Together, Alone: Online Exhibition

This exhibition examines the phenomenon of social media and how it has been one of the most rapid expansions in how people communicate. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri during the 1990s and the early 2000s. During this time, I experienced the beginning of online messaging platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace, and Facebook. I am concerned with humanity’s detachment from reality through advancements in digital technology. Social media, and its connected devices, have become indispensable for daily communication. As Harvard sociology and personality psychologist Sherry Turkle so eloquently states, “They would rather text than talk.” I use mediums and modes directly related to social media, creating animated gifs of fleeting situations that happen because of these new devices. I juxtapose these animations with traditional charcoal drawings that tie the work to the physical, relating to how technology has affected everyday activities such as a morning commute on a subway. I invite viewers of this exhibition to raise questions about what this change has meant to their personal experience in online communication.