At home, we stare at screens all day. We watch films and scroll through the internet experiencing things through the digital world rather than going out and interacting with the ‘real’ world. When we do go out, we either stare at our phones to avoid ‘awkward’ moments when we do not want to speak to someone at a bus stop, in a waiting room, in an elevator. We isolate ourselves through our digital devices, to distance ourselves from the increasing density of people around us.
Although I also want to express our attachment to these digital devices, my main aim is to contrast the image on the device with the real subject. Keeping the image on the device in focus and the real subject in the background to express how we experience the world through a screen - the device is a barrier between us and the experience of reality.
Disconnected series developed when I went on holiday with my family and I realised I had fallen into the same trap as everyone else. I had queued up to get up close to a Da Vinci painting and took a few snaps with my camera. As I walked away, I was overwhelmed with frustration: I could not recall what the painting was of! Even though I looked at the painting through my camera, the information had not been absorbed. From then on I became very wary of what I chose to take photographs of. I made a commitment not to take photos of art works, landmarks, monuments or anything touristy. I would stop to appreciate and engage with the objects directly. I relied on the belief that if something were really that important to me, it would leave an impact on my memory. Instead, I began documenting other peoples’ mindless habits of photographing.