Consumed ~Melissa Dean

Melissa Dean’s lecture Consumed dealt with the different aspects of our consumerist economy. Most her works were built off of the different material objects found within the realm of the consumer market, many of them coming from Target catalogs. She would then take the different objects, draw them as contours, and then overlap them to create intricate designs which would then be applied to her works usually through the method of printing.
Of all the works she showed us the ones I thought to be the most interesting were the ones where she took individuals and had them pick out the items that they would like to purchase from a Target catalog. Once everyone had selected their choices she would compile all the objects into a print for every individual as a sort of measurement of that person’s willingness to take part of the consumer economy. The people with the most overlap seemed to be more entrenched in the consumerist life style compared to the people with little overlap. This is probably not an accurate way of measuring individual consumerist natures but it is an interesting idea and way of portraying the individual.
When you think of consumerism it usually comes with a negative undertone, but Dean seems to pickup on consumerism with an almost a nonchalant attitude. She recognizes the consumerism in our culture and instead of building up on the negative aspects of consumerism she seems to just treat it for what it is, a factual part of our society. She sees the drive toward material goods in our culture, yet she also willingly admits to playing into them like everyone else. It’s almost as if she finds it amusing that we are caught in a constant cycle of buying and accumulating material objects. Many that we know we do not need, but insist on getting anyway.