THE SODOM AND GOMORRAH OF DIGITAL DETRITUS

This story in the New York Times Magazine last week was one of the best photo essays I have seen in a long time. Brilliant for so keenly elucidating a reality I hadn't known or thought about before. These photographs were taken in Ghana at a graveyard/mine for computers donated from abroad to help reduce the "digital divide", the disparity in digital access between rich and poor nations. Instead of being used for this purpose however, they are often burned and the precious metals within extracted for resale.

Here is an excerpt from the photographer's website:

For the past year Hugo has been photographing the people and landscape of an expansive dump of obsolete technology in Ghana. The area, on the outskirts of a slum known as Agbogbloshie, is referred to by local inhabitants as Sodom and Gomorrah, a vivid acknowledgment of the profound inhumanity of the place. When Hugo asked the inhabitants what they called the pit where the burning takes place, they repeatedly responded: ‘For this place, we have no name’. Their response is a reminder of the alien circumstances that are imposed on marginal communities of the world by the West’s obsession with consumption and obsolesce. This wasteland, where people and cattle live on mountains of motherboards, monitors and discarded hard drives, is far removed from the benefits accorded by the unrelenting advances of technology. The cycles of history and the lifespan of our technology are both clearly apparent in this cemetery of artifacts from the industrialized world. We are also reminded of the fragility of the information and stories that were stored in the computers which are now just black smoke and melted plastic.

Essay by Pieter Hugo.

AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE, BUT NOT SIMPLER

I find it interesting, when thinking of photography as an art form, that the subject of the work is intrinsically so close to the reality itself.
In that way, as a medium, it is totally unique.
This quote by David Bailey is relative to this:
“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary.”

The African-American Flag, by David Hammons

This is not a photograph, it is an artwork that I saw recently at the MoMA. But it so effectively embodies what I love most about the language of contemporary art. When a profoundly simple gesture can imply a very dense and complicated meaning.

1945, PRISONER IDENTIFYING CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARD

There is not much else I can think of to say about this. The photographer is unknown.

TIME'S ARROW

I think its rather hard to be a photographer and not be obsessed with, confused by, and desperately trying to make sense of time. At least that is true for me. Photography provides us with a way to capture and possess time, and to revisit what's lost. More often than not it is the photograph which jogs a memory rather than the memory itself.
But I would say also, that recently, the general population has too succumbed to this. Now with the pervasion of low-risk digital photography people are more interested in capturing moments rather than living them. On the one hand Facebook has offered a perfect outlet for this, photo taking is a performance now, a display for hundreds, but on a deeper level you could argue it's a generalized fear and anxiety regarding mortality.
After my mother died my father became extremely excessive in his photo taking.

AIN'T I A WOMAN?

I have always been moved by Sojourner Truth's famous 1851 speech, "AIN'T I A WOMAN?". Today on ICP's website, I found it's photographic, distinctly male counterpart from the modern civil rights era, "I AM A MAN".

Here is a text of Truth's speech:
"Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."

STROMBOLI

There is an island in Italy from where I just returned, Stromboli. Roberto Rossellini made a film about it. So did Marina Abramovic, whose still I included here. Nan Goldin photographed it from the water at dawn. Something about an active volcano can't help but inspire art, but also dreams and fantasies. It is eternal.

APOLOGY FOR ABSENCE

Please excuse my absence from this blog. I have been traveling and without access to the internet or to my brain in this capacity. I will resume now.