I was supposed to activate a movable text blog for my English Class to post this essay, but sometimes, I am technologically unlucky. This is one of those times.Therefore, I will post this assignment here until I can get it all straightened out.
The cover image of the October 3, 2005 edition of The New Yorker magazine depicts the city at night. The inky sky is a deep, dark navy blue. The night is dark and clear. An assortment of water-tower-topped two and three story buildings stretch out in front of the viewer. Silhouetted old-New York buildings, with dark empty windows, are dwarfed by the majestic awe-inspiring Empire State Building. The million windows glisten brightly with golden-yellow light. The ornate top is a shiny silvery blue at the base…the needle top pierces the night sky with three infinitesimally small specks of light drawing the eyes upwards to the dark heavens above. A silhouetted hand holds aloft a dark cell-phone, much like the Statue of Liberty holding her torch. The cell phone’s screen reveals the same image of the buildings, reinterpreted by digital pixel cells. Twelve golden-yellow illuminated buttons shine like the windows of the Empire State Building.
The October 3, 2005 cover of The New Yorker can be interpreted in many different ways. One possible interpretation is that the artist could be commenting on the idea that modern-day humans rely far too much on technology. The cell phone shows a duplicate image of the scene before the viewer. People look to technology as the way of the future. Indeed, the cell phone is like the beacon of the Statue of Liberty, leading the way to more technological advancements. Technology has drastically changed the way people live their lives. Humans have become very dependant on technology. While technology is generally very beneficial and helps to facilitate our daily lives, it does have some detrimental consequences. In the image, the person holding the cellular phone may be using the cell phone to capture the scene before him, but the tiny image on the screen loses clarity. It does not capture the true essence, the beauty, of the scene; rather each shimmering window is converted into a single pixel. The artist is trying to say that people do not stop to see or experience the reality around them, but depend instead on technological interpretation of reality. It is important that with all the technological advancements we experience that we do not lose sight of the world around us and that we do not fail to experience life first-hand through our own senses.
