16 6 / 2011
MEdia
Media is a fantastically frightening creature. It captures you from the moment you wake up and slap off your alarm clock radio until the moment you fall asleep to Conan’s opening monologue. Unlike a vampire, it does not need an invitation to enter your home: it just exists. And, there’s no way around that. If you were to rid your home of every media related device, at some point you still would have to go outside.
The outside, though, is a very scary place to be.
On my typical walk to work, my arm is tapped by a man who gives away free newspapers as I leave the subway. Cabs with streaming banners for high profile gentleman’s clubs or new movie releases speed by my every step. Storefront televisions broadcast the morning news and I skim the headlines through refracted glass. Billboards stare me down, and if they’re lucky, I stare back. I’m usually experiencing all this while plugged into a podcast and texting friends.
At times, it is too overwhelming to be plugged into the world’s bloodstream, and I yearn for a retreat into Thoreau’s, “Walden Woods.”
But, there’s beauty within the beast.
My work allows me to analyze the source of media, and the necessity of it’s presence in today’s world. What’s most interesting to me is how media is changing to no longer be a force that interrupts daily life, but, rather one that has become integrated within it.
Media is a product of our cultural climate, and the people and events that shape it. Therefore, media is a reflection of ourselves. Ugly, beautiful, strange, or endearing - it is our choice to accept or reject our reflection.
