While there are three types of irony, situational irony is defined as a situation with an outcome different than one that was intended or expected. When I initially thought about this prompt, I wanted to create a commentary on the irony of phones and technology within things that they were not originally, mainly revolving around their presence in education and information. My artwork showcases a person at a library, but instead of checking out a book, they are reaching for a large phone. This is ironic because while the subject is surrounded by books and other sources of information, the phone is the superior method and is what is reached for.

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To create this work, I set up a subject at the library and had her reach for a book. I later took a separate photo of an iPhone. I wanted the body language of reaching for something to look natural, so I ended up editing the phone over the book in order to keep the hand from the original photo. I enlarged the size of the phone to symbolize its superiority over the books, even while in a place dominated by the literature.

 

This work is representative of the irony in today’s education and knowledge seeking systems, as books and “old-fashioned” sources are often ignored and pushed to the side for the newer, technology-based sources such as phones.

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