When the pandemic struck, I was tackling my first year as an university instructor. To be ripped away from the daily presence of students suddenly and switched to a foreign teaching modality felt very jarring. At the time, I was teaching a web coding class, and the parallel between digital viruses, or viruses passed between software, and coronaviruses, or viruses passed between animals and people, seemed more connected than ever. The compounding reliance on technological mediation for human connection seemed only to further this association between technology and airborne viruses. I began to fictionalize a world in which viruses not only spread from animals to people but also from technology to people. In a world like this, would people need to not only quarantine from each other but also from technology? What would become of our relationships then? Would the loss of our technological progress cause us to revert back to a neanderthal state? The notion of computer screens suddenly gave way to face shield screens. The action of covering one's face became almost a loss of identity. Ironically, the computer screen has become an extension of one's identity in recent years, as our social media platforms are connected to the internet. Therefore, the act of curving the computer screen into a face shield screen signifies the act of both covering and taking on a new identity – one that is rooted in anonymity. This sequence is depicted below in my illustration, "Computer Screen vs Face Shield Screen."

 

In one of my illustrations, entitled, "Quarantine Does Not Equal Silence," I am depicted wrapping myself in caution tape. The words, "Quarantine" and "Warning" wrap around the tape. This piece was a direct reaction to the police brutality seen in the era of COVID-19 and the polarizing politics of "maskers" and ant-maskers" at the time. Moreover, lay-offs, unemployment, and eviction ran rampant. During this time, I was furloughed while given an increased teaching load to compensate for the budget cuts in education. The socio-economic gaps between classes seemed to widen, tipping the already-unequal scales. It was hard to discern what we were to believe from the news. At times, it felt easier to shut the world out in our quarantined bubble. My two sisters were to experience high school and college graduations in 2020 when the pandemic began. Thus, rites of passage and important life milestones were suddenly stripped away. My one sister's graduation was postponed indefinitely, and my other sister had a drive-thru style graduation. Therein, she drove through the campus and received her diploma through the car window. It felt as though our networks and human connections were dissolving.