urban ku # 124 ~ one long quiet howl
Monday, October 22, 2007 at 08:32AM 
A fire in the backyard fireplace • click to embiggen"American civilization grows more hieroglyphic every day. The cartoons of Darling, the advertisement in the back of magazines and on the billboards and in the street-cars, the acres of photographs in the Sunday newspapers, make us into a hieroglyphic civilization far closer to Eygpt than to England. So said (in 1922) Vachel Lindsay, the poet, writer, and film critic who argued that modern American culture needed a new form of visual literacy - one can only imagine what he might say now.
Lindsay believed that, 'like the great ancient civilizations of Eygpt, modern American culture was to be understood and articulated not through written language but by ferreting out meaning from the seemingly chaotic system of visual signs generated daily on a massive scale. In a brave new/old world, where language was ceding power to image, photography served as an important vehicle through which Americans defined and interrogated their relationship to their rapidly changing world'. ~ from The Art of the American Snapshot
This particular passage carries great meaning and insight for me. Recently, I have mentioned the word 'obsession' as it applies to making Art because I think that word has some meaning for me (but I am not alone) and my Art. I have articulated some other reasons and motivations (see my Artist Statement) behind my drive to make, but I continue on a quest to learn more about my Art and myself and reading about the medium of photography is part of my self psychoanalytical regime.
Well, there is no doubt in my mind that I am using photography 'as an important vehicle' through which I 'define and interrogate my relationship to the rapidly changing world'. And, indeed, I am trying to 'ferret out meaning from the seemingly chaotic system of visual signs generated daily on a massive scale' - a scale that Lindsay could never have imagined.
Those 'visual signs' constitute a new manipulated and manipulating visual language that has been co-opted by the merchants of wealth and power in the service of only their own wanton wants and desires. I believe that, ultimately, it is the siren-song of death ...
... which is another reason why I am trying to construct a visual language that is honest, realistic, human and articulate - an alternative to the prevailing language of preference, that of truthiness - the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.
Reader Comments (1)
Speaking of obsession, snapshots and rejecting recreating Ansel Adams view of classic landscapes and also as a shameless act of self promotion, I'd like to drop in a link to my images from a week long tour of Yosemite and Death Valley. You can see the preamble here and I'm curious to hear opinions. if this isn't really fitting for the 'landscapist' blog them, then feel free to remove this post too.