On March 20, 2018, the spring equinox, I posted my first Instagram entry. My daughter, Jesse, had suggested that I open an account to distinguish mine from fraudulent ones soliciting in my name. Jesse also felt the platform would suit me, as I write and take pictures every day.
“18 June—Coat hanger. Hotel Bel Ami, Paris.”
“27 June—My daughter in Rome, so self-contained and other worldly, yet deeply connected with the imperative needs of nature. Happy birthday, Jesse Paris Smith.”
I used my own hand as the image for my first venture into the virtual world. The hand is one of the oldest of icons, a direct correspondence between imagination and execution. Healing energy is channelled through our hands. We extend a hand in greeting and service; we raise a hand as a pledge. Ochre handprints, thousands of years old, found stencilled in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave, in southeastern France, were formed by spitting red pigment over a hand pressed against the stone wall, to merge with an element of strength or perhaps to signal a prehistoric declaration of self.
“31 May—Jesse reading ‘Leaves of Grass’ at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey. Walt Whitman heralded the multitude within us, projecting love and encouragement to future generations of young poets.”
Instagram has served as a way to share old and new discoveries, celebrate birthdays, remember the departed, and salute our youth. I write my captions in a notebook or directly on the phone. I would have liked to have had a Polaroid-based site, but, as the film has been discontinued, my camera is now a retired witness of former travels.
“21 May—This is the Fender Jazzmaster of Kevin Shields, born on this day, who founded the deafeningly beautiful My Bloody Valentine.”
Although I miss my camera and the specific atmosphere of the Polaroid image, I appreciate the flexibility of the cell phone. My first inkling of a cell phone’s possible artistic usefulness was through Annie Leibovitz. In 2004, she took an interior shot with her phone and then printed it out as a small, low-resolution image. She said offhandedly that she thought it would one day be possible to take worthy pictures with a phone. I didn’t consider having a cell phone back then, but we evolve with the times. Mine, acquired in 2010, has enabled me to unite with the exploding collage of our culture.
“16 May—A city of burning days and consecrated nights, utterly transformed from the New York I once knew. And yet, somehow it is still my city.”
A new book of my photos, inspired by my Instagram, is an expanded glimpse of how I navigate this culture. Social media sometimes courts cruelty, reactionary commentary, misinformation, and nationalism, but it can also serve us. It’s in our hands. The hands that compose a message, smooth a child’s hair, pull back the arrow and let it fly. Here are my arrows, aiming for the common heart of things. ♦
This is drawn from “A Book of Days.”
Sourse: newyorker.com
