Messages out of Con-Text
Ryan Gabriel Davis began collecting text messages from the very first time he had a cellphone in 2008 for no apparent reason other than he thought certain messages alone were too beautiful to be deleted and be gone in the cyberspace world for eternity, never to be seen again. He started to stockpile his old cell phones beginning in 2013 for the same reason and stow them in a drawer and that is when Ryan Gabriel Davis became a digital hoarder.
In December 2017, he started recycling text messages sent and received from conversations he’s a part of and pasting them onto photographs he captured. Ryan named the project "Messages out of Con-Text" because that's simply what they are. Originally, he was going to name the project, "Messages out of Con-Text, That You Made About You" because he noticed over time people he knew believed a particular text was sent by them or was specifically about them but so far no one has been right on their assumptions. Ryan Gabriel believes that subconsciously people tend to make most things about themselves. Sometimes he creates short stories out of these messages out of contexts paired with images to lead a viewer to a visual ending where one can ponder and finish it themselves.
Surprisingly, Ryan Gabriel Davis actually highly dislikes texting as a substitute of face-to-face communication and the societal pressure it comes with in responding instantly or even at all. The act itself overwhelms him completely. His phone storage tends to be backed up with thousands and thousands of saved messages to the point it prevents him from receiving incoming texts. Ryan Gabriel wishes people would stop texting him so he could have additional memory in his phone and not have to save everything anymore.
These pieces can be found on Instagram under the hashtag #messagesoutofcontext
