Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras. It is common now for people to insist upon their experience of a violent event in which they were caught up — a plane crash, a shoot-out, a terrorist bombing — that "it seemed like a movie." This is said, other descriptions seeming insufficient, in order to explain how real it was.
(Sontag, 1977, p161)
I'm so terrified that we'll all age and we'll all die - Chris Chucas (words from Bangers)
I've started looking at capationing my work with lyrics from the music I've been listening to from bands that are part of the punk rock scene.
I agree with Sontag's statement that Hollywood has is a bench mark in visual culture that one likening everything to and that of course comes with many problems, like, who makes the rules for this popular visual icons and the make up of this pop culture is steered but the the male gaze. It may seem like a far reaching link but although my project isn’t really directly exploring or questioning themes of the gaze I feel it is strongly connect to it in that the members of the punk rock community the songs that are written the ethos and drive interlaced through the personalities and subject matter is VERY conscious of the gaze and careful when looking at representing others. The slower portraits of people involved are in themselves attempting to convey the sensitive nature of these people and there philosophy.
It's only getting harder and I don't think I can take it. Chris Chucas, 2018
I being a member of that community and playing in and listening to bands myself am surrounded by these ideas that are questioning the way we live our lives and a disconnect that seems to be growning. The bigger social media gets the more disconnected I feel we are becoming.
I don't hate my job and I'm not living on the breadline, but spending money still seems strange to me. - Chris Chucas
Words from Bangers- https://bangersbangers.bandcamp.com/album/small-pleasures
I’m hoping to explore strategies in which I can bring in thees elements from the community along with my personal life to create something personal meaningful ambiguous to others coming in. I refer back to my initial spark on this when learning of Jeff Walls way of thinking on reportage photography and the photographers role as an image maker. In short, objectivity is almost impossible and that by interacting with people to archive an image doesn’t make it fake.
At what moment in history did the discursive desire to photograph emerge and begin to manifest itself insistently? At what moment did photography shift from an occasional, isolated, individual fantasy to a demonstrably widespread, social imperative ( Batchen, 1997)
So What if We Know All Our Audience By Name, Chris Chucas. 2018
I agree with Batchen on that this need to photograph everything has intensified and become normal, but has rapidly increased in the intensity and volume that we do take pictures of everything. I feel that it's having a negative effect on us in general and would like to get that into my work if possible. I think it's hard to comment on issues like this within my work without it becoming the primary message, I can try but I instantly feel doubtful of successfully doing so. I feel like work commenting on the negative affects of social media tends be so potent and direct that any other message can get drowned out but it.