Self Portrait Manipulation Project

 Self Portrait Manipulation Project

Artist Statement

This portrait was inspired by the conversation that we had in class about how Photoshop is often used to erase people’s imperfections and to make people appear younger. This made me think of the concept of beauty in relation to aging. As people get older, more flaws begin to appear. Women are constantly buying anti-age beauty products to try to prevent the inevitable. Nobody wants to think about how they will look when they are old and decrepit, with wrinkly flesh that eventually decays after death. I wanted to show the aging process by combining the stages of life into a single portrait.

Compositing Big Ideas Project

Compositing Big Ideas: The Cyborg

Artist Statement

This digital composite was inspired from the big idea of cyborgs in Robert Sweeny’s “Lines of Sight in the Network Society.” In his article, Sweeny discusses how humans and computers are merging. People create alter egos on the Internet and computers take on human characteristics as technology advances. In this picture, I have a cyborg rising from a graveyard of old computers. This is supposed to show obsolete technology of the past in contrast to the technology of the future, being the cyborg. In Japan, holographic pop stars called vocaloids are all the rage. This to me is the definition of humans and computers merging into one being. In my composite image, I have an image of a holographic performance art which takes the shape of a halo on the cyborg’s head. There is also a woman on the top left of the image who is being engulfed by a green light, which symbolizes technology. The woman is reaching towards the matrix as she is being transformed into binary. This symbolizes mankind’s constant searching for new technological advances as we become more connected to computers. I find this process very unnatural and a bit scary, which is why the background of my image is apocalyptic. 

Magazine Cover: The Gaze