E-girls are the cultural revolution we need

With the majority of humans being in some level of isolation or quarantine, we are spending more time than ever online, and an unintentional side-effect of this is that we are seeing more images being created by the subject themselves, rather than through the lens of another person with their own set of intentions and bias. There has been a slow shift in the photographic landscape with the introduction of technology that is easy to use and easy to access. Everyone carries a phone that has more processing power and a better digital camera than ever before, user-friendly editing apps and cheap filmmaking programs. This ease of entry into image-making means that we get to see the subject as they see themselves, with their own creativity and emotion and intention at that given moment.

In this moment, the unadorned reality is that many people are facing an existential crisis, discovering who they are as a person when the pressure of being a productive member of society has lifted. People have the time to express themselves artistically, emotionally and sexually, and the platforms to connect digitally with others are being used more and more as a visual diary. A series of short videos such as the ‘don’t rush challenge’ is a prime example of this, people coming together within their community to create a transformation video of artistic expression. Even lingerie brands have joined this radical moment, with Agent Provocateur choosing a set of self-shot images by a model to showcase their latest season of offerings. This might seem minor, but it showcases the confidence that women, in particular, have when it comes to producing images of themselves in a way that has traditionally been left to a (usually male) professional photographer.

The other side effect of this cultural shift is the monetization of not only sexual labour and sexual images, but the emotional labour of women. Platforms such as OnlyFans and Manyvids has seen a dramatic rise in new profiles and new content being uploaded every day, not just by sex workers who would usually work in person and have moved online, but new faces to the sex industry as well. Forced by economic circumstances, more and more women are choosing to profit off their sexual labour. I admit, it makes me incredibly happy to see the normalization of sex work as a legitimate form of work, and I hope that this extends further into the community long after we have transitioned out of isolation. Emotional and non-sexual labour is also being monetized in ways that aren’t new, but the scale of which is going to be significant culturally in years to come. I don’t think it will be too much of a stretch to say that women will be more confident to charge for interactions with men that they feel are too one-sided and don’t benefit them.

Sorry not sorry, no one liked the “Hey baby u up?” messages to begin with, and I know I won’t be the last person to wish a swift death to fuckboys in the hellscape that is a women’s DMs.

So what does that mean in terms of women in the visual landscape moving forward? Taking back control of how women are viewed in the media, and in society, will begin with sex workers, as cultural shifts often do. But even considering the target market for these images is men who buy sexual services, the follow-on effect from this shift in gaze will trickle down into lingerie and clothing marketing (as sex workers have always been muses of civilian women, whether they care to admit to it or not), and then into popular media.

What that looks like is anyone’s guess, but I for one am here for the e-girl revolution.

L’art pour l’art

“In Silence” – Chiharu Shiota 

 

A debate that I have been having with several of my friends over the last few weeks regarding the responsibility of the artist, and the term ‘art for art’s sake’. (It generally devolves into us yelling obscenities at each other and getting drunk on the cheapest red wine we can find, but I promise there is some actual intellect in there somewhere).

The phrase ‘art for art’s sake’ has always bothered me, for a few reasons: firstly, apart from embodying everything that is pretentious about the art world, it removes the responsibility of the artist as an influence on modern culture. This seems to be a eurocentric privilege in which we can distance ourselves from the consequence of what we create, not shedding light on anything important because there is nothing really of consequence that affects us. The link that is forged between the creator and the creation is cast away, and therefore connection to others is rendered impossible.

What is the purpose of art if not connection?

To fill in spare time and make something aesthetically pleasing but with no message or meaning? To me, that is not art.

“…what does all art do? does it not praise? glorify? select? highlight? By doing all this it strengthens or weakens certain valuations….Art is the great stimulus to life: how could one understand it as purposeless, as aimless, as l’art pour l’art?” – Friedrich Nietzsche

In many African cultures art is considered a highly functional medium in which to express ideas, lament on political climate and events, pass stories through generations, transcribe philosophy and project emotion. In fact most indigenous cultures use art as a functional mode of storytelling. It is rarely pretty for the sake of being pretty.

