ARTIST STATEMENT:
The protest poster I designed was focused on the digital
world that we live in and the lack of connections we make because of that world
and the distractions. How often is it that we get bored and pull out our phone
to entertain us. Do we ever just sit down and look around, watch the people
around, us the sky, the Earth and just take it all in. We have to be constantly
engaged and many people talk of the amazing progress in social connect ability
that this creates. I think it inhibits the natural social process however. With
websites and apps such a as tinder, I feel like the youth of today is all too
much consumed in social media and digital connections that they don’t take the
time to look up and watch the people around them getting to make friends through
live verbal communication. We are propelling towards progress and email and
social media has allowed people to connect to others across the world and keep
in contact to those form the past that they otherwise would not be able to, but
I do feel that we are getting rid of past communication all too quickly.
I created my posters to be kind of hard to look at at first,
signifying the communication barriers that youth are now facing in today’s face
to face world. I used two quotes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, because I feel
like this is a film that the generation that I’m reaching out to has seen and
will understand. Also in this film Ferris and his friends go out into the city
and make connections and formulations and memories and don’t have this urge to document
is digitally and are not distracted by constant facebook updates. They live
completely in the moment not inhibited by the distractions of vibrations coming
form their pockets. I used pictures of kids on their phones at sporting events
and at a museum because there are places that are visited by characters in the
movie and that the characters have meaningful experiences with because of their
dedicated attention to the subject before them instead of being torn between
theses two worlds constantly having to multitask and keep up with the social
world that is naturally occurring around them in those moments.
When I posted this to my facebook, twitter and Instagram I
got quite a bit of feedback. Mainly people where pointing out how hypocritical
it was of me to post something like that on a social media site, and that is
completely true. I also got called
out on the fact that I run a social media department for BYU Athletics, which
makes me feel a little bit hypocritical but manly more informed/passionate about
his issue. Nothing bugs me more than people out together as
friends/lovers/family that re on their phones completely ignoring one anther,
and I have done this/experienced this first hand because of my job and I don’t
like it. Social Media is my job but it shouldn’t be my life. It shouldn’t be anyone’s
because then you are living through a screen and through actual memories and experiences.
The video we watched for the weeks viewing, she talked about the importance of
not having just one story about going out and partaking and getting an appetite
of multiple narratives. By partaking in social media you get to see a lot of
autobiographical narratives and stories form around the world, which by all
means is important, however I think its more important to not limit your self
to one story; to not let yourself only have partake of a narrative because you
are so distracted by a little screen in the bug expanse that is the actual live
and socially thriving world.
This is what inspired me. I encourage EVERYONE to check it
out. I firmly believe in what this video has to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment