In this next collage, I used a series of artworks and stock images to create the final product. I used the famous presidential painting of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart, as well as a painting by Nicolai Abildgaard that is featured on the cover of Mary Shelley’s Franksenstien. The goal of this painting is to both support some of the ideas I have noted in the previous sections, but also to bring a new social commentary to the table. Though not something we read in class, this part was highly inspired by Karl Marx. Marx had many theories, but one of his more insightful theories was that of the class system. He described how our systems seem to hold the majority in a subservience to the power, usually composed by a very small group. This is present in many forms of economic, as well as social structure. Think of the slave-master relationship, or lords-serfs, kings-peasants, etc. In today's world, and when Marx was writing, this was still the case. Today, our system is more sly, and yet the same domination in the economic structure persists. Now it is employer-employees. He argues that every system fails when it is overcome with contradictions, or faults. We saw that with Feudalism, with the slave system, and he argues, we will see it with our very own capitalistic system. 
   In this artwork, I am portraying a moment where the contradictions of the system, the way we have been living our life, reaches the point that it can no longer subsist as a reasonable structure. The cracks are to depict the failing system. Why, you might ask, is the system failing if the rich still carry their dominion over the poor? It fails because of where it has gotten them. It is true, the same hierarchy is still succeeding, but its effects have become too much. Now, the torture is not only restricted to the lower class, even the gentry is suffering from the effects of what they have done. To hit it on the nose, everyone in this painting's actions have landed them in hell. 
   I try to make clear, however, the same important nuance that I have noted above: the hell is one of their own making, a direct result of actions taken by them and their predecessors. Each person is accountable for their location in this hellish reality, because in not doing anything to fix it, they have done something to make it happen sooner. As I hope is evident, this is not only a story, it is a metaphor for our current position. As we saw earlier in the class in the documentary about the earth that we watched, as well as in the Bo Burnham movie, the earth is dying. This idea is not a new one, but it is one that hardly anyone has fully grasped. It seems that everywhere, everyone is telling us, saying, “the world is heating up, our emissions are putting us and the whole planet in great danger.” The trouble is, when you really look at it, that means so little. In a sort of post-structuralist sense, that word holds only as much meaning as we can imbue it with. But the people saying it, and nearly everyone in the world right now, cannot reconcile the idea themselves. It feels nearly impossible to imagine a world where you are not in it, and moreover a world that has been destroyed by us. Even if you can imagine it, the idea is too fantastical to actualize as a reality. It is too abstracted from what we know, and our language is too weak and bears too little meaning. It is just like the Bill Mckibben article we read earlier in the class, “350”. He says that everything we keep being told by scientists and social activists fails to demonstrate the idea properly, because it is using language we have already used and which holds a different meaning. He proposes we use 350, an arbitrary number based on an environmental statistic which has now long been passed, and that we give it the dire meaning that none of our language has. I disagree with him here; we do not need a number, we need something else instead. 
   Due to the fallibility of our language, many philosophers believe we must instead turn to art to express ourselves. Hiedegger, Plato, Kant, Marx even, and countless others, prize art as a form of expression that transcends spoken word. If each word is used to reference an idea or form, why not let the form express itself? Art, many think, is a way to convey a more pure idea. There is much more nuance in a sky streaked with orange and red than a sentence that says, “the sky is beautiful.” Because of this, I have decided to represent my idea of economic dilapidation as a collage. Hopefully this way, the feeling of anxiety that Kierkegaard determined to be a product of our endless possibility and freedom, can be construed to the audience of my collage. We have power, and just as it is said in Heart of Darkness, choosing to leave something to “fate” is making a conscious choice to not do anything at all. Do not be afraid to act because of the great possibility of your actions, act so that you can create your effect on the situation. 
   There are other symbols that I used in this piece, although they mostly serve to support the ideas I already laid out. From the pitcher held by the woman in the original painting, I have added a waterfall of blood. This was a piece made by Edvard Munch, the same man who made “The Scream,” which I used later in my collage. The woman in the painting, is unintentionally spilling the blood of her fellow humans, while reaching for the money that is falling past her. This image is in a similar vein to my self portrait, a sort of unintended consequence of greed. One can imagine as well, that the very same money that was once growing from the tree, is now drifting from the sky as if the tree has been cut down. 
   Hidden behind the bodies of other people, there is a tan shape. This is the image used for Shelley’s Frankenstein, although the painting was not originally depicting him. Frankenstein is an abominable monster, but one that was created by a sort of monstrosity himself. Victor Frankenstien is responsible for the monster, and in a way, this a metaphor for our own creation of something monstrous. Through perhaps negligence, or maybe by sheer inability to see what is ahead, as argued by James Bridle, we have created something grotesque. It is not just the environmental crisis, nor is it the collapse of our economic system, it is some kind of an amalgamation of these, and so much more. Words cannot describe what we have created, though if any word did, perhaps it would be best to use, “Apocalypse.” Better still, is to use a representation in the form of art, in the form of this collage. That is what I am attempting here. 
   A final goal and message that I am attempting to construe is once again that of a class conflict. I use a picture of James bond, a rather odd figure to be housed in a social critique like this. Bond however, is not something I use lightly, and this Bond is a very specific one.