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| What do you see? |
When I returned home to Ireland a couple of years ago and stayed at a backpackers hostel, I was shocked at how the world had changed in just a couple of years and how what I witnessed in the relaxation of a lounge room captured a representation of what we have turned into. Almost everyone in the room on every occasion was pre-occupied on either an ipad, laptop or another portable device. There was absolutely no hope of striking up a conversation. I was reminded of this moment today having just returned from the supermarket. Feeling some empathy with `road rage' was a bit disturbing after the frustration at how many idiots I had to navigate around because they were too pre-occupied at obliviously being programmed. It is not unreasonable to assume that my frustration was the intention. Any hope for an escape once I made it onto the street was soon lost, not to mention the `crash test dummies' encountered driving while on their mobile phones.
This increasingly frequent image is in fact a program. We see it or similar images more often now than ever. How many of us have failed to notice high profile figures, such as Obama promoting it?
As an artist, I sketch or paint to captivate and evoke emotion from the viewer, hoping to draw them in. Having written my dissertation on film and media, it becomes a natural instinct to carefully analyze the images and symbols we normally take for granted every day. When pointing out to friends the subliminal images around them, it is sometimes surprising to see the alarm on their faces. However, their shock may not be due to their own ignorance, but rather fear and regret for having asked for an explanation. This is why some time ago I tried to instigate a campaign to persuade people to boycott Amazon Kindle. Apart from giving Amazon the power to ban or censor certain books, such Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" or George Orwell's "1984", Kindle can also input certain phrases for Neuro-linguistic programming. An example could be the book, "Catcher In The Rye".
This increasingly frequent image is in fact a program. We see it or similar images more often now than ever. How many of us have failed to notice high profile figures, such as Obama promoting it?
As an artist, I sketch or paint to captivate and evoke emotion from the viewer, hoping to draw them in. Having written my dissertation on film and media, it becomes a natural instinct to carefully analyze the images and symbols we normally take for granted every day. When pointing out to friends the subliminal images around them, it is sometimes surprising to see the alarm on their faces. However, their shock may not be due to their own ignorance, but rather fear and regret for having asked for an explanation. This is why some time ago I tried to instigate a campaign to persuade people to boycott Amazon Kindle. Apart from giving Amazon the power to ban or censor certain books, such Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" or George Orwell's "1984", Kindle can also input certain phrases for Neuro-linguistic programming. An example could be the book, "Catcher In The Rye".
