Advisor: Isak Berbic

Shekinah 2021

Do we, as a society, romanticize the natural visible light of everyday life? How do we endow it with unique social significance? What can be said of our predominantly indoor artificial lighting habitats of the 21^st century digital age – one that is saturated with digital screens playing media and presenting us with a “rose-colored-lens” view of things? How can we create these color cast moods using artificial lighting in the studio, and what could be the symbolic color and light environment for our current time? As a response to these studio photography questions in lighting and still-life photography, I created Shekinah 2021 to develop a vision for the current “rose-colored-lens” state of affairs— one with so much social, health, and political distress — yet our media silos keep our attention distracted and sensationalized.

As the most intuitive expression of art, photography can reflect society’s core values and issues. Therefore, I artfully visualize the abstract, complex public information environment in the digital age by virtualizing the visual effect. My concept is to creatively show the coexistence of the disturbing reality and the “rose-colored” romanticized reality in the “mediated reality” of the 21st century digital age: a modern society with information cocoons and our inability to tell right from wrong. In my photography, two spaces coexist in one deep dark background, black noise, along with a shallow pink foreground, floral still-life, standing for the contrasts in society, from sensational news in communities to the obscurantist policies in politics.

Most of what people can get is already carefully designed. Just as the light and shadow revealed in my works can coexist, the nihility and the reality in society can coexist as well. Perhaps, for this reason, my pictures contain a memento mori quality found between the floral foreground and the deep black background. I hope to appeal to my audience to think critically about everything beyond indulging in visual deception through these twelve impressionistic, abstract images characterized by a pastel Cyberpunk tone and optical effects.

Several Artists, listed below, have inspired me on the visual effect, the constructor, the color, and the lighting of this ambiguous project. In Shekinah 2021, how to build the foreground and background view and how to employ the focus and defocus technique become the key to producing. With a pink hue as the leading tone, the whole collection is connected in series with the primary visual effect of the blur of flowers or pearls. Variable props, such as flowers, mirrors, pearls, and origamis, are creatively set up. As such, within two different themes of Flowers in The Mirror and Pearls on The Origami, each photo presents the balance between the virtual and the real inimitably with my distinct personal style. Viewers are supposed to develop insightful viewpoints in appreciation.

Reference 1: Toshiaki Kitaoka https://toshiakikitaoka.com/

Toshiaki Kitaoka is a photographer who is good at creating and utilizing different forms of light and shadow. He loves to create works through clever angles, borrowing light and props of prisms, water, strobe lights, and smoke.

Reference 2: Rinko Kawauchi http://rinkokawauchi.com/

Rinko Kawauchi is a photographer who likes to use a lot of flashes to reduce the natural light effects, making the images more harsh and flat. She loves to listen to the little sounds around her as those whispers seem to her like life’s salvation.

Reference 3: Sara Cwynar https://saracwynar.com/

Sara Cwynar is a contemporary artist who works with photography, collage, installation, and book-making. She is interested in the way that images accumulate, endure, and change in value over time.

Reference 4: Karen Khachaturov https://www.behance.net/Karen_Khachaturov

Karen Khachaturov is an Armenian artist who started as a documentary photographer. He often uses commercial colors and pop surrealistic entourages to open a conversation about the new reality–the digital era.

1

Title: Reflection, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 3846 x 2564 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Every coin has both sides.”

2

Title: Neon, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 5300 × 3533 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Different viewers have different views.”

3

Title: Artificial, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 2363 × 3545 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Never play with right and wrong.”

4

Title: Illusion, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 3486 × 2324 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“What we know to be true may still be an illusion.”

5

Title: Reserve, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 2050 × 3075 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“The hidden information can be a fatal bug.”

6

Title: Pierce, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 2328 × 3492 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Look beyond the surface.”

7

Title: Fission, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 3696 × 2379 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Falsehood must be exposed.”

8

Title: Manifest, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 5902 × 3935 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Analyzing information fragments requires patience.”

9

Title: Dewdrop, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 1218 × 1825 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Don’t take guesswork as conclusions.”

10

Title: Polyline, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 3767 × 2510 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Take the most appropriate viewpoint.”

11

Title: Blossom, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 3127 × 2085 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Beautification is a grammaticalization.”

12

Title: Shadow, Date: 2021, Dimensions: 1917 × 2875 px, Medium: Digital Photography

“Actually, information cocoons equals visual deceptions.”