Documentation Vs. ‘Look At Me!’
Posted by anastasia on 03-17-2008
This weekend I went to see Annie Leibowitz’s “A Photographer’s Life” here in San Francisco. As I walked through the galleries looking at hundreds of photographs both incredibly personal as well as her iconic celebrity work, I thought about documentation or really the lack of documentation of my own life. My family moved a lot and many of our photographs and albums somehow became a casualty of my parents’ divorce as well as my own constant moving throughout my twenties. I’ve often thought about attempting to organize my granparents’ photos on my mother’s side but never did. There is something about having a photographic record of moments, places and faces that makes you feel like you’ve LIVED. Memory can’t match documentation.
Having loads of photos of people, whether on Flickr or in physical albums or hung throughout your house can remind you that you have friends and family when you are feeling more alone. All to say the exhibit inspired me to want to buy a camera and make a renewed effort to try and document more of my life.
There was a time when I did document my life — in high school. My bedroom walls were covered with photographs of friends, local punk bands, parties and trips. Not to mention the endless photos my friends and I would take of ourselves in different outfits vamping it up. I think it’s normal for teens to document themselves in this way as part of figuring out who they are. Unlike when I was a teen, this generation of teens has many new tech tools to document and the internet for display and distribution. What’s different aren’t the tools though, it’s the impact of reality TV culture today’s teens have grown up with where everyone is starring in their own show. It goes beyond just documenting to staging and creating an image you want to put out there for that audience — one that may or may not be the real you. Newsweek published a piece on the “Look At Me” generation and raised questions we’re all wondering about:
Sociologists have begun to question the effect of all this exhibitionism on young people. Can they form durable identities off-camera, or are they so used to producing their images for outside consumption that images have replaced their essences? Will a generation for whom all secrets are fair game and every private moment can become public trust each other and form intimate relationships?
The piece points out what Ypulse commenter Alison Byrne Fields raised in response to my thoughts on “American Teen” — how much are teen subjects of these “reality” series or documentaries playing the role they think they’re supposed to play vs. just being themselves. There is also discussion consequences of images taken with bravado like a topless photo or even the Abu Ghraib prison photos without thinking through what would happen if those photos went beyond their intended audiences. What do you think the implications are of teens performing for an imagined wider audience or even self branding vs. documenting?
Categorized under: TV