Artist's statement

21^st century has become a technology and information age. Currently we are living in the world surrounded by computers and artificial intelligence. But what impact does it have on people? What kind of world are we living in today?

Newest technologies were meant to create a utopian world, to facilitate our daily life, however people are becoming more and more addicted to their smartphones, laptops and tablets. “The same technology that will hardwire a pilot into the computer that flies the jet and enables the missiles will allow our friend, hit by a speeding truck, to walk again. There is no choice between utopia and dystopia.”¹ Nowadays most of us cannot imagine our day without technology and it is destroying us and making people into cyborgs. We cannot put our smartphones away, it looks like they are connected with our hands and are part of our body.

In today’s digital age people are, without realising, letting everyone know where they are and what they are doing. Millions of people around the world are using smartphones every day. A lot of programs that they are using collect their location history. Everything is saved on the internet - every move that they are taking, every journey they are making. People cannot hide anymore – they are always being tracked. Nowadays everyone like in John Baldessari collages is just a small red dot on a map that marks their location information.

Lack of moderation made our world a place filled with millions of cyborgs walking on the street every day. GPS that is installed in every new electronic item not only helps to find places, but also helps for other’s to find us. Everything has two sides, so as new technology.

¹ Chris Hables Gray. (2001). Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age

Final thoughts

At the beginning of this module I thought that it is going to be impossible to create a collage that includes so many different topics like utopia/dystopia, cyborgs and politics. However after I started doing my researched I found a topic that was interested to me. Moreover, it was a bit of a challenge to create a collage using Photoshop. I had a bit of practice before, but not enough to create a good collage. So enjoyed this module, because I had a chance to broaden my Photoshop skills. For my final image I decided to risk and do something that I have never tried doing before and I am really happy with outcome. If I had to do this module again, I would spend more time creating my collage and I would add even more details, to make it look as realistic as possible.

Final collage

Before creating my final collage I decided to draw a small sketch how I imagine it to look like. In the sketch I written down which images are going to be mine and which ones I need to find on the internet. That is how it looks:

After creating this sketch I needed to take a photo of a hand holding a phone. Below there is images that I took:

I tried taking picture of my own hand, but it looked too small, so I thought that it would be better to ask someone else to pose for me. I marked the image that I decided to use in my collage. 

Then I needed to find other images that I want to use in my collage. 

I cropped people from this image to put them on my Google map.

I needed this image just because I needed picture of phone charger. It is going to connect phone with a hand.

From this one I cropped just the top of iPhone screen. I wanted to put info bar into my image, to make it look more realistic.

John suggested to use some small details, so it would be more clear what I want to show. So I decided to include pin and street view logo from Google maps.

I started my collage simply by cropping out hand using quick selection tool. I created a new layer mask, so I would be able to clean edges later. 

I cropped map to fit the phone screen and I removed background of image with people. 

Then using ellipse  tool I created red dots that I put on people heads. 

Due to the fact that my map is smaller than quantity of people, I duplicated people layer and erased half of them from each layer. So my map would be filled with people.

   

When I placed people on the map, then I decided to add a few small details on my phone, to make it look more realistic. Using the same quick selection tool and masks I put them on Google map.

When I finished with phone  using same technique as before I added phone charger to my collage. I used adjustment layers to change colour and curves. After doing this I needed to find the way how to make it look that wires are connected with hand. I decided that I can make it look like the skin is peeling of and wires are destroying hand. To do that, I need to find the image that I could use to make skin peeling effect. 

I placed this image on my collage and using wrap and liquify tool I transformed it to make it look like it's rapping around, like it is actually a part of body. 

Using layer styles and adjustments I changed colour of cracks and made just dark colours visible, so it would be possible to see actual skin underneath.

Due to the fact that I created layer mask I was able to clean it up a little bit. At the end I added shadows and blurred cracks because in my own image focus point is phone, so everything that is closer has to be out of focus. 

However I was not decided to I could put in the background, so after talking with couple of people and getting feedback I understood that I need to add something that would help to understand my main idea better. I found an image of busy city street and placed it in the background. I added red dots on people walking on the street, because they are the same ones from a map. I blurred background using gaussian blur, because it has to be out of focus. 

However it seemed to me that I left to many cracks and it does not help to show my main idea. So I decided to go back and removed some of them.

At the end I added some final touches. I removed halo that was around a hand and added some more shadows. Below is my final collage. 

Collages

Browsing thought Lens Culture website my attention was drawn to one artist that was using geometric shapes instead of people faces.

Rogério Reis

Arpoador Beach (Rio de Janeiro / Brazil) / Nobody’s Nobodies Serie. © Rogério Reis

This artist photographed people on the Rio's beaches. The dot on people face allowed Rogerio Reis the freedom to openly practice photography in an era when it's no longer possible without the prior permission of the people photographed. 

There is one artist that started putting dots on faces before that. 

John Baldessari

Based in Los Angeles since the 1960s, John Baldessari (born 1931) is one of the most influential artists of his generation.

