Working Title: Too Much Stuff! Art Gallery Paper

The industrial age has made way for the mass production of everyday products that were never before seen in humankind, around the 1820s-1870s America experienced the industrial revolution. And shortly after products were easily obtainable at a nearby corner store. Much of these products we take for granted are the everyday objects we do not bat an eye towards, for example, food, water, and even toilet paper. In the art gallery, the work that I related to the most was Nancy Buchanan’s “Walk On”. 

Nancy Buchanan "Walk On"

All of the expensive and luxury shoes are put into a collage showing what a person's closet would look like. I myself love shoes and currently own about 16 pairs of them, about 6 of which are in my rotation. I like to refer to myself as a sneakerhead, someone who has a passion for sneakers. With the sneaker industry growing larger every year with more and more individuals entering the world of sneakers, overconsumption of materials will occur. Many of the sought-out pieces such as the Ben & Jerry's dunks, Travis Scott's, the Jordan 4 UNDTF just to name a few are valued at an exaggerated amount from retail. Sneakers usually cost around $75-$200, if the sneakers gain a lot of traction and hype, the resale of the sneaker can increase by 1000%. 

Much of the attraction to many items, not just sneakers are stemmed from advertisements. This is mainly attracted towards the consumer, where brands use promos to introduce and convince consumers to buy their product. "The fact that these images belong to the moment but speak of the future produces a strange effect which has become so familiar that we scarcely notice it" (Berger, 130). Brands such as Apple are amazing at convincing users to upgrade their phones every year with their yearly release of the iPhone and Apple-related devices. It is very regular for someone to use the same brand for all their related devices, if someone owns an iPhone, they are more likely to own an iMac, Macbook, iPad or AirPods. It is one of the ways we are overconsuming and buying into Apple's scheme of purchasing all of their products. We lie to ourselves that we need these products that are branded with noticeable names. In recent years, the Macbooks have been great but unusable with other devices, they did not include a USB input directly into the Macbooks, for that they need an extension Apple sells for more money. The wall adapters and headphones have been removed from the box that the iPhone comes in, claiming that it will "reduce waste." The wired headphones cost $20, and the wall adapter costs $19, why not include them in the box, to begin with since the two products mentioned come in their own respective box?

"Walk On" by Nancy Buchanan is an example of overconsumption through the use of media, as the collage is a collection of shoes cut out from magazines. "Walk On" exploits our interests and incentivizes our wants into purchasing these products, "... their own notions about poverty, light, dignity, texture, exploitation, and geometry" (Sontag). The way the collage presents the shoes gives a claustrophobic feeling, just like my room. Shoes all over the floor, taking up more space than necessary, but for some reason whenever I look at more shoes I have a desire to buy more. To buy more sneakers than I need, I have a pair of feet and have 16 or 17 pairs that I wear. This happens with any product, during late spring and early summer of 2020, there was a mass panic that certain everyday items would run out of stock, the most memorable items were face masks, hand sanitizers, and, toilet paper. This was under the assumption that most products are mass-produced in China, therefore the production and imports on toilet paper would halt due to most of China begin affected by Covid-19. Many stores quickly ran out of toilet paper with some people buying out the entire stock and reselling it on websites for ridiculous prices. However, not many people know that toilet paper is mainly produced in North America, and restocks on toilet paper slowly but surely got into the hands of all consumers and those who did buy it in bulk are now sitting on thrones made of toilet paper. Overconsumption has led to panic and fear that one day the world stops functioning.

Social media has become a large factor in consumerism as it creates a void where many people continuously scroll through content. The internet has become a place to overconsume content, it has become a reason that we always find ourselves on our phones. My favorite comedian Bo Burnham wrote a song called Welcome to the Internet, in his most recent Netflix special, Inside where Burnham slowly introduces us to the internet. He starts off the song with a welcoming feeling, very inviting. However, as the song progresses, the song gets faster and faster, the negative aspects of the internet are being intertwined with the positive, and the best lines of the song are found towards the end of the song. "Apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime, anything and everything all of the time." and "Look at you... unstoppable, watchable, your time is now. Your inside's out honey how you grew." Burnham shows us how much we have exposed ourselves on the internet, constantly looking for new content and posting our personal lives online where our "insides out" always looking for a new way to stay entertained.

Mollie Thonneson "Pieces of Meat"

Nancy Buchanan "Walk On"

This is my selfie with my 16 pairs of sneakers. I swear there's a lot more than it looks like

Citations: 
    Burnham, Bo. “Welcome to the Internet.” YouTube, uploaded by Bo Burnham, 4 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU.

    Berger, John. Ways of seeing Here

    Susan Songtag. On Photography, http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml.