john yuyi tattoos social media symbols to snapshot our online infatuations

john yuyi, a taiwanese-born, new york-based artist, emphasizes our obsession with social media by affixing digital symbols to the human body as temporary tattoos. through a series of ongoing investigations that deal with the intersection between the physical and technological worlds, yuyi probes our addiction to social networking and the traces it leaves on our lives. 

on the bodies of female models, yuyi prints custom temporary tattoos that spell out twitter handles, facebook pages, and instagram messages. symbols — like the familiar ‘likes’ thumbs up, retweet arrows and email alerts — canvas the model’s face, ears, back and neck. photos from their instagram feeds, digits describing their follower count and branded symbols of the social networks themselves are pasted onto the bodies, acting like an advertisement of their online personalities and presence. the photographic series studies our online infatuations and snapshots the ever-expanding propagation of digital media on human nature. 

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