"Mirror, mirror"

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Year: 2019 Software: Photoshop Medium: Mirror Carving, photography, digital painting

 

I intended to deliver the message that we are not able to find out who we are internally if we use external factors to validate ourselves. These factors include other’s comments on our image, the number of likes received, and a distorted perfect self-image we projected on social media. I cut a mirror out to a phone’s shape to symbolize that people incline to seek their true identity based on the images and persona they projected on social media. One can see themselves clearly from a mirror, but the model in the image is not able to see her face and identities from the “media mirror.” I conducted surveys about the effect of using social media and observed that the majority of my peers experience anxiety from using social media and tend to present a perfect image. They claimed that social media doesn’t represent their identity correctly. I used photography, after-effects, and paintbrushes to communicate the relationship between 2D technology and 3D real-life. I designed a value scale and a “likes” number to mock the phenomenon that we quantified others’ appreciation into numbers, and use it as a tool to judge ourselves’ and others’ value and status on social media.

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