Diego Noriega interviewed by Jasper MacLean
Diego’s poster critiques society’s narrative on addiction. He highlights how addiction can actually be a positive aspect of life if framed in the right way. By morphing a weight into a wine bottle and then alternating back and forth between these two shapes, Diego shows us how we have the opportunity to “pick the right addiction” in life. Exercise in this case is the positive addiction while alcoholism is the debilitating one. Diego’s piece underscores an interesting question about the relationship between addiction and passion. – Jasper Maclean
Jasper Maclean Well, I mean, just looking at your project, I really enjoy it a lot. Like, I think it’s really creative to go between two types of addiction. I wouldn’t have even thought of exercise as an addiction but I think that idea of like a positive addiction, it’s really interesting and you really did a good job of morphing one end to the other and showing how you can transition. So I guess my first question is, what inspired you to do this?
Diego Noriega Honestly, there’s so much negative stigma against addiction in the world. I wrote an essay about it recently. What words first come to mind when you think of addiction?
JM Um, like your body being taken over and someone not being in control
DN Mhm that and some people would just say drugs, alcohol, pills… So I watched this Ted talk, which is really good, that talks about how people become addicted to things, basically, because they’re not addicted to their own life. Like if you don’t have a passion, you will turn to bad addictions.
But if you have a positive addiction with your life, then you won’t turn to those. So there’s this negative stigma against addiction when I would argue everyone’s an addict to something, it just depends what you’re addicted to. To your health, working out, building a startup, your business, or whatever. In my essay, I wrote about how Steve Jobs was basically addicted to design and building something amazing. Jeff Bezos addicted to creating Amazon, Elon Musk addicted to pushing the limits… And those are examples of positive addictions. Then bodybuilders are addicted to exercising, like I said, so addiction within itself is not bad — It’s what you’re addicted to. And I tried to show that in the poster like, like you said, morphing one to the other. Showing that it’s the same thing, but different.
JM So really it can enhance — it doesn’t just have to be something that’s like numbing an aspect of your life.
DN Yeah. Yeah. Like addiction can help build your life. It can bring a shit ton of positives.
JM So is that what you would want if someone just came and looked through your poster? Is that what you’d want them to take away from it? That addiction can be positive?
DN Yeah. I mean, I feel like a lot of people are gonna — I mean, my poster, I think something that it is definitely lacking is the sensitive aspect towards the true psychological dependence that you can get from drugs. Like, and it, it can be kind of — my poster — seen as simplifying an issue, I would say. Like people could look at it and be like, “it’s not that simple.”
And I agree with that. I wish I could’ve talked about that a little more because like the transition is so seamless, so soft between the two objects, but I really wish there was a way to incorporate that more sensitive aspect because some individuals try to get rid of their addictions, like drug addictions, stuff like that, but they’re addicted, like nicotine —
JM Yeah. I wonder if there’s a way, like, if you. Like, if you were to attempt this project again, where like, instead of having such a seamless transition, that it’s more fragmented and, you know, like jolting, cause people fall back into their addiction. I don’t know. I think that would be cool too.
DN Yeah. That’s there’s like the balance between doing the seamless transition to show that they’re one in the same or making the transition more difficult to show the difficulty that, um, can come from switching from one to the other. So that’s a very good point, actually.
JM Yeah. What difficulties did you come across in making this?
DN Oh my God. I could not make the weight form into the bottle. Like the main thing was just so difficult to do. Um, I ended up sculpting in blender… but yeah, the transition itself was difficult to figure out because the two objects are so different so having them morph into each other was tough, but I’m happy with how it turned out.
JM I feel like it definitely shows some growth from just this semester. Do you feel like it really encapsulates your growth as an artist?
DN Yeah, I mean, skills wise and also thoughtfulness-wise. I did think a lot about the meaning of this poster and I’m happy with the meaning and the conversation we’re having shows that I really think deeply and actually really care about this poster. Something that before this class, before this semester, I didn’t really think that deeply about most forms of art — I was more focused on how they looked and now I’m focused on both aspects, which is what I’m most happy about.
