Proximity & Distance

Artist's statement

The internet is a great forum for bringing people together. It is also, by nature of how we use it, a great isolator -- creating an ersatz society where we can enjoy each other’s company from the privacy and solitude of our own homes. It provides proximity from a distance and allows us to filter our personas through its fun house mirror, presenting to the world only the images we have chosen.

On Facebook, there’s no more manicured presentation of our best face forward than our “profile picture.”

For “Proximity and distance”, I placed my iPhone right up against my computer screen, resting it in the hinge of my laptop. I scrolled each 50 x 50 pixel profile picture into position and snapped the photo, the mechanics of the act restating the very theme of this series. I then brought these blurry photos into Photoshop and further decreased their resolution by making each one a mere 13 pixels across. At this point, I enlarged them as much as I could (3200%, up to 418 pixels across), and took a screen grab of them at that size.

Finally, echoing the social nature of Facebook, I paired them with other pics that felt right with them due to color or composition or some other factor.

This series presents the paradox of social media in all its colorful, amorphous glory. The photographs range from recognizable (person on a horse) to completely abstract; they are, at once, familiar and unfamiliar and, like the people behind them, they evoke emotions ranging from soothing to disturbing to haunting.

(On the next blog post down, you can see the original snaps from my iPhone.)

(click on any pic to see it bigger.)