Monday, December 14, 2009

hypermontage diary

With the increased ease of making and distributing short videos, and with the ubiquity of the Mac's camera mounted atop its screen, it's no surprise that many ordinary folks are organizing diary-like images of themselves across time - sped-up stills, one per day, of the human face, changing and unchanging. Go to YouTube and search under "photo himself (or herself) every day (or daily)". In the best of these personal/ordinary hypermontages, the expression remains the same--to me, the more the same, the better. The very best is Noah, who took a photo of himself in virtually the same position and context every day for six years. His mouth remains precisely the same while his eyes darken and his hair flows upward and downward like a tide between haircuts.