Ages ago, I went to see the photographer Nikki S. Lee give a lecture about her newest project, The Hispanic Project. For those not familiar with Ms. Lee, she’s an artist who immerses herself into a subculture (whether it be Lesbians, Lindy Hoppers or Punks) and when she feels she’s become completely assimilated into that particular culture, she has photos taken of her with her newfound community. She then quits the scene for her next project.

Artistic criticisms aside, one of the most interesting points of discussion to come up in the follow-up Q&A did not revolve around Ms. Lee’s assumptions about the mutability of identity, but the fact that she chose to label herself a “photographer”. While the end result of her projects were indeed photographic evidence of her participation, she was not behind, but in front of, the lens.

This debate is far from contained or resolved: what, exactly, qualifies one as a photographer? Is it technical skill, like Ansel Adams, or is it simply using the photograph as a medium for the way you see the world (like Terry Richardson, for example)?

Such questions arise with Quell, a new photo series from Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, the creative duo behind Pigeon Projects (editorial disclaimer: Brian is my cousin). Quell is a series of low-resolution, noisy images of people (teenagers, mostly) undergoing a sort of voluntary asphyxiation. But the catch is this – Mr. Cassidy and Ms. Shatzky did not take these photos or witness these events. They are screen-captured stills from videos freely posted to YouTube.

“Within the countless hours of crudely captured and degraded self-documentation, we have selected moments in which violence, grace, eroticism and tenderness converge into solitary and painterly images.”

But the question Quell brings up, along with a beautiful, hollow window into the bored and risky lives of it’s subjects, is this: Is this Photography? Are Mr. Cassidy and Ms. Shatzky, in this role, photographers? Or is this something else, some new breed of artistic curation that simply uses the still image as its conduit?

Perhaps the thing I like most about this new series is that it defies that easy codification, not just in style, but where it fits into an entire history and continuum.

In the course of writing this blog post, I will change the song playing on my iTunes, check Twitter (probably at least twice), search for “credenza” on Craigslist, get up to put on socks, look at 3 websites for a project I’m starting, search Craigslist for “sideboard”, respond to a text message about plans for later, and read (but not answer) 6 emails.

This is par for the course these days.

Recently I found myself having a hard time focusing on the words I was typing. I was transposing letters, having a difficult time completing thoughts or sentences. I originally thought I must be hungry, then instantly followed that train of thought to it’s logical conclusion: I had a brain tumor.

So I stopped writing, and went to look up symptoms on WebMD. Then I remembered I hadn’t paid my cable bill. Then Facebook. Then emails…you see where this is headed.

I wasn’t always this way. WE weren’t always this way. I used to be able to read a book, or sit and listen to a 2 hour lecture without taking notes. Now I can’t make it through 15 minutes of a meeting without feeling listless and anxious. Anxious that I’m missing something – that somewhere, somehow, there is something exciting and/or terrible happening that I am supposed to be paying attention to.

It got so bad that I started having to keep my necessary items in the same pockets, day after day, so I could pat myself down to make sure I could get on the subway, or not lock myself out (Wallet, rear right; Phone, front right; Keys, front left; Metrocard, rear left.)

I know what the problem is. So do you. But it’s an impossible habit to break, ever since AOL invented the “you’ve got mail!” chime, I have been locked into this pavlovian (and apparently primitive) cycle of constantly needing to see what the unknown stimuli is on the horizon.

Like right now, RIGHT NOW my iChat icon is bouncing in it’s dock, and I can see that little red star with an ever increasing number, and I know, I KNOW that is more important than writing this.

BRB.

So a few weeks ago, I did something almost unimaginable to my modern self: I took a day off from the Internet. It was the first nice Friday of the year, and I took the day off of work. My rules were simple: i could use the internet to access information (what time a restaurant closed, or a map, or the weather report) but not for any sort of interaction. And the times I did use the Internet had to be brief, necessary, and socially acceptable (i.e. not while someone was talking, or at a dinner table)

And at first, it was a struggle. But by the end of the day, as I played catch in the park and thought about watching a movie, a whole movie, I felt relieved. I felt like I had a full day. I felt, well, tired actually. By eliminating the possibilities (what I’ve come to refer to as the Tyranny of Choice™ – the same reason you forget what book you were going to buy when you’re at the bookstore) and simply choosing to do something, I was able to enjoy it.

So, starting this month, once a month, I am going to have a Day Without Internet. Sounds hokey and forced, but I need the discipline. I’d suggest you try it to, and let me know how it works out for you. Because all the Facebook updates in the world really don’t amount to much.

(this blog post was inspired by a nice article entitled Why We Can’t Concentrate. Take 15 minutes and read it, without doing anything else.)

photo by thomas christensen

An interesting article (or editorial, really) about the possibility that technology, which once fueled our cultural revolutions, is now slowly causing a breakdown in the way we share and experience (comparison by way of Rave, of all things):

Money quote is this:

Anyway, worth a read. Via Bruce Sterling.

I’ve been blogging for a long time, longer than the term blogging has actually existed. And still, despite that lengthy history, I have been mercifully troll-free.

That is, until this morning:

On a fairly old (and truthfully sorta inane and forgettable) post to this blog, I inexplicably got not one but TWO troll comments. The offender, a Mr. Keenan, felt the need to respond with:

And then, three minutes later, realizing his brief statement might not parlay his feelings on the subject, he added:

Now, I love comments. Like Mr Brier, I believe that some of the best stuff on a blog aren’t the posts, but the ensuing conversations. And I appreciate that on a blog such as this, which is tied to a company that is in the Internet business, we maintain a fairly open comments policy (no filtering or moderating, and a healthy habit of engaging dissenters and critics I like to think I’m above falling for such obvious troll-bait.

