Lethal Art
Don't play with that, you'll put someone's eye out!
While hanging art with a friend from a nearby city yesterday, he asked what new project I’m working on. He knows there’s almost always something brewing upstairs in my head. I told him about my idea of a series of portraits called The Resistance. Portraits of various people holding objects that represent what the current government could take away from them, or how they would resist the authoritarian regime in their personal lives. Think library books, canned homegrown food, art, music, healthcare, etc.
A woman standing next to my friend said that her first thought is that I’m putting these people in danger of being targeted by the right through facial recognition. I acknowledged her concern as something to think about. The first friend had been positively nodding at me as I described the project but turned away to be totally busy and no longer engaged in the conversation as I dealt with the woman’s fears. I repeated that it is worth thinking about and walked away.
Yes, the technology exists because it was used to identify the Jan 6 Insurrectionists to be arrested and jailed for their violent felonies. It could be used for evil and certainly the current White House seems to be going in that direction.
I should be so lucky to have anybody looking at my photography!
In what world would a person photographed holding canned jars of homemade applesauce be targeted for harm or home invasion?
I’m sure the bad guys already have access to our voting records, charity donation records, full faces on social media, names, addresses, and social security info. Why would they turn to my photo series with the victory cry, “Finally we know who they are! Soldiers attack these dissenters!”
After careful thought, illustrated by the four points above, I will continue with my project as planned. I will not take photos of anyone who is afraid to have their face included, or would it be extra cool to take photos of the backs of their heads? Or only their hands holding the objects and no faces? Maybe the extra options will make this series unique, more intriguing, and worth printing and framing.
I don’t want anyone to lose an eye.
And this project takes lots of deep thoughts, and I trust you for a project like this.
Two thoughts: one, I am very happy you are continuing with this project, and two, I, for one, never, ever foresaw a world where a real threat exists to expression that is not mainstream and that means exist to track and monitor that expression. Sobering does not do it justice.