sampler;
Decay seems to have become a guilty pleasure for artists. They seem to play with the foreseeable and deliberate disintegration of work as an existing process, with the process of decay being a central aspect of the artist's intentions...
Using this notion of change, movement and time, my keen interest in the idea of the decay of society could finally be used as a context to my work. I wanted to reflect this in my work, but not in a somewhat obvious sense, yet it being personal to me.
Cultural values and society is indeed in decline. To illustrate this, if you took two newspapers, one being from 1959, and the other from 2009 present, I guarantee that the more recent newspaper will reveal a significantly lower cultural level in all respects, except the quality and quantity of photographs. My series of documentation with the apples falling from the trees, showed me just how quickly life can change and deteriorate. There is a social and moral decay within our society. It's a fact that if you read The Sun newspaper then The Times newspaper, there's a difference in cultural interest significantly. Nobody realises it yet, but probably in the near future, the only news we will have will be; photographs of celebrities getting fat, and then showbiz gossip of who lost the most weight using their own fitness DVD's.
If you seem to ask someone what's the biggest social issue of this week, it'll be Katie Price leaving 'the jungle', or 'Jedward' leaving X Factor, without a shadow of a doubt. This is the idea that celebrities take priority to somewhat general major issues of pollution or global warming, etc. Society has become so obsessed with this idea of a celebrity world to the extent that it has strayed away from the real issues at hand. It's a question that must be asked in our celebrity culture: why do we care? What possesses us to keep up on our celebrity news? It comes as no surprise that our society is obsessed and mesmerised with fame. This is our decay of society on a culture level. I guess my rant about celebrities and about how they are seemingly ruling the world is over, but this idea of how much people pay attention to "stars" is a big issue.
The world has become to own a social exclusion, where if it doesn't look nice then get rid. Nobody wants to appear in a certain stereotype or view, or to even be seen with a certain group or person. Similar to the idea that we are also very greedy, and have an avaricious attitude. I can't change much but I can recognise it and use it within my work on a personal level. My attitudes between a decay of society can be recognised in my work with how I'm in someway 'decaying the decayed'. The phrase fazes even myself, but that, on a basic level is what I am doing. I wanted to show that this is a continuous effect and matter, and that it seems there is no ending of decay, in terms of perishable forms, materials, and also society and culture...
