The Instagram Archive

Morning folks - as you'll know, if you read this nonsense often enough, last July I stopped posting to Instagram after some 120 posts.

Why?

Well I actually have no love for data-harvesting technology, nor am I happy with the way the world is going.

When I was young, if you wanted to be arty that was the way you were; you created, you did the stuff, you practiced until your hand cramped from holding pencils, or more pertinently, went out with a camera and some film and processed it and in the end printed it. 

Now certainly, not a lot has changed, but in a way everything has because nowadays EVERYONE CAN BE AN "ARTISTE"

And I have to say, my generation caused it. 

We made creativity so damn easy that even a farting three-legged dog can make a video, write a book, get a trillion 'likes' and become a celebrity.

And if that floats your boat, FINE, please just don't tell me about it. 

I'm not saying that creativity should be an exclusive thing though, because clearly today it isn't; it's just that I am probably one of many 'sensitive' souls, for whom 'creativity' (natch) is truly a personal process, and probably one that's as deep set in me as which hand I hold a pen with (for want of a better thought.)

And what are us lot doing? We're probably sitting at home, wringing our hands and wondering what on earth we've done.

Because it seems to me, rather like violence, as a society we're become desensitised to the creative process - at least that is my take on it.

Now that everyone is a "CREATIVE", an egalitarian thing which can often be a good thing, old skool creativity seems to be very much at the back of the class (which is fine by me because that's where I always sit.)

And talking of classes, doesn't it seem to you like the whole world is being over-run by some weird, fucked-up version of the 'classic' series 'Fame' . . cough, or even . . cough . . . 'Glee'?

How fucking sad.

Anyway, in my usual Sheephousian way, I am skirting around a point (which is) to Insta or not?

Not only is that the question, but also, how about this . . . . if you do, is there actually any purpose to it?

It's a question that has divided people; some see it as the world having a wee peak into their creative process or a way of staying in touch with like-minded creative souls around the world; sort of like little postcards mailed out en-masse to people you have and haven't met. 

Personally I came to regard it as utterly pointless.

If you're doing it to be noticed (and I think that might have been part of my thinking when I started) it is futile.

You're like a mouse coughing in the midst of a crowd at a football match - nobody is going to hear you. 

Or in Instagram's case actually see you.

It's awash with "creative" stuff.

Petabytes of people doing roughly the same thing - trying to get noticed, or else, as I said earlier, sending postcards.

Yes there is definitely some interesting stuff up there - no two ways about it, but for me, being a grumpy old Hector and at times being extraordinarily proud of both my photographs and prints, and not being able to cross that 2-D divide that splits the whole of image making in two, I thought:

"What's The Point?"

And stopped posting.

And then I tried to get my images and words back, and it was (initially) a total fecking nightmare, until just recently, whereby I discovered I had to do nothing more than export it as a PDF and then merge all the files to achieve that proto-roll of toilet paper that you can see below.

Oh and I needed to print it as a PDF to get rid of all the metadata and then redact all the names of 'likes' . . . . Phewy!

Here

You can access it simply by clicking on the text that says "Here" below the Leica. 

What I am happy about is that I've been able to preserve my writing alongside the images - I dunno - they add  (to me) some of my personality . . kind of  . . cough . . like, erm, cough cough . . . Fay Godwin and Ted Hughes 👀

It should be fully downloadable, but not printable or editable.

It's about 380 MB - go on, use some more of the planet's energy resources why don't you!

Have a look. 

(Hopefully) enjoy it. 

There's a lot of info on there, so have a butchers, because you don't get many of those to the pound.

As for the Instagram account - being updated and cleared out as we speak. 

You can stick your data where the data is 2s and 3s.

Till next time, mony a mickle maks a muckle.

H xx