Think about your favorite artist, of any medium: if they used their influence to spread a message of hate or intolerance, or worse still, apathy – what effect would that have on modern culture? We would suddenly have a mass increase in disengagement and apathy that would spill over into politics, have a real life effect on real people that don’t get a say in it.

Oh…wait.

In the process of creating something out of nothing we accept a certain amount of responsibility, as anyone with influence must be held accountable. So create by all means, please, create – but be wary that people are watching and listening. Make it count.

Desultory dreams

 

Alyssa Monks

 

And as the sun streams through the glass

in the morning before you wake

I swear you look as delicate

as pressed flowers

between my

cotton bedsheets.

 

I am not the first person you loved – Clementine von Radics

I am not the first person you loved.
you are not the first person I looked at with a mouthful of forevers.

we have both known loss like the sharp edges of a knife.

we have both lived with lips more scar tissue than skin.

our love came unannounced in the middle of the night.
our love came when we’d given up on asking love to come.

i think that has to be part of its miracle.

this is how we heal.

i will kiss you like forgiveness. you will hold me like i’m hope.

our arms will bandage and we will press promises between us like flowers in a book.
i will write sonnets to the salt of sweat on your skin.

i will write novels to the scar of your nose.

i will write a dictionary of all the words i have used trying to describe the way it feels to have finally, finally found you.

and i will not be afraid
of your scars.

i know sometimes it’s still hard to let me see you in all your cracked perfection,
but please know: whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap

your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen.
i will love you when you are a still day.
i will love you when you are a hurricane

Art crush: Jarosław Jaśnikowski

Enticements.

Photo post by @lemanshots.

Source: Enticements.

Meat-space philosophy

 

There is a certain arrogance in apathy that has always gotten to me. Just like people playing ‘devil’s advocate’, the conscious choice to ignore the implications of opinions for the sake of self-congratulatory wank circle of intellectual elitism. Political correctness has become a dirty word and people have forgotten why it became a thing in the first place, why it is absolutely necessary to call people out on their microaggressions that contribute to larger issues.

While I understand nihilism to a certain extent, standing on the sidelines and living as though nothing matters is a luxury afforded only to a small percentage of the population. It is such a fucking cliche for the young white guy to sit back and just throw up their hands and go ‘it’s all fucked‘ and go back to sharing memes about cats.

It’s just so easy to be complacent and indifferent when there is no direct consequence on your daily standard of living.

Suddenly morals and ethics become a matter of hypothetical debate among your other equally privileged middle class white friends, as you sit around your parents outdoor setting, fermenting in your own stench of hydroponic pot and mediocrity.

Yes, things are fucked. We probably won’t even see issues such as racism or sexism resolved in our lifetime, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. So get off the couch and out of your self-indulgent pseudo depression and do something about it. Write, create, draw, paint, sing, yell, march and get your voice heard by as many people as will listen. Show the fuck up.

 

Control issues.

Sergii Shoulis (from “The man without a rod” series)

When the soul has been activated, the most minute and mundane things become the nature of art itself. Suddenly there is poetry in the cracks of the pavement, music in the way that the leaves move on the trees; yet man refuses to let that beauty be appreciated in the moment, instead capturing it and taking ownership of it, removing the context by placing it in a frame and hanging it on a wall with other snapshots. However, the beauty is not within the thing itself; it is a dynamic state of being, the electricity in the air in the space between the viewer and the viewed, an alteration of awareness. This may change from one moment to the next, as it requires the framework of the observer’s mind to be built just so, while the subject is also in a constant transformative state, somewhere between birth and rebirth, decomposing by the second.

Why must man crave dominance over beauty in such a way that destroys the depth of the moment? They pull it forward from the shadows, the dark places that were never supposed to be beautiful, and force perfection on the imperfect, loveliness in the lonely and the suffering.

The only reasonable deduction is that we are as hypocritical as we are hollow, searching for things that we can call beautiful in order to find connection and beauty within ourselves. We are all mute but for the language of art, the poets and the painters are the philological masters, speaking in snapshots and sculptures. It is our longing for connection that gives birth to art, and our projection of a greediness for intimacy and acceptance that demands our dominance over that which is beautiful. 

Sleeping beauties – Milo Manara