Terminus: Houston Avenue

[jack_babalon]

Room 13
May 27th, 2007
~Rob M

Through my photographic travels across Atlanta i've come to the opinion that what i'm doing isn't so much art as it is a variation on the act of butterfly collecting. The indulgence of an archaelogical (rather than a merely bureaucratic) instinct, that compels me to preserve and record the changing urban landscape of what i've come to call 'The Dead Places'. Forgive the floweriness of the term (in truth i've always wanted to create my own 'Phantom Zone') but I also do so to designate the series of ruins spread throughout our city; the minature ghost towns, squat houses, gutted out office complexes and the abandoned factories that are tucked throughout the varying neighborhoods here. What fascinates me about the "dead places' is that they are areas existing not only after a set of failed social-econmic strategies (housing projects, ghettos) but also exist simultaneously before the beginning of another set (urban renewal, gentrification). Areas in short that are in a 'state of play' (for the Derridarwinain inclined) between abandonment and progress. Being both while at the same time being neither it develops it's own je na sais quoi - offering a kind of poetry of decay and a gallery for aesthetic vandalism but not a permanent one - for soon it will be gutted out, made into lofts, coffee shops and parking lots.

Hence butterfly collecting. I know it's only a myth that the butterfly lives but one day, but it is my contention that one of the defining qualities of beauty is not just in it's manifestation but in the brevity of it's existence.

Anyway... just a thought.

Comments

[efire360.livejournal.com]

You put it all in a book with some text and it's art. Copyrighted art at that. I can paginate and design for you.

Call it what you will...

[redsalt.livejournal.com]

I love it and it is beautiful, as only disuse, desolation, decay and destruction can be. I agree about the publishing/copyrighting thing, as well. I will help in whatever way that I can. Just let me know...

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

I've been viewing it as a combination of transcribing lower urban mythology, recording a citywide incantation, and being an incantation unto itself.

Hm, or maybe it is for me, and I should use it to wreak havoc in your name.

[re-animating.livejournal.com]

I really like this pic. I'm not sure if it's the color saturation in combination with the seedy feel of abandonment, but it definitely grabs my attention. It's a great addition to your butterfly collection.