At the end of the semester, I have finished my Photoshop class, finally. While taking on the rigors of the program, I tended to stick in the photo-realistic world, and in the end I made 6 images designed to critique technology in different forms, anywhere from cameras, to light, to computers and communication. Here is the statement I wrote about the project for the class. The project was titled “Connections.”
”The use and misuse of technology has become a common dependence among the average college student, and as I thought about this issue in relation to my art and beliefs, Photoshop became an obvious medium through which I could critique my dependence. It is of course ironic that I was in a sense critiquing the very medium I was using, and I find this irony to humorous as well as intriguing. As I thought about creating these images, I went through several thought processes, resulting in the conclusion to work in a photo-realistic manner.
I worked with the idea of constantly being connected to technology, through cell phones, wireless Internet, and the endless snake of wires that covers my desk at home. On average, I can have anywhere from 2 to 10 devices connected to my laptop, all in use at once on some occasions. I look at wild conceptions of this in Connection. Without these connections and computers of various kinds, my life as a photographer would be quite different, and very difficult in some ways, and I explore this in Disconnection. My work as a photographer sometimes pushes my mind to the point where I only see as a camera sees, and this idea gave birth to Voyeur, which is a harsh critique of myself and my profession, thus I chose to use myself as a subject. The rest of the images circled around use of computer, and my final image comes full circle to return to one of the most basic forms of technology we are dependant on; artificial light. Light seeks to describe the relationship we have with artificial light, and as a society, we are addicted to this seductress of a character. In many ways, artificial light can act like an amphetamine, allowing us to produce and work for longer and longer, into the night.
Although I have no plans to sell all my technological possessions and move into the dark ages, I do think it is quite valuable to think about how much we use technology, and to question our motivations for getting the newest best things. ”
Mark Andrew Fenton
