digital imaging

This series of images subverts the process of product photography by using it to underscore the flaws in objects instead of masking them. By divorcing objects from any natural context or environment I shifted the focus from the glamorization of the subjects to a feeling of alienation, sterility, and loss of identity that I felt they more accurately symbolize.

This body of work is an expression of the emotional isolation and malaise I feel in reaction to mass production and consumer culture. These institutions attempt to force me to define myself through imitation instead of individuality. Instead of technology serving the common good, it serves only to degrade and homogenize identity. My artwork is an illustration of how the patterned framework of industrialized society instills an anxious tension of dissatisfaction in me. Instead of a sense of meaning I am offered only a mediated capsule of existence, a virtual experience in exchange for vitality, a placebo for my life.

These works are from a large series I made in which I chose to emphasize the repetitious nature of the industrial and technological revolutions. Instead of the polished, flawless depiction of technology that is typical of consumer culture marketing, I wanted to make evident the corruption and inevitable failure of this system. The process by which this work was produced began with shooting 35mm photographs on slide film. Some of the photographs were intended as base compositions while the majority of images were macro details of textures. In order to achieve a more synthetic quality the negatives were cross-processed, which is developing E6 film as C-41, which results in more cold colors.

An experimental trydich depicting the concept of how all technology, despite its original purpose, has its functional purpose undermined and perverted into a weapon or destructive force. While this process is largely shouldered by the military, a similar effect is initiated through technology’s capacity to degrade the identity of its user. Experiments in non-conventional lighting mixed with cross-processed techniques to portray technology in a threatening, ominous relationship with the viewer.