This mixed media is by far the most meaningful art piece I have ever made, and my hope is that it inspires and opens the eyes of others, as it did for me.