Mass media has become an inescapable presence in our lives. If we are not careful we can be consumed by its flood of information instead of consuming it, and lose our identity as individuals. This loss of identity, or soul, resonates strongly with the recent demise of print newspapers, which represent a time when the line between information and consumer was clear — before screens forcibly broadcast personal and global news to us 24 hours a day.

The images in this project depict characters literally mummified in newspaper print. They are the walking undead, their souls washed away along with the boundaries of consumer agency. I took this opportunity to find solidarity between the individual robbed of his identity and the newspapers robbed of their institutional standing. In this series, figures exist alone, aimless and silent, unable to communicate original thought, absent from the world they inhabit.

I started this project in 2007 while I was attending graduate school in San Francisco. The entire time I had been working on this project, I was employed as a photo editor and photographer at Wired.com, the online daily news site of Wired Magazine. Wired is a monthly printed and online periodical that reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Having a constant and real connection working in mass media has helped me shape my approach to the concept and visuals of my project. It allowed me first hand insight into the world of media, and forced me to be conscious of how we receive information.

Mass media reaches large audiences and can be a very trusted way to receive the news, but through that, it can sensationalize to entertain, be biased and uninformed. In an era of over information, my intention with this work was to show that we could become so over run with data that we might not be able to sift through it all and simply shut down.

The pervasiveness of mass media is something we experience every day whether we want to or not, but its intrusion is so commonplace that it is essentially invisible. Its presence is not a partisan issue or wholly political. It directly affects tangible aspects of day-to-day living. And though the media is often critiqued, its effects are rarely examined or its existence questioned.

From the moment we wake in the morning, to the moment we go to sleep at night, we’re inundated by emails, blogs, television, twitters, phone calls, magazines, newspapers, advertisements and political propaganda, and this has consequences for the fundamental ways that our identities are constructed. If we are not careful we can lose our ability to be individuals and free thinkers to the deluge of information.

In this series of images, people wander through their day, aimless and alone, blind, indifferent and in silence, unaware of their surroundings and unable to communicate original thought. They are the walking undead — their souls washed away along with their agency as consumer. This dystopia seems empty and frightening; the land of a cynic body politic. The spaces in which these characters inhabit are simultaneously familiar and non-descript; emotionally apocalyptic. Mass media consuming the individual has reversed the flow of information, turning civilization into a modernly savage land.

The ravenous mass media even cannibalize their own forms; killing off newspapers, which date back to the 17th century, in favor of more invasive mediums. The characters in these photos are mummified in newspaper print in metaphorical solidarity with an institution that is similarly undead. Animated in its remaining forms but absent of its previous identity or spirit.

Using the parallel undead qualities of reversed consumers and newspapers, combined with the aesthetic qualities of torn paper, allows me to represent feelings of forced isolation in a physical way. Intentionally constructing the heads so that torn paper is layered contiguously, allows me to distort the humanity of the figure, resulting in a surreal, yet humanoid entity. By eliminating recognizable human facial structures, as well as class marking clothing, I am able to emphasize their anonymity and allow anyone to be ushered into their position. The gestures of the figures — slouching and hunched or straight and static — add to the narrative by becoming emotively symbolic.

These images are satirical, drawn from relatable experience. An office, a city street, a café, or a bus stop set the scene. They are conceptual portraits showing individuals that have become consumed by mass media and icons for an existential price we pay for plugging in to the data stream.