Medium Specificity Project

My sister and I bond over Japanese culture. We love going to Japanese restaurants, learning some phrases from the efficient teacher Duolingo, and sharing a vast collection of Studio Ghibli movies. Someday, we hope to visit Japan. However, the funds and language barrier prevent us from doing so. After being assigned the assignment to use a medium to create a piece of art and figure out the limitations, I immediately thought about taking my sister on a trip to Japan- digitally. I took a picture from the internet (courtesy of Compathy.net) and photo shopped me and my sister into it. We have digital proof that we have visited Japan, something we can show others and something we could potentially post on our social media. Nevertheless, we did not experience it. We did not actually go to Japan, create the memories, enjoy the food, or encounter residents.
I remember being a senior in High School and having a discussion with my AP French teacher. What makes travelling so compelling? Why can't we just watch someone else's vlog of their travels and live vicariously through their experiences? How is getting in a plane and flying somewhere any different than using Google Earth to roam the streets of Italy, venture the Great Wall of China, or reach the peak of Everest? We came to the conclusion that digital adventures are simply not the same as real life quests. While exploring the world through a screen, the conversations, foods, smells, and memories are absent.
My thoughts opened up a conversation of the limits of photo shop and digital expression. We have established many times in our culture as a whole that what we see online is not reality. Commercials are heavily edited, Instagram posts are likely photo shopped, and YouTube vlogs typically highlight the best parts of a person's life. We can be duped so easily during these times-  take this woman's fake Disneyland trip as an example. Someone else's world can seem so much more beautiful because of the filters and edits they put on a picture, but remember that it is all altered. The grass is always greener on the other side, but it's likely photoshopped.
Attempting to live vicariously through Photoshop is not easy. Another limitation to this medium is that it is difficult to create convincing photograph- I definitely ran into problems. Finding the right background with similar lighting to what my picture had, finding the right angle, and erasing parts from my picture is somewhat difficult. My picture still isn't completely convincing, but I'm sure that I could make it better if I had better resources (I use a computer program called Gimp and I would be able to do better if I had the real Adobe Photoshop program).
Although my sister and I can claim that we have visited Japan vis-a-vis this picture, we still can't say that we have truly visited Japan. We lack the memories and experience, both limitations of the medium I used to create this picture.