THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS
Developing ideas in a sketchbook, getting colours and images on paper helped me to work out where and what would work on each pane of glass. Exploring ways to illustrate technology and our interaction with it, at the cost of spending time outdoors in nature.
Each window depicts an image indicative of our obsession with technology versus images relating to the great outdoors, the places I visit to recharge and detox myself from my technology. One window pane remains broken, acting as a metaphor for our broken connection with nature.
We spend more time looking at ‘windows’ online, screen after screen than we do looking through windows and physically going outdoors. This is why some of the tech images are repeated on different coloured glass, repetition, scrolling through screen after screen is a big part of our behaviour pattern when we interact with our technology, new learned behaviour all humans in the western world engage in every spare moment, on phones, computers, Ipads, tv - how many hours do you think you spend a day looking at a screen?
The window with the QR code is a portal to the information about the work. How ironic you needed to use your phone to access it! Technology has improved our lives in so many ways, but is this at a cost to our own well-being?
We do need to think about finding a balance. Anxiety and depression have increased over the last thirty years, so have diabetes, heart diseases, obesity and other related health issues. All NHS websites and mental health charities promote and advertise going outdoors and engaging with nature to improve our health and well-being, and there is a reason for this.
Our re-connection with nature is essential for us and the planet. Being out in nature lowers our heart rate and blood pressure and research proves it alters our brain into a relaxed state. Bees are pollinating the crops we use for food; trees are cleaning the air that we breathe. So is conservation about us saving nature, or about nature saving us?
