Thursday Topic 10/30

Society

"Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals." -Oscar Wilde

I happen to agree with this statement. I realize that this quote states something very similar to what I said about "culture", but to me they are two very different things. Your society you can escape, your culture you can't. Within the society I live in, there are so many different cultures that I couldn't name them all even if I had a world atlas. Society to me is governmental. It is the ruling presence over everyone in a specific location. It is divided up into social class instead of race or religion.As a result of this division, it encourages judgment and assumption much like culture does. It is for this reason that it affects my work. The viewer is forced to make several assumptions about the people in my work, not just questions like "Are they crazy?". Instead, the viewer automatically and subconsciously dissects the models image, breaking them down into range, gender, beauty, apparel, etc. This will always affect the work I make, even if I were to silhouette everyone.