David Plowden: Recording & Communicating History through Art
David Plowden
Recording & Communicating History through Art
Through detailed exploration and self-expression, both McLuhan and Plowden strived to not only capture historical culture but also combine it with their visions, using media in art to "record and communicate" history.
David Plowden is an American photographer predominantly known for his black and white photos capturing the erasure of blue-collar work. A lot of Plowden’s artwork revolves around a centralized theme of emphasizing complexity in simplicity. He photographs seemingly casual scapes and situations, like a train or a field.
Fine, subtle print has now become undesirable in our modern day of age as the public’s attention gets channeled toward flashy and abstract art. Much like McLuhan, Plowden challenges the public to stray from their hyperactive attention-span and really see the extravagant intricacy in the simplest of forms; all you need to do is to look carefully.
Like McLuhan mentioned, "[i]n the name of 'progress, ' our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old."
McLuhan didn’t specifically talk about Plowden in his book, but he did use a few of his photographs (on pages 71 and 73) to further explain his take on cultural changes and modern day information overloads.
“The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rearview mirror. We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in Bonanza-land.”
Plowden believes that a camera is not an end in itself, but rather the best instrument for seeing things as they are, and that "fine print is the best medium for preserving the subject against the tooth of time" (Hieggelke).
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I can see why you would like this photographer, as you both like to use unconventional angles. I think that sentiment can be applicable to other media and life as well!
ReplyDeleteI like how you talk about Plowden's philosophy when it comes to photography in addition to showing his works.
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