Illustration with a message (WIP)

The initial concept that I had developed was solitude, however I believed that deviating from this towards isolation would most likely make more sense, considering both concepts can be easily confused. Essentially speaking, they could be used in the same contexts, but subtle factors such as choice and emotion can speak volumes in relation to both of these concepts. For example, a man sitting on a beach looking out to sea could appear to have chosen to be there depending on his expression and body language, where he may appear to be deep in thought. Conversely he could appear to be isolated if his body language indicated despair, sadness or depression. It is a subject that I can relate to strongly, primarily based on my own personal experiences, and I believe that despite technology driving us further to convergence with all other people on the planet, are we really together per se? Or are we simply isolating our physical selves with an almost intangible concept? This is the inquiry that I will explore within my artwork.

I feel that in doing this piece, there are fundamentally going to be elements of my piece that have to be created using digital means, particularly because I also plan on introducing type into the image, although not so much in a coherent message but more of an abstract form of it, something that would still be relevant to the concept and exploration of said concept, but not so much as to be blatantly obvious. I will most likely try to keep the intended artwork realistic, but delving into science fiction as well, perhaps more of a matrix of objects that make up the world that we see, perhaps a digital representation of said world. The artwork would depict a person sitting on the crest of a sand dune at night, looking out towards an abstract of a city made up of blocks, with each block emitting a light while the night sky is covered with wires in the same manner as a motherboard, built in a similar fashion to that of the Milky Way, with each join, each deviation of the wires being represented as stars, layers upon layers of the wires making up a digital-esque representation of a night sky. I also intend on representing the intended message – a query of whether technology has actually brought us closer or not. This piece is meant to question the ulterior motives of technology, questioning its relevancy in the social sphere, a query of whether the overabundance of technology – and in particular social media – has in fact disconnected us from reality. Much of what will be shown will be from my own perspective; however I won’t include any distinguishing personalities with the piece, allowing any person viewing the artwork to relate to it.

Another approach that I could take is a series of graphics, of which a person is alone in the world and discovers the means to communicate with other people, but slowly finds itself feeling very much in the same way – feeling alone, isolated and disconnected – when they become used to the new environment.