Traffic

Sitting on a bridge, looking down amongst the steady flow of cars beneath my feet I am reminded of a river. It’s interesting to consider that every piece of steel is hurling onward to a specific destination charged with desire and emotion. Behind the nondescript shell is a human, a family with needs, hopes, and independent thought. Though as they toil in the midst of cars they seem more like zombies methodically switching lanes, speeding up, and slowing down in an endless rhythm. Which causes me to wonder, is this river of steel more akin to a machine, or the flow of an organic creek? Where does one’s humanity lie when confronted with mechanical obscurity?

The Gaze

In physics, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. Similarly in psychology, people change their behavior when aware of being watched. So too in media does the act of looking differentiate an object from the photographed object, for example. Consider the phone as an object, a tool with different associations. A photograph of the same phone demands a viewer’s attention and contemplation of the object and the intended gaze upon it. Thus, the photographed object is less about the object itself and more about an act or intention. Following the phone example, the act of staring at a phone renders thoughts of anticipation and anxiety while waiting for a call.

One From All

In a person’s life, with all of their prized independence and freedom, does one ever stop to wonder how tenuous that freedom is. It is fascinating to me that for everything we are or hope to become, we are forever indebted to others. A man may make it his goal to become free of constraint by making enough money and even becoming his own boss, but at the end of the day he is still at the whim of his customers and owes what he has to another’s interest. Thus, it becomes a question not of what one can accomplish, but with whom they do so.

Meme

For those of you unfamiliar with a meme, it is an image found on the internet that is accompanied by text. These images are quirky and in response or referential to popular culture. The text that accompanies them is overlaid onto the image, is punchy, and reactionary to whatever the image may be. The life of a meme begins with an image that has caught the attention of internet culture, is usually artistically rendered, and then placed on the internet as a blank slate so that text may be added to it by any user. The text expresses a sentiment and brings the image to a different, often poignant and humorous place. For the most comprehensive analysis and collection of memes visit: http://knowyourmeme.com.

More recently memes have evolved into a collection of slides akin to the comic book. The displays often feature a number of meme characters intertwined into a narrative that in my opinion reflect the pulse of internet culture. In a sense the meme is an amalgam of all activity on the internet. They are the artistic representation of everything spoken, explored, and questioned on the internet collapsed into a single plane.