These are depictions of the omnipresent dynamics between the environment set for social interactions and the interactions themselves, carried out by actual people. The attributes of the structure (are meant to) enhance certain activities and hinder or prohibit others; activities are in turn accommodated in, conform to, and often disrupt the functionality intrinsic in the structure. Yet, the structures are in fact social relations crystallised into set environments and reproduced thereof. Thus, rather than the ‘dead weight’ of society and history determining the activities of our cherished contemporary ‘individuals’, we are witnessing the complex interplay among social relations in different states of flux.
The Almost.Portraits
It is common wisdom that a good portrait should 'bring out' the 'real self'' of the subject, depict him/her as s/he 'really is', etc. Apart from the apparent idiocy of such idealistic plattitudes, such psycho-(porno)-graphic approach is only good for cops and psychitrists. I respect (above all) my 'subject's' intimacy, closure and distantiation, and try to make do with it. Hence my portraits are all bad: they depict people as they are not. Photography (and possibly art in toto) should be alienating or do us the favour.
the still lives
As I reckon things, a picture that does not contain people is not worth shooting (or painting at that). There are always exceptions. Apart from aesthetic judgement, it can be said to the defence of the pictures in this category, that they include humans as they depict their work –either in buildings or landscape. Hence, even when uninhabited, the pictures still tale a tale about people. (But that’s stretching it too far, I think).
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