On Poverty

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/22/264850945/almost-no-poor-nations-by-2035-thats-what-bill-gates-says

Can we merely assume that time and economic projection will obliterate poverty altogether?

Should we instead talk about poverty as persistent and recurrent social equality produced by particular relations of capital?

Why are some nations labelled 'poor,' and what are the effects of this rhetorical assignation?

How is Gate's advancing a particular view of the global economy in this seemingly inert declamation of poverty?

Knowing Luigi: Art Critique Submission

Knowing Luigi

Fausto Podavini, in his 2013 photo series entitled “Mirella,” explores the personal and social dimensions involved less with the 'combat of' and more with the 'living about' Alzheimer’s. In this way, Podavini examines the everydayness of this particular form of dementia, and bestows it an unmistakably familiar and palpable visage, couched in scenes of birthdays and lazy in-the-bed afternoons to which we can all relate. But as he invites us in - as they did - he also strikes us with questions about what it means for society to cope with dementia, and what it means for those with dementia to cope in society.

To teach the rest of us what it is like, Mirella - the namesake - and Luigi, Podavini’s muses, welcome us kindly and warmly into their most intimate moments, where Podavini captures some of their most private interactions and displays them publicly.

The representative photo depicted here is the second of twenty-five. At first glance, we see a familiar scene, a restroom, but then we quickly realize we are voyeurs of a steamy, post-shower embrace. Notably, the moment is set in the restroom, one of the most private places, a place of reflection, nakedness and rejuvenation. That Luigi and Mirella share the space together speaks to their deep bond and to Luigi’s increasing precarity. Blank space dominates the photo as well. Ordinary objects speak to the routines of daily ablutions, and to the humdrum of Alzheimer care.

It is tempting to observe that a woman and a man are the subjects of the scene. But if we continue scanning, we realize that it is actually just their entwined and mirrored likenesses that draw our attention, their mutual, reflected appearances which captivate us. On the left, the larger of the two images beckons our probing gaze first: we see the two figures enmeshed, in a way, but in a particular kind of way. The woman is clearly assisting the man. He is, as we soon realize, very much dependent on him, framing her gestures as all the more endearing.

Fixing this moment are ostensible furnishings of vanity - the mirrors - but here they instead stand witness to something paradoxically inspiring: a profound and selfless act of care. Mirella, the woman doesn’t even feign a glance into the mirror to admire herself (as we see in the second and smaller of the mirrors); instead, she focuses on Luigi, aiding him in his attempts to wash. But the mirrors serve another purpose as well, beyond her revealing kindness: they provoke us to question “who are we and what do we become when we have Alzheimer’s or other conditions of dementia?” And: “Do we become mere reflections of ourselves, and how do our relationships to those around us change when in the wake of the developing, enveloping [so-called] ‘disorder’?”

It’s hard to say whether Podavini answered these questions, but he nevertheless labored enough to try. To capture the ordinary, chilling, sad, and happy moments of Luigi and Mirella’s final six years together, Podavini lived closely with the couple for nearly four, following a series of stints with a number of other NGOs and different organizations to extend a shrinking tradition of Social Reportage photography.

But this series is more than artistic and personal accomplishment: it calls attention to the increasing cost and challenge society faces in caretaking for loved ones with Alzheimer’s, and provokes critical questions about its persistence. Moreover, Podavini’s work is additionally groundbreaking for how he de-medicalizes the life of the Alzheimer’s patient and the language used to describe it: he inspires us to see ourselves there with Luigi and Mirella, to think of ourselves as part of a human community with which we must brave these troubled waters, as much as with love and kindness as with any medicine or policy recommendation.

Hopefully, as Podavini may have intended, his series has the partial effect of generalizing these queries and habits to the point that we all become more involved in a national - even international - conversation on the matter, in addition to becoming more interested in the lives of those around us and how we might work together to engender human kindness on a global scale.


My original blog post submission to the Art Writing Comp by Find Your Art School, a great resource for finding top advertising photography schools near you!

If it wasn't lost then, it's a Lost Ark now

Previously, I hadn't thought much on this concluding scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first in the Indiana Jone trilogy, but upon a second watch, this depiction of the final resting place of a mysterious, powerful and nearly-mythical object that comes under government purview is little more than a commentary on what and how bureaucracies in particular and bureaucracy theoretically render hidden and nameless, obscured by nondescript packaging and placed alongside so many similar objects, processes, documents, people and applications that receive similar inattention.

Official denial of these operations is what further obfuscates them, although, in this case, we are, it should be well noted, referring to an ostensibly unreal object, corroborated only by various biblical verses.

But there is nevertheless much to be read from this scene about bureaucracy, or how it is popularly declaimed and characterized. Seen as little more than a cavernous space of indiscriminate action, classification and storage, it may well be inferred that few items leave the literal space, the figurative implication being that bureaucracy consumes in its complicated, obfuscatory procedures, taxonomies, euphemisms, and institutional practices.

Hannah Arendt would delight to watch such a scene (and just may have, if not for all of the man-handling that Indiana Jones and his accomplices and antagonists are so often for their repugnant liberalities).

What is even more funny to think about is that the Ark is probably more lost now, under blankets of institutional obscurity than it ever was in a purported remote desert location, secured and protected by lost knowledge and separated objects. Removing it from such a resting place may be all but near impossible.

It's Not About Who "Cared Enough to Ask;" It's About The Fact You Did

I'm so tired of hearing this cliched, unthought observation percolating around legitimate publishing institutions:

"Even the most ardent academic must concede that there’s something darkly funny about devoting years of one’s life to a thesis question so abstruse that no one else had ever cared enough to ask it—and then answering it at such great length that few will ever care to read it."

'Abstruse' thesis topics (and their realization) should worry little about their popularity. Writing is about exploring and realizing ideas, personal experiences and intuitions, connecting and combing them, following them to wherever they may lead. Writing is a deeply personal process that has social dimensions and implications, and the introspection involved can often have profound effects once we've followed the trail long enough.

But if we all just read this line, like so many that resemble it, we might be persuaded otherwise, because our individual actions 'should' be guided by a sense of immediate social validation that, if lacking, should correct us to return to the realm of what is considered 'useful' and 'relevant' by others for whom we might feel little obligation or regard. This, too, is what the market teaches erroneously teaches us as well.

Instead, we should be faithful to ourselves and explore our individual difference, which we then bring to the shared dining place of our social world.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/31/lolmythesis_tumblr_college_students_summarize_their_thesis_in_one_sentence.html