We have been bewitched by the idea that if we are unhappy it must be happiness that we want. It may be a bit like thinking that if we are dissatisfied it is food we want; if we are feeling obscurely lacking, or at a loss, it is a drink we need. In other words, happiness may be – or can be used as – something more like an addiction than a desire.
Adam Phillips, ‘One Way and Another: New and Selected Essays’ (via fuckyeahdialectics)
The originality of the new revolutionary doctrine of Marx lay not, as unscrupulous adversaries have pretended, in its predatory or its destructive character – for Proudhon had already defined property as theft, and Bakunin was a far more ardent apostle of destruction than Marx – but in the essential quality of its postulates. The cause of the revolution before Marx had been idealistic and romantic – a matter of intuitive and heroic impulse. Marx had made it materialistic and scientific – a matter of deduction and cold reasoning. Marx had substituted economics for metaphysics – the proletarian and the peasant for the philosopher and the poet. He brought the theory of political evolution the same element of orderly inevitability which Darwin had introduced to biology. The Darwinian and Marxian theories are strictly compatible in the ruthlessness with which they subordinate human nature and human happiness to the working of a scientific principle; and they have proved perhaps the most important and most influential products of Victorian science…
E. H. Carr, The Romantic Exiles: A Nineteenth Century Portrait Gallery, London: Victor Gollancz, 1933. p.321 (via fuckyeahdialectics)
There’s an updated SIBYLLE BAIER website out there now, put together by her son Robby. It has a few photos I’d never seen before, links to her music, and other assorted ephemera.
VICE magazine’s 15th annual photo issue features the work of 38 female photographers. Nope Fun spoke to Vice Photo Editor Elizabeth Renstrom.
a: It must have been incredibly difficult to select 38 photographers from all over the world, and what more to fit it into 184 pages. What was the editing process for the issue like? How did you decide who to include? a: It was indeed, particularly difficult. This was my first photo issue as the only photo editor at VICE and towards the beginning of the process back in May (after my idea for an all female issue was initially approved prior) I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to fill the pages. After everything is said and done now, I’m chuckling, because if I had my way I would have increased our book to 300 edit pages.
I had around 16 women when I started thinking of who to include. It was really important to me to make sure that this was an incredibly diverse sampling of women’s stories and issues. I didn’t want it to look like a dreamy teen bedroom (although I totally still love that type of imagery), rather, I wanted people to understand that women photograph and cover a MASSIVE range of photography and subject matter. Making sure, bare minimum, I could begin to scratch the surface of this was my first priority. I won’t lie though, I still wish I had those additional 120 pages to round it out.
Mayan Toledano
q: You mention that the women’s “way of seeing the world isn’t new—we’re just new to seeing the world through their eyes”, yet photography as a medium is often that democratises in that the photographer’s identity/gender may not be obvious in the image. Was there a particular thing in the images that revealed a unique “femaleness”? a: No, not at all. It’s funny you mention it, that great democratization is exactly the point I was trying to make. The only thing is, VICE hadn’t highlighted or done something like this before and I wanted to emphasize that in this day and age it shouldn’t be a concept if something happens to be all women. Women shouldn’t have to answer questions like, “how does it feel to the most ____ female photographer?’ if they don’t want to bring up gender when it comes to their craft. Men don’t have to answer in the same way in respective fields.
I guess that effortlessness of getting together this many supremely talented females was my whole point, and as always, a hope that the industry is changing to be more inclusive and thoughtful about the people they choose to support and assign.
Izumi Miyazaki
q: I like how Hobbes Ginsberg, whose work subverts and blurs the line of gender stereotypes and performance, was included in the issue. What was the rational for including them? a: It’s funny, I had a couple of self portrait artists in mind when initially going over points I wanted to hit in the issue. Hobbes was definitely one of the first people I wanted to reach out to for the very reason you described, so when she said she wanted to work on something different I told her to go for it. What she submitted was an unexpected still life/film still series that still very much communicated the many layers of.
Jessica Pettway
q: Were there any photographers or series that you would have liked to have put into the issue? a: Of course, almost too many to list! A lot of people I reached out to were in the process of developing new work and wanted to hold off until ideas were fully fleshed out. However, this just means I’m going to have to make sure their placed in one of our upcoming themeless issues OR, perhaps, a 2nd photo issue is already underway ^_~
Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, when you begin to think about the massive presence photography currently has in all of our consciousness you can go a little crazy trying to hit every region/genre/etc.—but this really is only the beginning.
q: There is also a series of behind-the-scenes videos produced for the issue, which provides insight into the craft and process of creating photos. Any thoughts? a: This has always been something I wanted to do as a way for our audience to engage with the photography that goes in the magazine in a new way. I think there’s something so special about being able to go behind the scenes of an image or series you now have in your memory. I will always be a diehard print snot, as I really doing think the tactile feel of picking something up & appreciating prints cannot be completely omitted in the medium of photo. However, I totally see the value in expanding the storytelling. And it just so happens that most photo projects always lend themselves to a video component whether it’s a breakdown of the process of one image, or being a fly on the wall for a photojournalism series.
I figured Instagram was the most digestible format to use as a guide and motivation as it’s recently become totally video-focused. My friend Alex Thebez (who’s freelance on their community team) introduced me to some people at the company to workshop ways the short format docs would work best. Then, I, with the help of some lovely people at VICE, were able to make 19 accompanying videos as part of the rollout of the entire issue. And come on, who doesn’t absolutely NEED to hear Jill Freedman read her statement, or watch Atong Atem transform herself over a time lapse? I sure do & it’s another way of giving these women exposure and agency to discuss their amazing work in a fun way.
Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development.
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
