Modern Palimpsest (Reminants of the Anthropocene)
URBEX
Progress
We race towards the future with our backs turned to it blindly fascinated with by fleeting milestones of contemporary society. There is no meaning, nothing exists long enough for meaning to be attributed to its existence, everything is in a constant state of transition. We live as though life is elsewhere, as if we are falling behind in the race towards something utopian with dystopia only a few paces behind. These two concepts represent the push and pull that forms humanity’s incessant progression towards modernity. This constant cycle is driven by the guize that if we are not pursuing some form of utopian ideal we are retrogressing.
Despite contemporary advancements, many of the basic ideologies that have driven humanity remain embedded in today’s society; some of which are exemplified in the practice of Urban Exploration (Urbex).
Urbex is the practice of exploring and documenting structures and locations that are abandoned, derelict or in some form deemed restricted to the general public.
This practice proves both beneficial and detrimental to the explorer, many of the benefits come at the cost of physical and legal repercussions. For some, these repercussions are worth these risk.
The lure of Urbex can be linked to the human desire for variance, an abnormality, something that disturbs the daily routine and a fascination of danger/risk. RomanyWG’s Beauty in Decay Suggests that the conveniences of modern lifestyle has created societies that associate happiness ease of access to essential elements that make human life possible; food, labor and the pursuit of a continuously more comfortable lifestyle. This lifestyle creates an artificial sense of freedom in which habitual routines and social standards have conditioned the general populace, into staying within the realm of what is expected; a glass ceiling of unspoken guidelines acceptable into This pursuit has created a minority that seeks the opposite.
While some promote the practice of obtaining the legal documentation required to enter the location ‘with permission’ , as suggested in an article by Web Urbanist, many believe this also takes away from the experience. For photographers the images that result from an exploration are unique due to the restricted nature of Urbex sites
Rules/Legality
Another simple way to determine ownership is by going to the County's website and finding the Assessment Office page. You will just need to enter the property's address into the field to find the owner.
Even an old, dilapidated property may have an owner. Entering a structure with the intention of taking the property of another could certainly subject a person to Burglary charges.
ART
STRATA
Ethics
Resulting documentation is sometimes referred to as ‘Ruin Porn’, a phrase, usually holding a negative connotations, derived from the general view that Urban Exploration Photography takes advantage of the lure and abandoned nature of sites for personal gain.
-Do you ever take things from the abandoned places that you visit and photograph?
Do external factors ever matter (e.g. the building is condemned and you know it will be torn down by x date, the building's in terrible shape and likely won't last much longer, most of it's undamaged, but part of it already suffers from water damage and/or mold, it's in an area vulnerable to taggers and vandals, you know it's highly unlikely anyone will ever come back to it, etc.) or should urban explorers always stick to the creed "take only photographs and nothing else"?
I'm curious because I've seen a whole range of responses from "never take anything" to "free stuff!"
I think if you know it's about to be torn down, it would be fine to take something to preserve the memory of what the place was.
I would argue that you can do that with photographs and that you aren't preserving any memory of the place if you take an item for your own benefit (to display in your house, to sell, whatever).
Slumming
(Gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries.)
This is a laser cut/etched sculptural element that takes a gerrymandered ward of Chicago and turns it, via illustrator step vectors, back into a more rational square.The etched markings on each layer are derived from voter statistics imput into Cinema 4D's spline noise generator and. Ive photographed this ward sculptural poster on a rooftop of a building in the gerrymandered ward that it represents.
This is a laser cut/etched sculptural element that takes a gerrymandered ward of Chicago and turns it, via illustrator step vectors, back into a more rational square.The etched markings on each layer are derived from voter statistics imput into Cinema 4D's spline noise generator and. Ive photographed this ward sculptural poster on a rooftop of a building in the gerrymandered ward that it represents.