But I’m left baffled – why would someone feel the need to comment, not once, but twice on a old blog post about something so innocuous? I’ve posted WAY more incendiary stuff in my day, and I got nothing. What drives these trolls? I could understand if the URL he linked his name to went somewhere self-promoting, but nope – broken link. What drives them? What do they dream about?

I suppose we’ll never know. I can only offer this as some sort of blanket response:

Hey there.

So, yeah, I know. I know.

I’ve been so bad at posting lately. A lot of it could be attributed to all the time I’m spending on Twitter (where it’s nice not to have to format every word), but a lot of it is also because I’ve just been flat-out busy. Like, real busy. Pre-recession busy.

And no one is going to complain about that.

But I’m going to try to be better. Seriously.

Waking this morning to the news that Pepsico would pull the new Tropicana packaging as a result of a widespread public backlash left me with an odd feeling in my stomach:

Fear.

Neko Case is awesome. To promote her new album, she’s asking people to post an MP3 of her new track, People Got a Lotta Nerve. Pretty painless. But Neko sweetens the deal. For every blog that posts the track, Neko and Anti will donate $5 to Best Friends Animal Society. Pretty nice of her. If every Barbarian blogged about it, well, that would be near $500. I’m just saying.

So here it is!

DOWNLOAD: Neko Case – People Got a Lotta Nerve

I had the pleasure of meeting Neko once. I was wearing a shirt with a drawing of a dog on it, and she approached me and told me she liked it, and told me about her dog. Stand up lady.

Also, you should really go see her when she tours this Spring. My friends in Crooked Fingers will be opening, and when I saw them open for Neko at Central Park, well, let’s just say it was the best night all summer.

(Also, if you add the song on iLike, they’ll donate $1. Do it.)

Something strange has been happening to my friends, both online and off. It goes something like this:

OK, so that might not seem so strange to you, but I know Justin. Justin is a killer photographer who loves track bikes and drinking Lone Star and going to see shows. Justin isn’t the type of person to be Twittering about the Fiesta Bowl. Justin, I would wager, has never worn burnt orange.

But there it is, clear as day. And you have noticed it too…the indie friends and D&D gamers that you know, the ones who eschewed sports and jockiness as a general defining characteristic, have suddenly started debating Teixiera going to the Yankees and Matt Cassel’s free agency situation. They have become informed, engaged, well…fans.

I can’t claim to be any different. Anyone who knew me in college would be aghast at my fandom these days. I follow the Red Sox like I have money on the games. I got up at 6am last spring to watch the exhibition games in Tokyo. I even follow the Globe Sports section on Twitter so I can be the first to know when Varitek re-signs (please re-sign!).

Why has this happened? I think it has to do with the quest for meaning. The quest, that is, for Authenticity.

My favorite blog in the entire internet, Hipster Runoff, has made it a central mission to define this desire for authenticism, the science of explaining what it means for something to be authentic, and why things that are authentic appeal so strongly to those of us who are constantly searching for what’s next. And it goes something like this:

In an increasingly scripted, focus grouped and branded existence, the true things, the authentic experiences, are becoming harder and harder to find. We feel starved for something familiar and worthwhile. Sports provides this, not only because it’s the only thing left on television that is almost always unpredictable in its outcome, but because it is a classic thing to participate in. It is a pastime.

It’s trite to say we’re all searching for something true, but I’ll say it anyway: We are all searching for something true. We want to be connected participants of things that are genuine, that aren’t trying to trick us. It’s why we constantly hunt for vintage Belstaff Trialmaster jackets on eBay, why we listen to Merle Haggard on vinyl rcords played on vintage turntables and tube amps.

You know this to be true. It’s why we got into Lone Star and track bikes to begin with, isn’t it? Both, in their way, connect us to something that has its roots in our collective culture. Lone Star becomes a vessel for us to connect a simple, more honest (and nostaglic) time, and track bikes allow us to be part of a niche, specialized and purely functional sport. Jack Daniels, despite its being featured at TGI Friday’s, is still the de facto whisky. Polaroid, despite becoming a watered down brand for second tier TVs, is still equated with precious, poorly-exposed topless photos.

These things are all genuine, even if the way we experience them is not.

And it’s not just sports and beer. Recently I’ve noticed a lot of my friends, including fellow Barbarians, are genuinely getting into guns (or, for those of us in NYC, the idea of guns). In fact, I called that as the breakout trend for 2009 on my Twitter. It would seem that as our cultural history gets more and more strip-mined of authentic totems, we have to dig deeper. We have to go to the most honest, the most pure, the most authentic. And in doing so, we have to betray the old definitions on what it meant to be alt.

Mainstream is the new alt.

The Internet may not have begun this race to authenticity, but it certainly sped it up. Suddenly, anyone with a decent internet connection can be as alt as anyone else. Trends used to be born geograhically- cities were the epicenter of cool, and eventually it trickled along the highways to middle America. Now hipness is a science, one that can be learned, studied, and challenged. The Internet allows trends to be born, thoroughly researched, surface, and die at an alarming rate, effectively speeding up the evolution of the culture. Alt culture has up til now been a self-referential snake eating its own tail, and suddenly it finds itself gnawing at the back of its head.

Of course, there is one deeper, more authentic and traditional trend that has yet to be embraced: Religion. If that happens; if you start seeing alt-beards at Sunday Mass…well, you heard it here first.