Rot is a visual and conceptual response to the psychological and sociopolitical effects of digital identity construction, particularly where it intersects with gender, aesthetics, and platform capitalism. At its center lies a decaying feminine body, laid to rest in a coffin and surrounded by the glittery debris of internet culture.
The work critiques the rise of obsessive categorization, a symptom of a digital landscape where identity is no longer something to explore, but something to brand. Social media platforms don’t just host self-expression; they demand classification: Are you trad or brat? Cottagecore or feral? Rat girl, clean girl, softboy, hard femme, bimbo-coded, they/them with a pixie cut? Micro-trends, hashtags, and TikTok taxonomies demand immediate self-definition: quick, palatable, postable. Queer, feminist, and racialized identities in particular are expected to arrive pre-packaged, with the right aesthetic, the right caption, the right citation. The pressure to self-sort becomes relentless; Authenticity decays under the pressure to be instantly understood.
This piece engages with the term brainrot, internet slang for the cognitive sludge that comes from excessive scrolling. But here, Rot is taken seriously. Not just as metaphor, but as a lived condition: the slow deterioration of selfhood under the constant gaze of algorithmic consumption.
The body in the coffin is not a victim of invisibility, but of over-performance. She is curated, filtered, styled, and dying. She dies not because she was ignored, but because she was seen too much, in too many ways, until nothing original remained. Her decay is not failure, it is the natural outcome of a system that rewards visibility while punishing depth.
Rot embraces contradiction. It is grotesque, glittery, and absurd, reflecting a digital culture that celebrates individuality only within tightly policed boundaries of taste, value, and algorithmic approval. This isn’t just a critique of being “chronically online” as a pop-cultural quirk. It’s a meditation on the psychological toll of constant self-performance, especially for those whose identities have long been commodified, pathologized, or made into spectacle.
Rot doesn’t mourn the death of identity. It exposes what’s killing it.

My prints confront the ways women’s bodies have been framed through the lens of male desire, exposing the tension between objectification and autonomy. By reclaiming the language of fetishization, the work shifts focus toward women’s own expressions of sexuality and desire that is unapologetic, embodied, and self-defined. These images are not about being seen, but about seeing ourselves, claiming space for pleasure, for honesty, for the complexity of female sexuality beyond the gaze that has historically confined it.

The internet has provided us endless entertainment, limitless knowledge, and easy communication. But being alone on the web as a child during its development has exposed them to the world of adult entertainment. Extreme graphic videos, pornography, and demeaning displays of women has had a negative impact on children growing up in the 2000s-2010s. It felt like being a rare unicorn being stared at and preyed upon, unaware of the dangers that lurked in every corner and pop-up ad.

Utilizing screenshots and personal images as evidence and documentation of my life, I reference a growing archive of images that are reproduced into photographs and imposed on one another through the process of image transfer and photomontage. Over time, with the influx of image circulation online from image-based platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram, images are recycled over and over again, shared, re-posted, and reblogged by user after user. Within this vast network of images, we individually curate projections of ourselves through image circulation. Prescribing an assumed idea of self through the accumulation of images onto the original poster or anyone who chooses to share the image after. Much like in the way sampling reproduces sound, my work samples images to reproduce them in various compositions using photographs to explore themes of girlhood, depression, and abuse.

Arts & Leisure (Crying) looks at the gap between how we present ourselves and what we actually feel. The video places crying within a simulated beach environment—a constructed space meant to signal relaxation, escape, and pleasure. Using Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” the work leans into melodrama, letting the song’s emotional intensity push against the calm, artificial setting. The piece also connects to social media, where leisure is often staged and idealized, and environments function as backdrops for performance. By lingering on an unfiltered emotional moment inside a fabricated paradise, the work questions what authenticity looks like in spaces designed for appearance rather than experience.