JM Yeah, that’s great. I feel like it makes it so much more enjoyable when you can like find some meaning in things. And it’s not just, I mean, a lot of times it is just about how aesthetically pleasing it is, but I think we can find both it makes it really enjoyable.
DN And yeah, I should have asked you this early, but upon initial views of the poster what would be your thoughts? Like now, you know, mine and my intention, but like, what would you have thought of it?… Because I feel like the poster kind of speaks of itself — but it doesn’t really relay all the deeper meaning, but what would you have thought about with the poster?
JM I mean, like you were saying earlier, I think I started to get into this — I never really thought about positive addictions, like the idea of being addicted to working out or you were talking about design or art. I think that that’s like a really cool concept and so definitely this poster has made me think more broadly and openly about addiction and be like, I think more like open-minded to the idea that it doesn’t always have to be such a negative thing, you know?
DN Yeah and at least for me, it’s very personal, because, you know, I’m a very addictive person. Like I have an addictive personality and sometimes, you know, it’s bad things. And then sometimes it’s on good things and it switches back and forth. And I think really accepting that — I used to see it as a bad thing as something that took away from who I was as a person — But like, I really came to terms this semester. Like, It depends. It’s in you being able to take control of your addictive personality and making it what you want. And something really important about that —
JM So what do you think — what’s the line between addiction and like passion? Because I feel like what you’re talking about could be what a lot of people would describe as passion.
DN But I think if you have a passion, you’re addicted to it. And I think maybe right now, speaking out loud, thinking about it, maybe passion is what differentiates a positive addiction and a negative addiction. If you have a positive addiction, there’s passion attached to it. I’m passionate about working, passionate about exercising, but no one’s passionate about binge drinking and smoking. There’s not that passion in that. So maybe that word is what differentiates positive and negative addictions. I think that’s very interesting, actually. That’s a very good question.
Jasper Maclean interviewed by Diego Noriega
Jasper’s poster is a warning for our future and society’s priorities. The poster’s ironic message to visit Manhattan Island while proceeding to be flooded criticises our society’s current lack of focus on climate change issues. With a depiction of how our values, symbolized by the statue of liberty, will “drown” or be taken over and disappear as climate change continues, Jasper urges the viewer to reflect about the dangerous future we are heading towards. Unless we do something now, society and unity as we know it will cease to exist with the many difficulties and shifts that climate change will bring — a message which Jasper’s poster digestible and simple design allows for to be digested and understood by almost any audience who comes across it. – Diego Noriega
Continued from earlier conversation…
Jasper Maclean Yeah, haha, I’m pretty good at just starting in the middle of it. Oh, I have a little bit of professional interviewing experience. Yeah in high school, I did like a lot with journalism, but it can be kind of stressful because you’re thinking a million miles an hour–you’re thinking about how you’re going to structure the conversation but you’re also trying to hear what they’re saying, you know.
Diego Noriega I want to be a talk show host, so I have to work at that.
JM It takes a little practice, but once you are good at that, you’re good at it.
******************************************************************************
Start of Interview
DN Yeah. Well, my first question– why did you specifically choose the statue of Liberty to depict in your poster? I have some thoughts that I’ll tell you why. I think it makes the message even deeper, but why did you choose it personally?
JM Yeah. Okay. So, if it wasn’t super evident, my poster is about climate change and sea level rise and basically how Manhattan one day, not in our lifetime–but we’ll see some of this in our lifetime–will be completely underwater. And so I was thinking about how to show that. And at first I was playing around with some buildings and possible smog in the background–you know, like the empire state building and the whole city skyline. But then I was thinking about the symbol of what we think about for America and freedom and Liberty. And so I decided to go with the Statue of Liberty because not only is it symbolic of New York, but it’s symbolic of all of these things that we are really proud of in the United States. And then I kind of unified them with this idea of being underwater and climate change taking over our lives.
