Disenchantment
My personal disenchantment with music in South Africa.
My personal disenchantment with music in South Africa.
Music is perhaps the most prominent sculptorof youth culture, using its strange magic and enchantment to create and dictatesubcultures, attitudes and fashions. Musicians and rock stars are praised andtreated like demigods, speaking for generations while their posters - like shrines to these gods - adorn the walls of young alternative communities.
During 2010 I set out to capture this phenomenonas part of my BTech project at the Durban University of Technology. Not farinto this year of discovery I decided to document the other side of the beast.I started to accept my owndisenchantment with the industry – with my personal loss of the perception thatmusicians are demigods, the destruction of previous misconceptions of theglamour related with touring, and with music photography in general. I alsowanted to communicate the disenchantment that a large collection of themusicians seemed to have.
The long drives, train rides, the exhaustion.The eight hours in the back of a bakkie just to be told that the band can’tplay a festival they were booked for. The lives of music journalists andphotographers in an industry suddenly saturated. These are images from anuncertain year in South Africa.
During 2010 I set out to capture this phenomenonas part of my BTech project at the Durban University of Technology. Not farinto this year of discovery I decided to document the other side of the beast.I started to accept my owndisenchantment with the industry – with my personal loss of the perception thatmusicians are demigods, the destruction of previous misconceptions of theglamour related with touring, and with music photography in general. I alsowanted to communicate the disenchantment that a large collection of themusicians seemed to have.
The long drives, train rides, the exhaustion.The eight hours in the back of a bakkie just to be told that the band can’tplay a festival they were booked for. The lives of music journalists andphotographers in an industry suddenly saturated. These are images from anuncertain year in South Africa.
