Self Portrait as a Machine (Tribute to Jamie Reid)

Punk culture has heavily influenced my life since the start of my teenage years; I expressed this influence by creating a symbolic personal narrative about my current stage in life as a young adult experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic. I decided to showcase myself as a machine made up of human and prosthetic arms and a stereo for a head. My character is seen in an empty room, cleaning up piles of garbage consisting of the statue of liberty, a brain, and a bratz doll. Jamie Reid (a British artist well known for his collage art style which involves utilizing newspaper headlines and other pieces of text in the form of ransom notes) was also an inspiration for this digital collage. I crossed out the eyes of the statue of liberty and the doll because that is a common visual in Jamie Reid’s work. I also created my own cut and paste headline using Photoshop’s text and shape tools. I wanted to emphasize society’s inescapable and continuous hustle culture imposed by capitalism. My character is forced to abandon the inner child, autonomy, and knowledge to make room for capital.