Well, that wasn’t great.
I published the last part of a series a few days ago. I’m going to tell you a bit about the genesis of this little impromptu art thing, commenting on the process and ‘the meaning’ of the whole thing.
I published the last part of a series a few days ago. I’m going to tell you a bit about the genesis of this little impromptu art thing, commenting on the process and ‘the meaning’ of the whole thing.
These four posts/images comprise “End of the World — Individual Servings”.
Plague |
Famine |
War |
Death |
Plague
The first image was a completely random capture; the little grasshopper had simply paused on the railing, was unimpressed with my presence, and I got the snap.
At the time, almost two months as of this writing, there were a few stories in the news sources I follow mentioning very large numbers of locust (“grasshoppers”, Grasshopper…) and the idea popped into my head that a dryly sardonic title would skewer our obsessions with armageddon by putting them in a modern consumer context: and an individual serving of the end times seemed somehow less threatening, even mildly humorous.
Well, the title reminded my of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, christian mythology being the perpetual source of ‘new’ stories that it is, and this created an immediate need for me to somehow make one for each of the horseman.
Okay, I say to myself, no big deal, just get three more images, one each for the remaining terrors of famine, war, and death.
I immediately decided the rules were that the content must be found, not constructed, and the image must not be processed afterwards. The addition of a title was the only thing allowed to influence the viewers understanding.
C’mon, that can’t be too hard, right?
Famine
Wrong. It was. Famine? What the hell…right, okay, uh fast food, little extras to make fast food even…uh, faster? food-ier? and what if we run out!? So the spent convenience packet of sauce abandoned…fine, that will have to do for famine. A fortnight of wandering to get that mediocre image? Well, your half done. Plod on. On to war.
War
This was actually pretty easy. Just how many recently discarded bandages are to be found in any given metropolis on any given evening? Plenty is my guess. I might have thought to put an ‘explicit’ tag or equivalent on that. I don’t particularly enjoy viscera presented suddenly, even for the sake of art, but having seen so much of it, this picture of Rite-Aid repair refuse read reasonable. War is over. Another fortnight gone.
Oh, but we are so close now. Just death. But where?
Death
I fell back on an illuminated crucifix, remembering the religious background framework for this material is christian. Add in the somewhat paradoxically conflicting civic instruction signs, (there is only one way, but you may not enter), pointing out modern civil society tends to emphasize the individual over other social entities, and you have a somewhat muddled, non-committal vignette of lights-out for a single consciousness. Wow. Heavy dude.
Done > Perfect
It was a relief to finish this series, which felt forced on me, rather than a deliberate choice, weirdly. I think the concept is solid for some fun riffing, but my patience and skills were quickly over-taxed. This is partially due to actually personal turmoil in my life during those months. Focus on something as inconsequential as a personal, quirky, art thing has always helped me weather inhospitable circumstances.
In the end I find the images themselves mostly underwhelming. The first one, which triggered the series, is the strongest one, and really should have been left as a stand alone, or kept in the locker until comparables could be discovered and captured.
The entire thing is pretty dark, lacking in depth, and as I review and reflect, also easily misunderstood as some caustic abrading of weakness. It is not intended as such. The target I have in mind is those who explain, and often exploit, their personal difficulty as the result of cataclysmic world changing events. Perpetual victims of personal armageddon who consider themselves righteously entitled to demand the world spare them. But no matter the worth of my critical message, the piece doesn’t really convey it as forcefully as future work must.