Thursday 3 December 2015

Awake again

After a long hiatus, I've decided to start updating this blog again. It will be open-ended, and I hope a notebook of ideas and images. I started posting on here aged 17, when Twitter and Instagram hadn't yet taken off. Their growth (in the personal and corporate arenas) has been interesting to chart, with everyone from 12-year-olds to institutions like the Tate suddenly projecting themselves to the world. While the brevity of Twitter and the image focus of Instagram suggests the potential for a greater immediacy, I've found the reality to be something quite different.

Suzanne Moore wrote earlier today (in the context of this year's revamped Pirelli Calendar): "The demand for “realness” exists at precisely the same time as owning the means of production of imagery means just owning a phone. To look at Instagram is not to see how others live, but their own fantasies of life. Such lives consist of constant filters and retouching."

These projections can be fascinating in themselves, but I've found myself drawn back to the intimacy of the journal. Here formats are more sprawling, less defined. The active decision of readers to visit a blog also appeals, away from the endless scroll of social media. And the diary's introspective record of failures and impulses.

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