Artist Bio

Hello, my name is Nicole Martin. I am a final year Creative Media student, studying in Dundalk Institute of Technology. Over the last four years I have worked with various mediums od creative output, such as illustrations, graphic animation, 3D modelling, video editing, audio recording, website creation, etc.

My personal favourite creative process is 3D modelling. I love the process of moulding an inanimate shape into something spectacular and hope I will be able to progress in this field as a future career. In my free time, I like to cozy up on the couch and play some of my favourite video games or watch re-runs of my go-to tv shows.

I’m currently working away on my capstone individual project and thesis, so I don’t have a lot of free time to do commissions. However, if you would like to see some of my previous project work you can find it on my Behance profile and learn more about my creative process.

Artist Statement - 'Ghosted'

This piece is part of a college assignment where students were asked to create an 800 x 800 pixel GIF reflecting ‘Network Culture’. Network Culture refers to the ways in which the Internet has influenced and affected the ways in which people live their lives.

The overall theme of this piece of net art is online dating and the phenomenon of ‘ghosting’. Ghosting refers to when two people have established a relationship and have been interacting with one another for a period of time, whether that is true messaging, video calling, etc. Suddenly one person may decide to cease all means of communication with the other person without warning or meaning. This leaves the other person questioning if they had done something wrong, or if the relationship had been one-sided the whole time.

As society has become more withdrawn and people become more absorbed into the worlds on the screens in their hands, it has progressively become harder and harder for people to create meaningful relationships with one another. As a result, online dating has become the new norm, with around a quarter of relationships forming through some form of dating app. Some of the most popular apps being Tinder, Bumble or Hinge. The concept of dating apps is based on swiping right or left on a persons profile by looking at a series of photos they have picked of themselves and a short bio which is supposed to describe them.

This GIF explores the concept of matching with someone on a dating app (Tinder) only for the person to be ghosted. The two hands reaching out to one another, similar to the painting ‘The Creation of Adam’ by Michaelangelo, represents that longing for connection and matching with a person. However, as the hands get closer together the screen begins to glitch and error messages fill the screen. The phone screen is replaced by a text-based image of a ghost and text which states, “you’ve been ghosted”. The style of the ghosted section of the GIF was inspired by arcade games ‘GAME OVER’ screen when you had failed the level. Similar to how the person had failed to gain a relationship in this instance.