The Great Machine

A city is an organism that aims to forget its own cells.

Its expansive network of industry creates an ecosystem where concrete and steel serve not as shelter, but as barriers. This installation explores the friction between individual humans and the landscape of the modern cityscape: the dehumanization of hyper-industrialization.

Sociologist Georg Simmel argued that the sheer scale of the city forces the individual to aspire to a "blasé attitude," this being a psychological persona of indifference and depersonalization that is used to defend against the overstimulating environment of urban life. My work, inspired by these ideas, visualizes this loss of self. Through high-contrast, black and white photography, multi-layered exposure, and experimental chemical use, I represent a world where the human figure is dwarfed and isolated by the scale and nature of the city.

I focus on the "raw" of the city as opposed to the clean, commercialized view that is often publicized. On what Marc Augé would call the "non-place," locations meant for passing through, not viewing. Identity is suspended in the face of the great machine.