The Free Fashion World 4.15.2025

In the digital age, physical material no longer limits fashion identity. If I want to post in a loubuton heel, then all I need is decent photoshopping skills and the gull to pull it off. I don't need the money to buy them or the talent to walk in them- just the courage to post it. This era of the internet is good for that. Anyone can screenshot just about anything for free and post it like it is theirs because, in a way, it is theirs.
I imagine this will change in the future. Just recently, the Internet Archive (a free catalog of media allowing users to find anything ranging from esoteric books about psychomagic to movies erased from the Internet) felt the first throws of the intellectual property witch hunt, losing their "rights" to share media. In this ever-increasingly dystopic late-stage capitalism reality, adding a price tag to just about anything checks out.
Not patenting the internet and allowing it to be a free-flowing melange of whatever it wants to be risks copycats and culture vultures. However, demanding intellectual property and patenting doesn't seem to stop that, as shown by she-in, temu, the KKKardashians, 123movies, and many others' relentless efforts to rip off original creators. Part of me is okay with copying. I have had some of my ideas copied, but then can I even say those ideas weren't replications or, at least, emulations of something else? I fear I can not govern myself to live isolated from the world around me. Being a part of an artistic scene and moment comes with echoing off and going with the rhythm of the collective unconsciousness. True innovators have hearts of gold, and their creations will shine. Besides, everyone knows it's not about who did it first, but who did it best; even then, it is not about who did it but what it is. My thoughts become too vague.
I enjoy this phase of the internet, where we are not too bound by money or laws. I hope it will stay this way, and I'm sure it will on one or another part of it. Today, I will share my moodboard full of free fashion, eyecandy. This post is my love letter to Jeremy Scott, my opportunity to model the clothes I adore but can't afford, and my free fashion moodboard.

P.S I collected all these images because I added a screen time limit to my phone, loosing instagram and TikTok Reels and resorting to Vinted for my scrolling entertainment. However, I refuse to spend money right now, as it feels hypocritical for my anti-consumerism.

Digression- Visiting Space:

Yesterday a group of six women went into space for 100 million dollars, an elite experience by rich people (Jeff Bezos) for rich people (Katy Perry). Anyways the spectacle was only a spectacle thanks to the giant social media push, causing Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to be flooded with content about the space trip. We (the people) know about it only because of this. Otherwise, that is without the internet, we would have had no idea that six rich people payed 100 million dollars to see outspace for eleven... yes eleven... minutes. In my opinion, outer space should be reserved for people that truly merit it-- scientists and poets perhaps (maybe even these people don't merit it). Nonetheless, the spectacle demonstrates the curated window social media can reveal.

My artwork often makes references to personally impactful pop culture throughout my life, taking influence from comics, street art, and pop art as well. A signature impressionistic, cartoony style, utilizing collages and different mediums, beckons the viewer to enjoy each piece as if they were a child again. My work is capable of laughing at itself, many of which pieces cover themes of sex and violence with a lighthearted and humorous approach. Growing up in a generation that was practically raised by the internet has heavily influenced my tastes, style, interests, and humor. Being allowed unrestricted internet access as a child connected me with an infinite source of people to connect to, which led me to a few dangerous situations when I was younger. There are things that I’ve witnessed online that have left a permanent scar. However, the digital world also gave me the tools to explore art and media, to communicate with people I normally wouldn’t, and learn about myself and my own sexuality. Throughout my life, technology has remained both a beneficial tool and a deadly weapon, and that balance intrigues me.

This series began in the fall after I graduated college, and was created in the time leading up to and directly after the 2024 U.S. presidential election. These works are created out of necessity, out of obsession and rage. They play on ironic or shocking statements, are easily sharable and often in a meme format. All the "memes" were created by me, other parts of this series are taken directly from the internet. I am deeply interested in the idea of political psychosis, AI, and the "advancement" of society.

some things are never meant to be revealed

Mallory is a student artist who is currently studying her passion, Animation, at Arizona State University. While proficient in various digital platforms, they also have experience in multimedia work such as clay, glass, and neon in their sculptures, and graphite, paint, and thread and lace in their traditional pieces. She loves to create a whimsy and fantasy-like vibe in her drawings. They also have a commitment to express her lesbian identity through her art to normalize diversity and individuality through artistic representation. Mallory’s art is an invitation to enter a world where creativity is limitless, a space where every color, form, and identity is celebrated.
Mallory’s work has been displayed in venues such as Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art (AR), Arizona State University Gallery 100 at Mirabella, Fusion on First in Phoenix, AZ; the Chandler Art Museum; and the Chandler Center for the Arts. Her accolades include the achievement of a Fine Arts Seal on her high school diploma, finishing her Senior Animation Capstone, and graduating in the Spring of 2026 with a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts in Animation, all a testiment to their dedication to the arts.

