Consumer Series

This is a series of pieces by Jason McCoy that deals with consumerism.  Below McCoy discusses some of the ideas behind his series.

 Jason McCoy

Jason McCoy discusses this series: 

One aspect I wanted to explore is the trade-offs we make to maintain and justify our Consumerism. What amount of reality can be sacrificed to maintain the image that my kind and amount of consumption is normal? How much autonomy can be spared to comply with the slogans of advertisements? I also enjoy the way the text, though often preposterous and exaggerated, conveys a sense of authority simply because it was mass-produced.

Inherent within the work is the contradiction of perception and perspective. For example, it is easy to laugh at the stereotypical imagery contained within these works—the mom and pop from the 50s, the coffee drinker, the pipe smoking dad—with a smug sense of having “evolved” beyond such naiveté. And yet, the very thought itself casts me into my own dated understanding; I find myself scrutinized by future generations, and as a viewer I become an anachronism myself! It also comments on the danger of our warped self-perceptions: believing we are free when about to be consumed, that we exercise individual choice while subject to the larger culture, that we are somehow separate from what we consume ourselves.