Designers Research into Concept
NASTYA NUDNIK
Emoji Nation
In her project titled Emoji Nation (2014), Nastya Ptichek embeds icons from popular social media platforms onto great works in art history. The set includes several Edward Hopper paintings, with depictions of modern American life are full of loneliness, regret, and boredom — emotions that, 70 years later, social media seems to have heightened. These then highlighted by status updates and friend request icons.
The image of the man sat alone with the twitter famous ‘no followers’ icon above his head, is a symbol of the way we are isolated now by the huge world of connectivity. I think the paintings clash the old with the contemporary. For example the image of the boy and the girl, the meeting face to face is a reality thing but the way they are portrayed to be thinking by emoticons is very contemporary, meeting people online and taking in this way. I think they all show how we can be with someone but still be alone in technology.
ERIC PICKERSGILL
Photographer Removes Phones From His Images To Show How Addicted We’ve Become...
The pew research centre researched into the usage on social media site in adults in 2005 the percentage of adults using social networking sites was 7%, a tiny percentage compared to now, its being proved that in todays society more than 65% of adults are involved in social sites in some way. They say its now more common to walk past someone looking down at a phone than it is to make eye contact with someone.
This series of photographs by Eric Pickersgill further investigates into this further physical disconnection. He takes photos of everyday situations but with a twist, he takes the mobile devices out and it just shows how disconnected from the people around us, the so called; “connected world”, is making us.
The project was called ‘removed’ and it was inspired by a situation Erick himself observed one day. He was sat in a cafe observing a family, dad and the kids had their phone out but the mother didn’t, she seemed to be staring out the window saddened, every so often the dad would say something about what he was seeing on his phone but eventually the mum got her phone out too. The lack of connection was a wake up call for Erick and knew this wasn’t even the surface scratched.
