Tyson Tran

IB Lang

Moosman

24th February 2021

Pawel Kuczynski Illustrations Analysis

The image above uses water to symbolize knowledge. This can be assumed through the ocean

being the surface of a book and the phone being a puddle. They both correlate because both

books and electronic devices contain information. What Kuczynski is likely saying is that books

contain much more knowledgeable information than an electronic device through. Quite literally,

books are a sea of knowledge. Because times have changed, the person is more compelled to go

on their phone rather than read the book; he chose the puddle rather than the ocean, even though

he went to the beach to go swimming in the ocean. This is saying that the person came to the sea

with the intent of gaining knowledge, yet still chose information multiple times less
knowledgeable than what he could obtain. Rather than being surrounded and submerged deep

into knowledge, the man chooses to only bury his feet into the water and not allow himself to be

fully enveloped in it. This also means that the man has a clouded judgement because of

technology. Clearly, the illustrator has strong opinions on technology. He uses a lot of vibrant

colors as a way to symbolize knowledge as enlightenment, and the way the blue sea of

knowledge blends into the sky is a way of the illustrator saying that knowledge means

everything.
This picture is very similar to the first one as it uses water to represent knowledge. Water has

many forms like knowledge. The person in the helmet is representing a person ready to explore

the vast depths of knowledge. The suit the person is wearing is a suit that is used for underwater

exploration. The line is a page marker, or what can be considered the surface. The book below

the book that is already on top can mean that there is deeper knowledge past the current human

capabilities, as it is separated by book covers and not pages. What also emphasizes the unknowns

in knowledge is also how the top fades into a foggy blue that covers the side of the book that the

voyager is not in.

This illustration is my favorite of Kuczynski’s. In foreign culture, turtles and elephants represent

divinity and the universe itself. What I believe this art is saying is that technology has become so

integrated in our everyday lives that it is all that the world has become. Our world is carried by

technology and it is so universal that it is all we have now. The turtle floating in the cosmos is

trying to emphasize how vastly humans have delved into technology, and how it will continue to

do so as the universe is ever-expanding.

 This picture mainly tries to represent how

easily nowadays it is to obtain information, whether it should be confidential or not. The person

whispering in one person’s ear can show the telling of gossip or secrets, which goes right

through the other person’s head in a tweet rather than simply staying in his head. The tweet is big

which means that what was supposed to be a whisper was now extremely loud and clear.

However, because it went through the person’s head, then it can also be manipulated. Once

again, Kuczynski uses space to represent vastness. This is saying that once the one tweet comes

out, then it will end up spreading universally and can be information that is accessed by

everyone.