Ryan McManus's Barbarian Blog

Quell and the Qualification of the term "Photographer".

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:40:54 -0400

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.

Distracted

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:26:05 -0400

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

The Cultural Energy Crisis

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:29:11 -0400

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):

Running on Empty

Money quote is this:

Downloading and Web 2.0 have famously led to new ways of accessing culture. But these have tended to be parasitic on old media. The law of Web 2.0 is that everything comes back, whether it be adverts, public information films or long-forgotten TV serials: history happens first as tragedy, then as YouTube.

Anyway, worth a read. Via Bruce Sterling.

Don't feed the trolls.

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:53:38 -0400

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:

“mmmmmm oreo yum yum u muther fuker”

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

“wtf no won wants to know where the closet toilet is u wanker”

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:

This Blog Says Sorry.

ryan@barbariangroup.com(Ryan McManus) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:08:49 -0400

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.