Event Title
Appaduria’s Cultural-Scapes in Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York”
Start Date
13-2-2015 1:30 PM
End Date
13-2-2015 2:50 PM
Panel
Media and the Constructed Self
Paper/Panel Track (if known)
Mediascapes
Abstract
In 2010, Brandon Stanton created a Facebook page called “Humans of New York” (HONY). At the beginning, he wanted to produce an exhaustive catalogue of New York City's inhabitants as he mentions in the description of the page (Stanton). Recently, he went in a world tour sponsored by the United Nations to photograph “inhabitants” of the World. Stanton’s project is problematic in many aspects in the light of Appadurai’s five global ‘–scapes’; technoscapes, ethnoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes.
Stanton usually posts an image of people along with a short narrative to complete shaping the subject’s ‘imagined world’ and identity. As Appadurai suggests about the five factors contributing to the global conversation, Stanton’s project is an artistic endeavor that exchanges certain visual and textual concepts globally. However, Stanton tries hard to neutralize and coach his followers’ comments and reactions to some of the problematic images he posts. He ignores how his project entails multiple realities as they change signification depending on the spectator and context. Lately, Stanton has been blocking what he considered inappropriate comments, and posted a disclaimer status in which he clearly claimed that HONY could survive without the followers’ comments or contribution, but it would be impossible to exist without the featured subjects.
Apparently, he is unaware of his project’s controversial nature. Besides, his call for neutral or encouraging comments to his featured subjects overlooks that these subjects’ cultural and ideological dimensions were re-constructed in the virtual, special, temporal and digital worlds that prevail our daily lives. Therefore, this paper examines how Appadurai’s five –scapes interact on complex levels in Stanton’s HONY within a local/global, material/digital interacting spaces, on the one hand. On the other hand, it examines some of the overlapping spaces between the five ‘–scapes’ and the power structures that control and/or conflict with these dimensions in terms of dominance and inferiority.
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Appaduria’s Cultural-Scapes in Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York”
In 2010, Brandon Stanton created a Facebook page called “Humans of New York” (HONY). At the beginning, he wanted to produce an exhaustive catalogue of New York City's inhabitants as he mentions in the description of the page (Stanton). Recently, he went in a world tour sponsored by the United Nations to photograph “inhabitants” of the World. Stanton’s project is problematic in many aspects in the light of Appadurai’s five global ‘–scapes’; technoscapes, ethnoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes.
Stanton usually posts an image of people along with a short narrative to complete shaping the subject’s ‘imagined world’ and identity. As Appadurai suggests about the five factors contributing to the global conversation, Stanton’s project is an artistic endeavor that exchanges certain visual and textual concepts globally. However, Stanton tries hard to neutralize and coach his followers’ comments and reactions to some of the problematic images he posts. He ignores how his project entails multiple realities as they change signification depending on the spectator and context. Lately, Stanton has been blocking what he considered inappropriate comments, and posted a disclaimer status in which he clearly claimed that HONY could survive without the followers’ comments or contribution, but it would be impossible to exist without the featured subjects.
Apparently, he is unaware of his project’s controversial nature. Besides, his call for neutral or encouraging comments to his featured subjects overlooks that these subjects’ cultural and ideological dimensions were re-constructed in the virtual, special, temporal and digital worlds that prevail our daily lives. Therefore, this paper examines how Appadurai’s five –scapes interact on complex levels in Stanton’s HONY within a local/global, material/digital interacting spaces, on the one hand. On the other hand, it examines some of the overlapping spaces between the five ‘–scapes’ and the power structures that control and/or conflict with these dimensions in terms of dominance and inferiority.