London artist Sharlene Rochard was first inspired three years ago when she noticed just how much time her children were spending online during the pandemic.
Her piece “Screen Addict” is both a sculpture made from a destroyed yellow Volkswagen Beetle violently folded around a child’s bicycle with electronic devices scattered around the wreckage and a short film that connects thematically.
Those themes are distracted driving and screen addiction, two subjects that also linked together with fatal consequences.
The artist Sharlene Rochard in front of her sculpture at 100 Kellogg Lane. Photo courtesy of Jamal Ghozlan.
“When I look at this art piece, I see a distracted driver who was using their cell phone and–it only takes two to three seconds, off the road, even one second off the road where you can run into something–and this one ran into a child,” says Rochard.
The Ontario Provincial Police reported last month that distracted driving was the cause of 25 deaths in 2022, a staggering 79% increase from the year before.
But the purpose of this piece, for her, is less about personal interpretation of the message, and more about inspiring more awareness in viewers.
“As an artist, everything I do, I want to make society a better place,” says Rochard. “I want to create a positive change, I want to make an impact and help people.”
She hopes that by bringing attention to both screen addiction and distracted driving, she can encourage people to be more aware of these issues and perhaps help save lives.
“Screen Addict” sculpture at 100 Kellogg Lane by Sharlene Rochard. Photo by: Mike Lacasse / XFM News.
“When I put the bike there is, not only to represent the children but also what are we doing to our kids when they’re on these devices so often?” says Rochard. “They’re using iPads, they’re using cell phones, they’re on computers, they’re getting addicted to gaming, they have less attention spans in school now. It’s also a proven fact that it’s changing their brain structure.”
While studies suggest that gaming does affect the structure of our brains with some positive outcomes, they have also shown that “portions of the brain responsible for behavior, emotion, and learning can become underdeveloped over time” with excessive use along with neurological changes consistent with other addiction disorders.
“I did not realize when I first made this film [Screen Addicts] that people use their cell phones at least 150 times per day,” says Rochard. “We are notified every 15 minutes of something. There’s a ping that goes off on our phone, a text, a call; we are constantly in communication with the rest of the world.”
This brings things full circle back to her sculpture. With distracted driving being the number one cause of car accidents, Rochard believes that parents constantly being “plugged in” is teaching their children to imitate the behaviour and that will further contribute to more of these accidents as they become eligible to drive.
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“Another thing that I really wasn’t aware of at the time was just how much we’re not aware of these things,” says Rochard. “I knew there was a problem, I knew my kids were addicted, but I didn’t realize the age of the addiction to this technology actually starts. It starts as soon as we hand them the iPhone.”
“The things that are in plain sight that we often ignore, like cell phones, like screen addiction, this is right in front of us,” says Rochard, “and we realize it’s there but where’s the actual awareness? What are we doing about it?”
Sharlene Rochard. Photo: Mike Lacasse / XFM News
“Screen Addict” can be found at 100 Kellogg Lane until early September and is part of the Art Comp exhibition, a competition open to all local, national and international artists regardless of skill level.
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