The image I chose is by Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski, a graduate of the Fine Arts Academy in Poznan. Kuczynski is a political art satirist and philosopher creates thought-provoking illustrations that comment on social, economic, and political issues. The drawing, named “surgery,” is an image of two ‘surgeons’ looking at and preforming ‘surgery’ on a smart phone by taking ‘off’ social media apps such as Facebook, Tumblr and the Messages app. By looking at proximity and color we see that social media is comparable to a disease which tells us that we need to take social media out of our phones. This image represents how social media is impacting the lives of people around the world, specifically on smart phones with social media apps. 

The two surgeons are very close to each other in the image, leaving little to no space between themselves and the phone.  They are both actively participating in the ‘surgery’ in removing the ‘apps’ from the phone, while stitching up the ones already taken out. The closeness of the two men tells us that they obviously are paying close attention to the task at hand, as if the phone’s life depends on the removal of said apps. Social media can be controlling and to some people, it can take over their lives. For instance, Facebook is used to update a person’s ‘friends’ what they are doing, where they are, how they got there and why they are there. Essentially Facebook becomes part of this person’s life, and in this image, the surgeons are so close to the phone and actively taking away the Social Media apps to get rid of that controlling app. 

The apps that have already removed, like the Messages app and Facebook, are floating in almost a free space without anything holding them up. Clearly these apps are more important than the ones we see on the phone still because we cannot clearly read what the others say. However, we can clearly read and see the Facebook app, the messages app, and the Tumblr app in one of the surgeon’s hands. This tells us how all other apps in the image are unimportant to the artist and he is trying to get viewers to focus solely on the social media apps. They sit in an open area without any lines or structure holding them up. Line is also very important in this image’s message. 

When we look at the surgeons’ line of vision, they are both looking down right at the phone. Since the phone is an inanimate object, it cannot look back at the surgeons, so it has no way of looking or having an expression if it had a face. The fact that we also cannot see the rest of the surgeons’ bodies and their specific body lines tells us that the artist does not want us to look at their bodies, but what is in the actual space where their legs and trunks should be, which are the apps.  Kuczynski clearly wanted the main focus of the piece to involve the apps being removed from the ‘body’ of the phone. It’s as if the phone represents a real person, and when someone has surgery, usually something is wrong with them and they go to surgeons in order to fix the problem. The artist is showing that the problem in the phone or ‘person’ are the social media apps, and the surgeons’ are getting rid of the ‘sickness’ that social media plays in the lives of people and specifically in their phones. After an operation, people will usually have a scar and stitches where the surgeons cut them open. On the phone, we can clearly see the lines of where the apps once were. We can see stitches on the spaces where the apps once were, holding It looks together the once ‘infected’ places on the phone screen. These infections are what corrupted the phone because we can that by how the sickly green represents the diseased phone itself. 

The color of this image very clearly represents how social media is comparable to a disease or sickness. Usually when we see smart phones or any type of cell phone in an image or picture, the screen is drawn or looks blue. In this case, the background of the apps on this phone is a sickly greenish color. Someone who might be sick might look ‘green’ and feel nauseous. Looking at the brighter green color, we also see that the phone is radiating the color off onto the lab coats of the surgeons and their bodies. It’s as if the ‘sickness’ on the phone, which are the social media apps, are radiating their power and sickness onto the actual surgeons. This shows how powerful social media and their importance on people’s phones is. 

The color gradient in the image background also shows the importance of what is in the image. Towards the top, there is a dark almost empty looking space where there isn’t anything going on, but when we move down the gradient, the green gets brighter where the phone is placed, and we can clearly see the apps that were removed on the bright green surface. This gradient shows that the important part of the drawing is where the phone is which is why it’s brighter and our eyes are drawn to it. Our eyes are also drawn to the apps that lie on the phone screen and off the phone because they are also on top of the bright green color. 