Artist’s Statement
Why are we afraid of being alone? Are we ever really alone? In the era we live in, it’s not easy to be truly alone. With the devices that are integrated into the way we live our daily lives, we’re always connected to one another. The most isolated among us are still connected to thousands, or tens of thousands, of people just a thumb swipe away.
So often in our extravert-worshiping culture, we look at isolation as either depressing or unhealthy. While no one exists in a vacuum, there are times that we can find peace in solace. My idea for this project was to illustrate a type of isolation that isn’t lonely.
As a BYU student, I spend a lot of time in densely populated areas. BYU campus is a bustling hub of education; I’m a part of the bustle. I only personally know a miniscule portion of the student body and frankly don’t have much ambition to expand that group much more. A lot of the time, when I’m walking among the crowds of students, either to get to my next class or to walk home, I’ll pop my headphones in and listen to music.
When I put my headphones in, it isolates me from the people around me. They become part of the background. I’m certainly not alone in this motion; a lot of students do the same thing that I do. I don’t know if they’re thinking the same way that I do, but I listen to music to enter my own world, undistracted by the commotion of normal life swirling around me.
All of these thoughts lead me to the music mosaic. I captured photos of places I frequent as student, making sure that no one else was in the photos. The emptiness reminds me of what I’m focused on when I’m wandering around campus outside of class times: my music. People don’t come into the picture (no pun intended).
Under the right conditions, isolation can be good for your psychological health. To support this idea, I boosted the saturation and contrast of the photos to make the colors a little bit warmer. This isn’t a lonely aloneness, it’s a comforting one. The music accompanying the photos is calm, but has the upbeat R&B and hip hop elements that keep the song balanced. When I’m alone, I’m calm and happy.Part of this is to counter the domination of participatory culture in our current artistic culture (see Banet-Weiser et al. “Participations: Dialogues on the Participatory Promise of Contemporary Culture and Politics. Part 1: Creativity”). A lot of creations these days are expected to have some element of participation from an outside influence. I believe there’s a lot of value to this idea. However, I believe that creating a solitary work just for yourself is just as valid as a work that more easily fits into a participatory culture.
