This is an interpretation of Picasso’s Le Rêve.

It’s an artistic commentary on consumerist culture. At the time I made it, there were a lot of folks mad about iPods and the net was full with self portraits of people hugging, kissing and caressing those devices. I found it slightly irritating at first but then I tried to find a more rational explanation for this type of behavior.

Those devices are designed an marketed as something sexy, special and intimate. Especially the iPhone and the iPod touch – half of the magic about them comes from the ability to hold them in your hand and make them do things using your fingertips… I don’t know about any other product in history who has such a potential to seduce your subconsciousness in such an aggressive, brutal manner.

At the same time, Picasso’s painting was representing a yearning of a woman, probably obsessed with the thought of a man and that’s how I made the connection.

It’s not about ridiculing iPods or anything else (I have two of them myself), it’s about translating an idea and moving it to another dimension – an approach I find extremely inspirational.

Later, I attached it to a cycle of works called Destroying Thy Masterpieces