Photo a day - February 2013

Images from the everyday.

"These Moments Existed"

www.simluttin.com

February has been difficult so far. How does one create space to reflect and create new pieces when we're so overloaded by work, social media and online visual culture? 

It's a hard balance to strike, and an uphill battle that few people I talk to seem able to abate. Especially, I think, when your very profession/passion/creative outlet is a very public thing, which feeds into the very visual culture you would ultimately like some distance from. 

Perspective is a wonderful thing, so what happens when you feel can barely slow down and create the space to reflect and analyse?

The beginning...

Images from the everyday.

"These Moments Existed"

www.simluttin.com

The past few months I have started to develop a new body of work that I'm creating for a solo exhibition at Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University in America.

I'm toying with the title "These Moments Existed" and am tempted to add "(for what they're worth)", as I'm currently thinking about the relevance of an individual's everyday experience and why we, as a current Western 'social media addicted society', choose to document these moments. What importance does capturing these moments have? What does it say about my place in contemporary society and culture? Does the world really need to know what I ate/did/saw today?

And yet, as I ask these questions, I'm compelled to make my own contribution to this stream of online visual material and start a photo-a-day to document my (mundane?) everyday observation of things.

So, is this a pointless exercise or does it say something about my existence, as small and meaningless as the gesture may be?

Photo a day - January 2013

Images from the everyday.

"These Moments Existed"

www.simluttin.com

These January images start with beauty, set in the stunning Mt Hotham landscape and move through moments of mundane and absent time. There are thoughts of melancholy moments as I move through the everyday, and reflect on the past. 

Wikipedia says, "The name "melancholia" comes from the old medical belief of the four humors: disease or ailment being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily liquids, or humors. Personality types were similarly determined by the dominant humor in a particular person. According to Hippocrates, melancholia was caused by an excess of black bile, hence the name, which means 'black bile', from Ancient Greek μέλας (melas), "dark, black", + χολή (kholé), "bile"; a person whose constitution tended to have a preponderance of black bile had a melancholic disposition. See also: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric." (Cited 22 February 2013)

My constitution is full of black bile.