American Profpic

Intention

Our presence online has become just as significant as it is in real life, to the point where the promotion of ourselves online has become a standard part of most people's lives. For this project, I wanted to shine a light on this rather defining aspect of our generation, since this idea did not exist at all in previous generations where technology was not advanced enough for something like this to occur.

Context

The idea for this project was actually stemmed from an imitation of this painting that I took for my friends while we were participating in volunteer work. We happened to be working with rakes that day, so I had the idea of taking a picture in the style of American Gothic by Grant Wood to put on Facebook. Although I thought the picture idea was funny, afterwards it made me think about how much emphasis we put on our presences online. More and more so, almost anytime we do anything we almost always feel a need to document it in some way.

Left: My friends posing with their tools while volunteering. Right: "American Gothic" by Grant Wood

Process

Since the picture I took above was what I immediately thought of when told about this project, I found it fitting that I use American Gothic as my baseline inspiration for my artwork. Considering selfie sticks are ever-increasingly popular right now, it was not difficult to come up with the idea of having the farmer hold that instead of a pitchfork. Not only that, but selfie sticks perfectly represent the main theme that I was trying to portray about our generation: the emphasis on self-image.

Product

For this project, I wound up taking American Gothic and editing out the pitchfork in the man's hand to replace it with a selfie stick and iPhone, which they are using to take a selfie. I titled the project American Profpic, where "profpic" is a slang term for profile picture like on Facebook. The process to create the photo was relatively simple: I edited out the pitchfork by coloring over it using colors grabbed from just around it (like on the farmer's clothes for example). I duplicated the pitchfork-less American Gothic and applied several filters to it to use for the selfie on the iPhone. Then I found a stock photo of a selfie stick with an iPhone attached and placed it where the pitchfork was, attempting to distort the colors to make it match the original painting more closely.

"American Profpic"

Critique

Although the intent is there, the final product is not much different from the original picture. The switch between the pitchfork and selfie stick highlights the change in priorities between the 1930s and today; people today are more focused on maintaining a positive public image of themselves both in real life and online, while in the 1930s people were more valued for their hard work rather than by their appearances. I feel that the picture I created simply brushes the surface of that, but I could have done more with the picture to highlight that generational gap.

Reflection

I think that I would have been more satisfied with this project if I were to have had more time to work on it. I would have preferred to have made it look more realistic (as much as it is realistic for a 1930's man to carry a selfie stick) or incorporated more modern aspects to the photo as well, like include modern clothing on the people or modern buildings in the background. However, despite the time restraints I am still pleased with the outcome of this project based on the goals I had set for it.

3 comments · Latest by Judy Mai

I love how you threw in a modern twist to this old work. Both are nearly identical, except with just this one switch that completely changes the atmosphere and meaning of the painting. I particularly liked your critique where you pointed out that in the past, people valued hard work, whereas now people focus more on their appearance. I am curious to know what this could've looked like had you had more time to modernize it. What clothing would they be wearing? Women of the modern day show noticeably more skin compared to before, which would raise another modern change. As the other comments mentioned, the orientation of the "selfie-stick" is technically incorrect but it's possible to take a photo this way as well, so I don't really mind because it highlights that element of the photo. If anything I would have tried to make the iPhone look more like a "paint-y" style rather than obviously Photoshopped in. All-in-all, great concept of displaying changes in time periods.

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MediaSynth #2 - beg-borrow-steal

About

To create a piece of artwork that is a mesh of my own work and someone else's work.