energy sucker

Social media is useful to find inspiration, to collaborate, to connect with people, to showcase your work and many other things, but do you know how to balance your usage of social media? 

 Most of us use social media every day for hours and we don't even realise that this excessive use can make us tired. It feels like social media is sucking the energy out of us while we use it - and then we wonder why we feel drained while scrolling and looking into that screen. Social media is good but it does have its downsides, and you should learn to balance the usage of social media in your daily routines.  

 To showcase the concept of social media taking away our energy and, in a way, seeing us as pawns that can be influenced, I created this still-life photography project. With some colourful dough, I created multiple pawns and electronic devices from which these tentacles emerge and try to drag us inside social media. At some point, the tentacles enter our bodies to manipulate us to keep using social media. This idea seems dystopian; we see social media, which is part of technology, slowly manipulating us to think that we must be perfect, we must buy that, we must be this and that. 

 Understanding that I was addicted to social media did also push me to create this photography project to make people aware of the dangers of social media. Creating this project made me understand in-depth the way I personally felt towards these sites and it made me grow away from them. I used to sit for hours in front of Instagram or TikTok, and now finally I'm able to detach myself from social media, which personally made me feel better. 

[image description: a surrealist still life image from Simran’s series ‘energy sucker’ depicting connections between an abstract screen and body in a hazy pink setting]

[image description: a surrealist painting with red, green and yellow hues]

[image description: a continuation of the series with green tendrils reaching out to a yellow coloured object]

[image description: growing green tendrils with a pink hue]

[image description: surrealist still life image from Simran’s series ‘energy sucker’ depicting connections between an abstract screen and body in a hazy pink setting]

[image description: final still life image with green tendrils gripping a body of yellow matter with hues of red and pink]

Simran Kaur is a surrealist still-life and creative portrait photographer and artist. She is Punjabi and currently based in London. Simran's main objective is to make the viewers’ dreams come true by creating intriguing setups, but she does also create mental health or environmental awareness with her experimental photography. At the same time, she creates dreamlike abstract visuals to make the viewer explore another reality. 

You can find her work on her: Instagram, website, Instagram Store, & Etsy Store