For a collaborative project with the photographer "Vincent Murphy," the project Tensions in Technology is an awareness campaign aimed at showing the addictions in technology and this idea of being reliant on it, "chained to it!"
It also goes to look at elements of society who due to states of Depression and Anxiety can ultimately resort to self-harm because of the nature of the internet and with things such as cyber bullying, trolls etc.
This such scenario is oftern the case for young members of society and are several stories of young people commiting suicide due to this issue.
Another factor involved is almost one behaviourly and how certain people can find themselves where even though they are being cyber bullied, they still feel the need to log on, check their notifications because of the nature of notifications and yet know themselves that potential emotional and psychological harm may occur, and this behavoural state in particular is the main focus and how people concede themselves to this addiction.
For this campaign as my side of a series of outcomes, Vince and myself very much wanted to look at signifiers in photographic imagery such as the pixelated wire, blood smeared wrists, posture and gaze of model and also the symbolism behind the ace of spades tshirt as the ace of spades crates a dark feeling in general and that this bodes well with the plain white background which exagerates the feeling of isolation for the character as well as being a good stark contrast in colour.
The wire adds a bit of narrative to the imagery as it is questionable of what the wire is actually connected to and so what is on the screen? as the screen is not in the frame. We also went to create a clinical approach to keep it a very simple but make a bold statement and look to see if without using text, the viewer could formulate general reasons behind the image from the signifiers.
The practical element consisted of myself being the model and Vince being the photographer and editor of the outcome and so adds to the collaborative project both practically as well as the intial ideas.
We hope you like our awareness campaign as the concept of shock tactics was one of the areas I felt personally would benefit being there and hope it makes the viewer consider the "social" implications that the internet has, I say this, as the internet only goes so far with regards to social interaction and in some cases, too far.
FINAL OUTCOME
Just below are a few post-production images taken throughout the collaboration.
A link to the full work in progress stages in the order from numbers "1" - "15" of the awareness campaign can be found below :
