Spheres of Influence

Piece description from the artist

More accurately circles of influence, but if you can imagine additional angled and othogonal cicles reaching out of the page, the title makes sense.

Hand drawn without computer assistance. Compasses and drafting tools were used to lay out the circles. Art marker ink was bled though the back of the drawing for the wash effect color and applied to the front for bold pops of color. Tiny, very fine line details were added freehand and contrast with and offset the very clean geometric lines and shapes made using drafting tools.

Have you ever thought about your sphere of influence? Your circle of acquaintances? How do these circles overlap and where are they concentrated? How does your influence expand with just a few networking handshakes out into the second order circles?

Social networks have always existed, but social media have made many more of us aware of how they work. We've become much more aware of our reach or our relative isolation, of circles of trust within circles of influence, in groups and even more inner groups, far flung groups of acquaintances, overlapping circles of work colleagues etc.

All of these circles within circles, circles outside circles, intersecting circles and excluded circles form our spheres of influence.
A sphere of influence is a dynamic idea describing the degrees of connection, disconnection connectivity across particular shared interests and networking and networkability of our social interactions and professional interactions.

These ideas are visualized in the small drawing, Spheres of influence. It captures some of the complexity and dynamism of a sphere of influence made up up smaller interacting circles. As a highly geometric graphic representation it also begins to capture and allude to the problems of big data and data mining. Privacy and data leakage are also alluded to in the little gaps and details that span the clear boundaries of each circle.