To create his collages Baldessari was using movie stills and colour dots. By obscuring a face he was able to erase individuality and transform a specific person into an obscure object. The white dots used in the first of these works were eventually replaced by colored dots, coded so that Baldessari could get multiple layers of meaning—red signaling danger, green for safety, and so on.

I really liked the idea of trying to erase individuality just by hiding persons face. These collages are not very busy or complicated, but they have strong effect.  

Other artist that I found really interesting is creating different kind of photomontage. His work is more three dimensional, has depth and looks realistic. 

Storm Thorgerson

Album Covers

Using Photoshop this artist creates amazing Album covers. 

This kind of style photomontage draws my attention. I am inspired on how realistic these image looks. I decided that for my own project I want to try this kind of style. Instead of going easier way and just placing a few images together on a paper I want to make my collage look more realistic, even though I don't have much practise on Photoshop.  

Ideas development

Due to the fact that we are living in age of technology, I decided to look more information on how people are being tracked. There are 5 ways how our own gadgets can spy on us :

1. Computer cameras. Nowadays people found a way how to spy on other using their own laptop cameras. They even learned how to go around the security system (small light near web cam, which usually works when camera is filming). So in theory we never know if someone is not spying on us. 
2. GPS. Nowadays it is usually already installed in every new mobile phone, but even though it is not it is not hard to do that. People are tend to have their phones with them all the time, so if someone can track your phone GPS, he knows every place you go to.
3. Listening to phone calls. Phone calls can be recorded, so every talk can be saved or someone can be listening to it.
4. Using the internet to find personal information. Even though people don't give their all information on some kind of chat room, someone can still get it if they know just a few things about you. So no information that has been put on internet is entirely safe. 
5. Tracking your browsing history. Every keystroke that we make is saved in our browsing history. Nowadays there exists programs that allows other people to access all that information without you knowing. 

It looks like people are not safe anywhere. Every technology that we use can be tracked, so do we.
Recently I found out that I am being tracked too. I found all my location history on Google. Turns out that Google on my phone has been tracking be all the time. So I was able to check my location history even from last year. I took some screenshots of what I found. At the top left corner there is dates and red marks on a plan shows which places I visited.

To find that all I need is to log into my Google account. Here a couple more people location histories that I was able to access:

So I decided that my final project is going to include Google maps and the fact we are always being tracked.

On the other hand were not being tracked if we were not addicted to our smartphones. It is hard to imagine co our life without technology. I found a couple collages on the internet that shows how we are becoming cyborgs just by using technology in our daily life.

Skeches

During one of Johns lessons I decides to draw a few sketches, how I imagine my collage might look. Idea behind my sketches is that someone is always watching us. Something from above (satellites) or simple every day technologies (CCTV cameras and mobile phones). 

Galleries

Whitworth art gallery, Manchester

During of Anna's lectures she suggested to visit newly reopened Whitworth art gallery, which I thought was a good idea, due to the fact that they had an exhibition of photomontages. Below there is a couple works that I liked.  

The 1960s

Richard Hamilton 

Fashion Plate, Cosmetic Study 1969-1973

It is photo-lithograph, photo-collage, silkscreen, acrylic, cosmetic pencils and silver glitter on paper. 

Using various techniques artist created a colour photo-montage. It is a photoshoot in a studio. In the front there is a studio light and in the background white backdrop. Model is created using different people body parts. It looks like artist was trying to create a perfect girl.   

Media are always tend to show 'perfect' people ,so nowadays people are trying to remove their imperfections using cosmetic surgeries. In this collage artist made a cosmetic surgery just using paper and scissors. 

Peter Philips 

Untitled, 1964 

It is screen print on paper. 

It is a colour photo-montage of different kind of shapes put together and printed on silver paper. There is not only geometric shapes, but also parts of technology. 

This montage looks busy and complicated same as technology. 

Richard Hamilton

Interior, 1964-65

It is a screen print on paper.

It is a colour photo-montage of room. This room is created by using different parts of room from different photos. Between all the interior details there is a women. She is not separated from all the items, it looks like she is a part of interior, that she belongs there. 

Eduardo Paolozzi 

As is when: Wittgenstein in New York, 1965

It is screen pint on paper.

It is colour montage of two people surrounded by sky-scrapers. There is a plane at the top of the image and US flag on one of the buildings. Everything is created using geometric shapes. 

People themselves are created from machines. Inside them there is like a little machine with little people working. 

These two people are cyborgs. They look like people, however they are mixture between human and machinery. 

Foam, Netherlands

During my visit to Amsterdam, I went to Foam photography museum. There were some great photography work. One of the images reminded me of photo-collage. It was a black and white photograph of dead bird placed on a newspaper. Photograph by Ash Grey Prophecies, Flashbulb memories.

Format festival, Derby

Tiane Doan Na Champassak
Looters

It is a series of images of looters, all captured during the riots that occurred in England between 6th – 10th August 2011 and found on the internet.

These images looks like they were taken using CCTV camera. We can see their clear faces, but we still might recognise these people, which tells me that we have no privacy in public places. We will never know when our picture will be taken and who and for what kind of reasons they are going to use it.