Twenty-Some Prints Later...

It's hard to believe that my winter class is "finally" over. Saying it was a sprint the whole way would be the understatement of the century, and while I can't believe I'm not totally sick of the art building yet, I will say that I'm happy that I took Printmaking (Monotype) over a 3 week period. The first week and a half was focused on exploring the printmaking process. Our 20-some prints that came out of that were mainly experimentation. The last week and a half revolved around doing six 18x24in prints that were based on a theme. The theme that I chose was "Always Being Watched" (not an official title for them, just some words to base my ideas off of). Mainly = Facebook. I explored how we may look to others based on the pictures that anyone can find of us online. I'm not saying "don't ever let someone snap a photo of you with a beer in your hand", but if you are going to pose for a picture with underwear around your ankles knowing that it could hit facebook (where pictures are anyone's game) think again; because I'll find them and use them for a project :-). Essentially I'm pointing out how we are really "Always Being Watched". I really wanted to do a conversation piece and I believe I was fairly successful in doing so. We live in a world where social networking is principle, so it's safe to assume that your pictures, even the embarrassing ones, can be found by nearly anyone. One of my prints also touched base with Google Street View. I find it extremely creepy that Street View makes it possible to find any house, any address, and any place. It's even more scary that there are sites that glorify the moments that the Google van has managed to capture (women in bikinis, a couple hugging, someone whose face isn't blurred, a random butt cheek), and what say do these people have in this glorification?

Of course I'd like to point out that I'm no saint. If you Google image my name a picture of my roommates and I, with our faces ridiculously taped into odd expressions, shows up. Classy.
Also, I refrained from using any pictures of my Facebook friends for this project (though it crossed my mind).
Getting ready for my 8th semester of college is interesting. When classmates ask me what year I am, I reply "senior" and usually get an "oh really? I didn't know that!", all I want to say is "yeah me either!!" It has totally snuck up on me and I can't believe that my friends are beginning to graduate, it's a total reality check.