Responsive / ID Magazine / Research

Identifying how subcultures have been captured before:

'Subculturcide

Price

$25.00

Date

2015

Publisher

Andrea Ferrer

Format

Artists' Books

Genre

Photography, Interview, Essays

Description

Subculturcide is a photography book granted by the European Union and INJUVE. The book is a reflection of a new generation that expands itself through the urban subcultures of Madrid in the 2000s.

Through the cameras of several photographers we intend to be a mirror of the current youth.

This book is a vehicle for experimentation and exchange between artists and young people who do not find empirical support writing stories that are magnetized in a variable and hybrid cultural identity, where postmodernismrepresents an iconic saturation dominated by the culture of the simulacrum and obsessive repetition.

The street becomes a catwalk with the influence of brands, making youngsters reinvent themselves through a new culture of performance.'

Photography, interviews and essays.

The cover image appears to be a set up photoshoot.

Capturing images outside of a studio seems stronger.
A photo shoot set up seems to create misrepresentation, taking the object out of context.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/22586/1/dig-deep-into-britain-s-subcultural-wardrobe

'90s RIOT GIRLS BECOME RIOT WOMEN

“This image from when my friend Krista and I were at art college in Sheffield in 1994. We were really into skateboarding and punk/hardcore, so Riot Grrrl suited us perfectly. We were listening to Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, Hole, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and Nirvana. We bleached our hair ourselves, didn’t wash it often and added bits of crazy colour in streaks and clumps!” – Hannah Asprey, Sheffield, 1994'

More than fashion; background details, activities, body language and light are to be considered greatly.

'60s THE GARDENS OF ENGLAND

“Just back from the Portobello Road, very proud of my Guards jacket and Ben Sherman shirt. I remember I couldn’t find a white belt so I painted a black leather one. My brother, who was really square and fascinated by his very odd brother, took this photo of me in the family garden.” – Tim Epps, London, 1966'

Images that were taken without the intent of documenting a subculture automatically retain a sense of originality that cannot be truly recreated.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/23519/1/standing-at-the-forefront-of-grunge

Event photography captures an energy that cannot be recreated.

A true representation of a subculture cannot be directed, if a true essence is to be captured it has to be a capturing,
not an imitation.

The environment in which an image is captured is as important as the subject.

Blurs of light can be captured intentionally to create a sense of distortion.

http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/gallery/4328/iain-mckell-sub-culture/4

Avoiding the traditional portrait photography, more abstract representations can be stronger.
Details such as the writing on the left of the image can be strong interpretations of the subject.

Details of intimate locations, branding and slogans of the time can represent the ideologies of the subjects.
'No image, No style, No bullshit' 

Capturing events that are popular amongst a movement can represent their relationship with mainstream society.

Directing compositions in a street environment aren't as strong as capturing a moment naturally,
they are however stronger than a set up studio moment. 

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/mar/20/youth-subcultures-where-have-they-gone

'Something has clearly changed, and over the past week, I've listened to a lot of hypotheses as to why, of varying degrees of plausibility. A sociologist at the University of Sussex, Dr Kevin White, tells me he thinks it has something to do with Britain's changing class structure. Elswehere, there's a rather grumpy "tsk-kids-today" theory that teenagers are now so satiated by the plethora of entertainment on offer that they don't feel the need to rebel through dress or ritual – and a deeply depressing one that people are too worried about their futures in the current financial climate to be creative.'

''Meanwhile, Dr Ruth Adams of King's College London thinks it might be linked to the speed at which "the cycle of production and consumption" now moves. "Fashion and music, they're much cheaper and they're much faster today," she says. "I think it's a lot easier to be promiscuous, subculturally speaking. When I was a teenager, you had to make more commitment to music and fashion, because it took more of a financial investment. I had a pair of gothy stiletto boots, which lasted me for years: I had to make a sort of commitment to looking like that, because I wasn't going to get another pair of alternative shoes any time soon, so I had to think about which ones I wanted. Now, it's all a bit more blurry, the semiotic signs are not quite as hard-edged as they used to be."'

''Once you start examining subcultures online, things become blurred and confusing, compounded by the fact that a lot of online subcultures seem to come cloaked in layers of knowing irony. In search of latterday youth subcultures, I'm pointed in various directions by various people, but I invariably can't work out whether what I'm looking at is meant to be serious or a joke: never really a problem in the days when members of different youth cults were prepared to thump each other. There's plenty of stuff that seems weird and striking and creative out there, but there's something oddly self-conscious and non-committal about it: perhaps that's the result of living in a world dominated by social media, where you're under constant surveillance by your peers.'

'They catch people's imagination, get appropriated by mainstream culture then die away: it was ever thus, but now it happens at warp-speed. Punk's journey from the first sightings of the Ramones and Richard Hell in New York to the front pages of the British tabloids took a couple of years, over which time it changed and developed and mutated. Seapunk's journey from internet gag to Rihanna using its imagery on Saturday Night Live took a matter of months.'