#NEVERFORGET
Digital Emojis, by Regan Henley and J.M. Watkins
#NeverForget is an ongoing art project based on a collection of new emoji designs that represent widely publicized traumatic events in the American collective consciousness.
Using the social media shorthand of brightly colored and visually accessible emojis, each new icon functions to name various instances of national collective trauma that occurred within or just before the age of social media whose compounding media coverage has led them to a sort of iconic status, thoroughly imprinted into the fabric of American society.
These emojis range from infamous mass shootings, particularly devastating natural disasters as well as chronic events with ambiguous endpoints such as police brutality and killings of Black Americans or the opioid epidemic. Despite the breadth of these icons, they all depict events or topics that represent real distress, pain and dysfunction that plague us at a national level. Despite occurring in one state, primarily affecting one demographic or being relegated to the past, we as citizens carry these burdens with us, whether we realize it or not. They are as part of our vocabulary as any turn of phrase or emoji, and occupy our collective memory as a nation.
This project seeks to draw a critical eye to this type of news coverage and discussion of these distressing events, which often become distilled and contrived, using evocative, often graphic photographs or buzzwords that punch up narratives or instill fear. Round the clock access to sensationalized traditional news coverage and independent social media reporting broadcast these collective traumas constantly, and in real time, compounding our exposure to the most traumatic coverage available. Moreover, these traumas do not go away to make room for the next, we #NeverForget them and in this way, these collective traumas become cumulative.
#NeverForget is an ongoing art project based on a collection of new emoji designs that represent widely publicized traumatic events in the American collective consciousness.
Using the social media shorthand of brightly colored and visually accessible emojis, each new icon functions to name various instances of national collective trauma that occurred within or just before the age of social media whose compounding media coverage has led them to a sort of iconic status, thoroughly imprinted into the fabric of American society.
These emojis range from infamous mass shootings, particularly devastating natural disasters as well as chronic events with ambiguous endpoints such as police brutality and killings of Black Americans or the opioid epidemic. Despite the breadth of these icons, they all depict events or topics that represent real distress, pain and dysfunction that plague us at a national level. Despite occurring in one state, primarily affecting one demographic or being relegated to the past, we as citizens carry these burdens with us, whether we realize it or not. They are as part of our vocabulary as any turn of phrase or emoji, and occupy our collective memory as a nation.
This project seeks to draw a critical eye to this type of news coverage and discussion of these distressing events, which often become distilled and contrived, using evocative, often graphic photographs or buzzwords that punch up narratives or instill fear. Round the clock access to sensationalized traditional news coverage and independent social media reporting broadcast these collective traumas constantly, and in real time, compounding our exposure to the most traumatic coverage available. Moreover, these traumas do not go away to make room for the next, we #NeverForget them and in this way, these collective traumas become cumulative.