And so I think it’s a really interesting symbol to have–the statue of Liberty, literally being submerged in water–then eventually not even being there. And there’s a reason too, that at the end, it’s not, transparent, the water, you can’t even see the statue of Liberty. It’s completely opaque. It’s like the memory of liberty and freedom is completely gone and there are fish and, you can kind of get in, get to that idea a little bit more like on, I mean, We already have people who are refugees because of climate change. They’ve lost certain aspects of liberty and freedom. My worry is that in a hundred, 200 years, what will the United States look like?
DN Yeah, that’s a good point about the water not being see-through. I didn’t think about that, but I like that you chose it. And that also makes sense about the statue of Liberty. It makes sense. But then I would also ask why did you specifically choose to go with more cartoonish, childish depiction of the drawings? Is there a specific reason–with the way it fills up and the fish appear very cute?
JM That’s a good question. So I was debating about if I should do really smooth transitions or do sort of more like stop motion type things. I ended up going with the stop motion because I think it is kind of cute and it’s playful and almost kind of funny. And I think that makes it more approachable. It’s almost something like–huh, that’s kind of funny, but that would never happen to us. But it is happening and it’s something that people actively deny.
So yeah, it’s kind of two-fold, you have this little sense of humor and, but also irony. I think this makes it just a little bit more approachable, than like a really realistic transition that looks like something that’s actually happening. Does that makes sense?
DN It definitely does. And I mean, you’re definitely passionate about this issue. So what would you say you want people to think about personally after seeing your poster? Because we’re told about this constantly, but I feel like people just don’t make a conscious change to help. We feel kind of hopeless.
JM Yeah totally, because in some sense, we’re kind of fucked. I think when we’re thinking about these really scary things like water overtaking an entire city, you have to think about fundamental changes, like adaptation as a human race. We have to rethink the way that we’re doing a lot of things. And so if that means, living in a different part of the world, that we don’t currently inhabit one day… or if that means, down with capitalism… we’re going to need to completely redo the way we think about scarce resources, consumption, and economics. Because in 200 years, it will be different and the ability for our species to survive depends on that.
DN Yeah. Because it’s ingrained into our society. Like if you want to live like a regular person, you’re contributing to the issue.
JM Right. And it’s like–if you’re a vegan, that’s great…You’re probably doing a little bit, but also for the amount of time and effort and money that you’re spending to do that… does it really help that much? Probably not. And, and so it’s difficult from a single person and I think it comes from really big changes at the top.
DN And I specifically like how your poster depicts that loss of liberty, of what we stand for–our values. Most other climate change messages try to get people to change their behaviors and bad weather like tornadoes… but your poster focuses on what humanity is literally losing. We’ll lose who we are. And I find that, in a way, way deeper. And it makes me reflect more upon like how I can help rather than most about those other posters, you know?
And what would you change? Do you think your poster could make the message even stronger or something like that?
JM That’s a good question. I think something that I was thinking about a lot was the potential effectiveness of having some type of text at the end–especially because I started with the “visit Manhattan Island”. And then there’s the fish at the end. I don’t know if it would be effective to have some type of message saying: “you can’t visit Manhattan now”. When I tried it, it came off kind of corny and overly silly. So I didn’t go with it. But it’s something that I’m definitely still thinking about.
DN How would you say your poster shows your growth as an artist?
JM At the beginning of this semester, I didn’t even know how to use Illustrator and I barely knew how to use Photoshop. So in that respect, I really feel like I got better at those concrete skills. Now I can do something with animation! But on a deeper level, this project really got me thinking about how I could take something that I’m passionate about and speak about it through art. I had always thought about art and the importance of the meaning behind it, but I never really knew how to take things that I was passionate about and figure out how to combine art with it. So this class has definitely helped me think about that a lot.
This poster is a great example of how I could use art for the rest of my life.
DN Yeah. It was really exciting. Did you have a specific audience in mind when creating this poster?
JM I think the general public. When I say that, I think someone our age could see this and not feel like it’s too childish. But also you could show it to a little kid and they would get the point of it too.
DN You know, that’s what I like about it. I feel like you could put it in front of everyone, anyone, and they’d get it.