Oil Painting "Muted"

"Muted" Oil on panel.
16" x 16
Completed Aug. 10, 2013.

This piece is a collaboration between Pia Pilar Mogollon and myself. It began as a work of virtual photography, documenting actual events that we both witnessed and even instigated. We experimented with the alienation of an individual that will remain nameless, faceless and voiceless.
       In the world of emails and social media sites such as Facebook, if a person harasses or annoys you, they can be reported and "blocked. This is the equivalent of a digital restraining order. It's also like a  form of exile, especially if they don't know that they are blocked. What would it be like if someone had been blocked by many people in their community without being aware of it? What if when you saw them in public, their body was seen as simply greyed out? If they talked to you, their voice was "muted". As we interact increasingly online, in virtual environments, this idea of muting becomes an issue really of developing the ability to "edit" our own experiences, as we gain the freedom to choose who will talk to us and who we will have to deal with. In many ways, we are offered the choice of who will "exist" in our own realities and who wont.