The Assassination of Art

The Greatest Show is Earth

As I was looking again at pictures of my trip to Angkor, I wondered how long it would take before it becomes impossible to have such a unique experience visiting the temples when they are nearly empty. With the ranks of the middle class growing quickly in places like China and India, the number of global tourists will probably rise inexorably over the next few years and decades.

The increasing awareness of the need to reduce our impact on the earth has been mirrored by the appearance and rapid development of "responsible tourism". At its most basic, it consists of resorts designed to limit their impact on the environment, potentially combined with real or emblematic support for a local regeneration project. That trend is not limited to the countryside: hotels in urban locations have also understood the potential draw of green credentials (a good example is the hotel I stayed at in Bangkok).

One step up, luxury experience-based destinations are being created in the unlikeliest of places, for instance in proximity to areas in Africa devastated by war or famine. They help desperate governments earn some much needed cash, some of it dedicated to protecting the local wildlife. Tourists can even pay a lot of money to work hard and live rough but feel good about being involved in a local project.

But when even publications like Good magazine focus on places to go see and visit, who will rise to suggest that maybe the best eco-tourism is no tourism? How about not flying anywhere, and not discovering the last stretches of earth not yet conquered by mankind? Alternatively, why not encourage discovering the wonders of places like Iran or Syria, which might help us create bridges with nations that we are so unfamiliar with? Americans love to vote with their wallet and with their feet. Maybe it's time we voted with our passports!

Highest Degree of Sacredness

One of the most popular destinations around Angkor Wat is the Ta Prom temple. It is better known to movie goers around the world as the backdrop to "Tomb Raider", the adventure born in the virtual world of video games, then brought to life in the shape of Angelina Jolie. Tourists of all nationalities flock to have their picture taken where Laura Croft defeated her brutal opponents.

What the local guides have correctly figured out is that the throngs of visitors are often more interested in the Hollywood connection than in the centuries of history and meaning of these beautiful grounds. Ignoring the ancient legends told on the fading murals, everyone wants to see where the movie action took place. Pictures of Angelina Jolie next to local shopkeepers are in fact seen throughout the town to help sell goods to tourists.

Furthermore, our guide informed us that the tall trees, with their picturesque giant roots weaving in and out of the crevasses of the temples' walls and foundations, are protected by law because they are such a tourists magnet. It matters little that these trees actually damage what remains of the temples in the long run, since when they die they leave the whole edifice unstable, without structural support.

In the preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity Feuerbach states:

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases , so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.

His words are directly related to the situation that is evolving in Angkor Wat along with the rest of the world. Just like tourists at Disney World or Las Vegas take pictures of replicas of cities or monuments, this picture taking and sharing has often become the primary end of what used to be journeys of discovery and enjoyment of a moment or an experience. A photograph is no longer just a way to share or save a memory, it is in fact more important in and of itself than the actual event. If you can't show it to the world online, then there is no point in living it. The significance of a place is secondary to its symbolic representation.

In a way this mirrors our spectacle-driven culture, with the omnipresence of Paris Hilton and the likes built on no accomplishment whatsoever other than being famous for being famous. Devoid of any actual talent, their celebrity is a self-perpetuating phenomenon, and the reflection of a society that more and more values appearance over essence.

More and more whiter is better propaganda

As per an earlier post, I have found that most magazines in Southeast Asia are full of advertisements for white/whiter skin. All types of processes, from chemical peals, scrubs, and cleansers to moisturizers, there are a plethora of businesses promoting the 'lighter is better' philosophy. I took a moment to photograph three ads I found inside "Glamour" magazine in Bangkok. The three global companies represented here, Lancome, Chanel, & Clinique, are just a few among the many promoters of this social phenomenon.

Reporting Life from Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Above, a quick video of Bun, our tour guide through Cambodia's Temples. If you are coming to visit these parts anytime in the near future, do contact him, he is a fantastic man more than willing to share his wisdom. His email: bunhak2004@yahoo.com

Below, a picture of yours truly at the Angkor Wat site.

Eat Me Art

What a contrast between Eat Me Art, the opulent restaurant I had dinner at in Bangkok a couple of nights ago, and the floating village of Tonle Sap here next to Siem Reap, in Cambodia.

Despite the floating basketball court, the poverty here is absolute. The local Cambodian fishermen and the illegal Vietnamese alike have almost nothing to their names but wooden sheds that nearly sink every rain season.

I thought of those villagers as I came across an ad for Christie's London's upcoming auction of a Lucien Freud painting for an estimated $25 to $35 million. What would it mean to them if they saw that ad, or the painting itself? Do they appreciate art? Could they even have an understanding of what $25 million can get you, and of the possibility of being so wealthy that you can actually spend that kind of money on a painting of an old, fat woman?

Is making or collecting art a selfish pursuit when other human beings are left to live in such conditions? Does art only really matter if it deals with social and political issues? Should its value be gauged against the impact it has on the wider public rather than the prices it reaches at auctions (or should the former dictate the latter?).

And what if I feature these poor people in my photography, am I helping their cause, or am I really just using them to get myself the kind of life they can't even dream of? Will I publish the images of their faces as they looked in envy at my first world swagger? I guess we will find out when I go home to New York and post my photo selects on my website.