As an interdisciplinary artist, I work across media to investigate my family history, my Christian faith, and the challenges of sustaining spiritual practice in an erratic world. Identifying the foundations of my artistic voice has required discipline, reflection, and emotional maturity.
The unexpected passing of my mother, Katherine Doraella Steverson, in October 2021 significantly shifted my practice. To navigate my grief, I developed the philosophy of R.A.G.E.E.—resilience, acceptance, grief, and emotional exploration. As I matured this framework, it deepened my spiritual connection with my mother through visual art, meditative dialogue, and inherited relics such as her annotated Bible. R.A.G.E.E. has created space to examine my experiences through textile sculptures, video, and mixed-media objects, as I began channeling a voice for buried traumas, offering healing for myself and others with complex emotional histories.

Trick of the Devil is an exploration of a theory surrounding the pocket realities each individual occupies. Current place and environment are vital to this theory, as the events one encounters in everyday life become their reality. However, when multiple individuals gather in the same space, those realities temporarily combine. Cultural archetypes, human interactions, and social structures shift depending on the environment, informing the familiarity of one’s reality. What is deemed normal within one reality may differ from that of the person standing beside you, or from those existing elsewhere. Within this theory, social media platforms, news outlets, and other forms of media exchange act as bridges between realities. This video functions as an active database of fight footage sourced from Facebook, Twitter, and a YouTube algorithm that is always listening. Its purpose is to confront those comfortable within the naivety of their own pocket reality with the soft, ambient violence that exists in spaces they do not see, yet actively shape the world they inhabit.

For 10 days, every day, I ate one box of Kraft Mac & Cheese (split into three meals). I was only allowed to season it with ketchup for “extra flavor”. I filmed a 15 second clip of myself eating every meal, sometimes shared, mostly alone. My experiment began with a simple idea and no direction: I’m gonna eat something nostalgic for me until I get sick of it, and I’m gonna film it and put it on the marvelous, revelatory Instagram.com. What it became was a social experiment; a test. I got a lot of responses, surprisingly many being quite emotionally charged, sometimes from my family and friends, and some from total strangers. By the end of my experiment I was tired, bloated, nutrient-deficient and resentful, with a brain fog not even divine intervention could fix. I was forced to confront my relationship with diet culture– something that had long fed my own ego and silently destructive eating habits. Macaroni and cheese is just a meal, my body is just a vessel, and nothing on the internet is real. It came to me that the thing about a diet is that the only consistent thing about a “diet” is that you have to choose something to deprive yourself of. Admittedly, I did lose weight. Now, was I healthy? Absolutely not. I certainly didn’t feel better, and I wasn’t even getting any good attention. What is a perfect body worth? Are you eating that mac and cheese or is it eating you?

This series of collages reflects on my relationship with Instagram and the ways that social media and digital platforms can shape self-worth. Each image I have posted to my own Instagram account. Using the like count, comments, and direct messages from each post within the collage it showcases how these numbers cause the emotional addiction behind posting on Instagram.
Rebuilding these online posts as physical objects, these images become evidence of a system designed to feel personal but remains very impersonal. Photo Dump sits with the tension between being authentic, performing, and the addiction of wanting to be seen and validated constantly.

Social media’s presence in our lives has been overly bearing, warping our perception of what is real and what is not. My photographs comment on the highs and lows of social media and its ability to change a person physically. Snapchat filters were one of the biggest trends at one point and used consistently by its users. Filters have normalized changing one’s appearance to seem “prettier.” These show pretty girls’ faces are covered with meaningless filters that symbolize the dark side of beauty standards. The filters are meant to represent what happens when you paint over an already pretty painting and end up making it look more tacky than it did to begin with. Beauty standards and social media have taken a turn for the worse since its birth and I want to showcase that through my series.

In the age of the internet, porn has become a staple of online culture, making it easily accessible to people of all ages. This constant availability can normalize excessive consumption, especially when exposure begins early. For those who watch porn compulsively, the effects can be long-lasting, influencing decision-making, shaping expectations, and rewiring neural pathways associated with reward, impulse control, and attention. Donated by Mika Dubey.