I was born and raised in fully-industrialized Brooklyn, New York, a place where everyone is subsumed in technology. Simply walking down the street has become a game of dodging those too attached to their phones to look and walk simultaneously. Growing up in such an environment led me to question the human interface with nature. This perspective was reinforced by my recent travels to the Middle East, where I sought to enjoy a week of less technology. I traveled to Israel and Jordan, two countries steeped in rich culture and tremendous natural wonders. Nevertheless, everyone around me was still engulfed in their devices, even as we were hiking through the colossal caves of Petra. It was not just the city that enabled this apathetic behavior, it was us.
This prompted me to begin a project entitled, Black Mirror, wherein I seek to compare nature in its unadulterated form to urban living, through the aperture of technology; that is, through the reflection of my black iPhone screen. The only way for me to see the world clearly through my device is when it is powered off: my screen serves as a voyeur to the outside world.
These photographs underscore the reality that we, as a species, no matter the location, have evolved to see the world merely through the screens of our devices.