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Tech

Illustrating the Irony of Relationships in the Digital Age

The illustrator Jean Jullien depicts the awkwardness of tech-centered lives.
All images courtesy the artist

Technological developments have brought us cultural and social changes wherein we increasingly communicate through screens and electronic interfaces at the cost of face-to-face interaction. Increasingly, relationships take place through a mere digital exchange; everyday we see people seated at tables interacting solely via smartphones, tablets, and even now smartwatches. Jean Jullien, an illustrator and designer of French origin, thus created a series of illustrations depicting the irony of human relations in the technological age.

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The US series of observational drawings were created for a solo show with Kemistry Gallery in London, but the themes behind the series continue to be relevant in our everyday lives. According to the artist, the series "explores our social and asocial behavior, the relationship between people and how we communicate with each other."

Jullien lives in London and has a degree in graphic design from Quimper. He graduate from Central Saint Martins in 2008 and the Royal College of Art 2010. He creates illustrations for photography, video, books, and posters, as well as collobrations with a handfull of labels. Jullien has worked with publications and prized art institutions like The New Yorker, The New York Times, Le Nouvel Observateur, The Guardian, Centre Pompidou, and the Tate. You can see his ongoing creations on his News Of The Times Tumblr.

In his illustrations, we get the eternal sense of being accompanied but alone at the same time. Jullien portrays the irony of having hundreds of friends on Facebook, but not being able to summon a single person to our side. His pieces are truly captivating, with a simple humor that finds us saying, "Hey, that happened to me!"

To learn more about the artist, click here.

This article originally appeared on The Creators Project Mexico

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