And so the new year begins. And so I start a project. And as much as I thought of this project as starting with a New Year's picture, I didn't get to start it as designed by cliche. If anything, it gets to start in melancholy. My darling and I spent the lovely week of the new year together travelling in the neighbouring countryside, enjoying the winter sun, and watching each other in the eyes. But she had to get back to her side of the border until the next time we meet somewhere else in Europe. And this is how this picture came about - we were at the airport in Graz - she was already through security, and we were separated by a glass wall. Transparent enough that we could see each other and see the warmth in our eyes. And so with this memory, I begin the project!
inspiration
Egoism, inspiration, and consumerism
in Thoughts
Why do artists create?
- They want to change the world! (=inspiration)
How can they do that?
- By reaching the masses! (=consumerism)
Who do they want to change the world?
- Make it better! (=egoism)
For whom do they want to make the world better?
- For other?! For themselves?!
This was taking me into the territories of anthropology - because documentation of the human existence is rife with questions of fulfillment, of change, of inspiration and egoism, and of consumerism. From the early days of the human tribe, we have been exchanging goods, we have been looking for the things we need (and things we also want) and have given away things we had in excess, be it money, or food, or shelter, or one of the other Maslow layers. And all for the self-actualization, for finding peace with oneself. I look around and wonder why I want to get a deeper grasp of the systems we live in. Is it all just some misfiring (and mis-wiring) in my brain? What is the link between all of the beautiful things that one surrounds oneself with and the type of creative work one does? Isn't this where inspiration comes from? Isn't creativity like 5-grade physics: energy doesn't get lost, it just transforms?
Elizabeth Gilbert writes: "With all respect to the Buddha and to the early Christian celibates, I sometimes wonder if all this teaching about nonattachment and the spiritual importance of monastic solitude might be denying us something quite vital. Maybe all that renunciation of intimacy denies us the opportunity to ever experience that very earthbound, domesticated, dirt-under-the-fingernails gift of difficult, long-term, daily forgiveness." and this is the things about creativity - one has to lose all restraints from the wheel, and let the cart drive on its own.
In photography, I often forget when I am taking pictures and when not. I do want to get my hands dirty, I want to be ignorant of what the person is saying and I want to be participating in what the person is telling me; I want to be there and yet to look from aside; I want to be one with the camera, and yet want to feel that it is a tool; I want to record intimacy; I want to record the moment that person sees only me and no one else in the conversation. And I want this for my own actualization - for my own satisfaction of fulfillment and peace. And I also know that I want them to feel satisfied and fulfilled from this exchange - of a service, really.
An exchange of a service - sounds..., what? "Cheap"? "Impersonal"? "Non-conversational"? It is all that perhaps. But that's the only way to get through, to learn to firgive, to learn to understand and to listen, to smile and frown, to tell the truth.
