"Bluelight" is my senior thesis and passion project. This project is was exhibited in the Lindgren Gallery in Newberg, Oregon from April 15th - April 26th. It features UV light activated illustrations, QR codes, and a projected animatic.
This project tackles the complex relationship a lot of people, and especially those in my generation (Gen Z), have with technology and with screens.
Screens are my career, my schoolwork, my entertainment, and my connections. As a digital artist, animator, and student in 2024, screens are integral to my day to day life. However, as my relationship with technology has evolved, I’ve become increasingly aware of the effects that screens have on my life and on my peers’. Screen addiction is becoming a very real thing as more algorithms and systems are built to grab our attention and keep us on our phones. As our screen time increases, so does the feeling of guilt as we watch our valuable time go into scrolling. Yet this scrolling has become a coping mechanism for emotions like guilt. This vicious cycle happens to many in my generation, and the purpose of my body of work is to bring this issue into the light.
Illustration titled "Look At Me" featuring hundreds of phones.
As a digital illustrator, my medium also speaks to my message. Featuring screens and QR codes, my exhibition shows the incredible benefit screens have brought to the sharing and cultivating of work. Screens have brought about a new age of communication - which, like anything, has its positives and negatives. In transferring my digital illustrations to print, I still wanted to mimic the effect that screens have. UV light, similar to blue light, prevents the production of the chemical melatonin in our brain which allows us to sleep. It creates dysregulation. In the work, the UV light reveals the character’s inner thoughts and inner guilt in relation to screens and her phone.
My goal with this body of work is to bring awareness to the daily rituals many of us have created surrounding our phones and screens. After interviewing my peers about this subject, I took their and my own shared experiences and represented them through a character that appears throughout my show. The first section contains three snapshots of this character’s life in which they are impacted by their screen. In the second section, I have a wallpaper of hundreds of phones facing down titled “Look At Me”. This is in reference to the idea that even when your phone is facing down, to the side, or even in your pocket, that you are still thinking about it to a certain extent. The last piece titled “Screentime” is a short animatic that plays through “a day in the life” of the character I created - focusing on the amount she uses her phone and other screens. It may seem like an exaggeration, but I and others have lived very similar days with the same if not more screen time. Because screens are so integrated into our culture, it’s not something that we think twice about. I hope by highlighting it, we can then make a conscious effort to change our habits and the systems built to keep us on our screens.
Animated Illustrations (available via QR code)
"Get Up" - based on doomscrolling
"Notification"- based on how screens can interrupt our relationships
"Go to Sleep" - based on how screens impact our sleep schedule
Animatic titled "Screen Time" focusing on the amount a college student uses technology, and specifically phones in a day.
