In a still life painting, a collection of inanimate objects would be arranged in a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane, and through such a process the identity of individuals can be symbolically communicated by the staging of objects. For example, owning a freshly captured salt-water fish and a newly sliced citrus can be a powerful message about the status of the luxury of a person residing in inland Bavaria. The distantly caught fish and the exotic citrus may or may not have co-existed within the same time and space, but the canvas becomes a fictional space that unites the idea of the fish together with the idea of the fruit. By juxtaposing improbable objects together, an otherwise impossible narrative about a subject is constructed.
As we arrive at the second decade of the 21st Century, our relationship with the "public self" within a private collection has evolved alongside the rise of social media. The living room, once a private environment for intimate social gatherings, is now changing in its nature. Programmatically, the living room is becoming a room that stages gathered objects rather than a space to socialize in. The living room is almost transforming from a three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional image - akin to its still-life painting origins, the collection of nicknacks in the living room function more as a storytelling device than a room full of functional objects. In a lot of ways, how we handle our stories on social media has redefined the idea of a living room into a new medium that socializes on the human's behalf.