Collective Archive and Collage

In my digital illustration class, we did an experiment where we all took screenshots of shows or movies we watched over one weekend, and were challenging with creating a collage from our collective archive of screenshots.

This is my final draft of my collage, which was concocted from 16 screenshots from both me and my peers' screenshots from media we consumed over a weekend. I was inspired by the show I was rewatching at the time, "Inside Job" to do a sci-fi esc collage with thematic ties to conspiracy theories.

I tried to grab a lot of background elements from the screenshots to build a setting. I focused on finding and making a cave-like feel, with electronic portions. I don't know exactly what drove me to make the middle of the piece a giant screen, but I really enjoyed applying the lighting effects to each individual element. Making a bright light source in the center of the piece let me play with shading and focus in a way that I normally don't get to experiment with. It's by no means perfect or completely realistic, but I think the green of the screen and the deep purple of the rocks allows for some good contrast, and draws the eyes in. "Inside Job" is a show about insane conspiracy theories being true, and I had also sat through a documentary about an Australian journalist whose house was firebombed, not once, but twice, for reporting on the corruption he saw in his home country. With the themes of what I had consumed floating in my head, I tried to concoct what could have been a real plot point in an absurd episode, combining the elements to brew up a false storyline that can be implied, or perhaps an alternative storyline to the show itself.

I also used screenshots as textures for a lot of this piece, to try and diversify the way I used the assets presented to me. Overall, I really enjoy how this turned out, however now that it's done I can't help but notice a lot of little details that I could improve or change. I guess that's how the saying goes, "Art is never finished, just abandoned." Maybe one day I'll come back and try to give this a better polishing, but for now I'm satisfied.