David Jo Bradley: ART MART

David Jo Bradley: ART MART
ART MART runs Sep 20th to 26th, Spectrum Gallery Mount Lawley

the devil made me do it

a short, hypocritical diatribe on blogs and why I self flagellate in protest


Everyone's got a frickin blog these days.

Personally, I feel the massive influx of information feeds on the internet cheapens intellectual property in every sense of the notion. Words're cheapened, film is cheapened, music is cheapened... and photography is cheapened.

This equates to an erosion of practically all creative forms of media; because there’s so much god-damned media out there, no one cares or values most of it anymore. Only the ones at the top, those who’ve ‘made it’ get to bask in the warmth of creative hero worship, their egos receiving regular massaging by little people.

But perhaps that’s a bit cynical. Conversely, you could see that wobbly mass of ever increasing online content as a boon, enhancing the competitiveness of creative industries. But here too I think the race is more about being a good self promoter than being a good artist. No matter how brilliant, many tend to get lost in the sauce unless they incessantly spruik their chosen medium.

And that can take a lot of time and money.

I’m not stating that I’m opting out of this process of creative erosion, nor am I acting with any integrity in attempting to spawn some kind of deluded reverse information revolution. I’m stating that I understand this as a major issue of the information age. And having understood it, have proceeded in jumping on the digital bandwagon. Giddyup.

But take comfort in the fact that nearly all my photography is done using film, thus capturing the moment using a physical, chemical process.

This is in opposition to - and defiance of - digital photography, which composes images using little more than 1’s and 0’s strung together in a certain way to represent what the camera’s sensor was pointed at. The images go no deeper than the pixels that interpret the information, unlike film, which is joyfully infinite.

Also, in a similar ilk to the form my self-righteous photographic puritanism is manifest; I’ll not be adding much in the way of photographic content on this blog either. The odd shot here and there maybe, but these’ll be motivated by purely selfish notions of personal promotion.

Rather than erode my own profession, I choose to erode that of journalists, novelists and bards instead.

If you want more photos, try my website: www.davidjobradley.com

So in summary: sorry for blogging, the devil made me do it.

djb.

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