TheAppWhisperer

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 8 December 2019

2019-12-092019-12-08 by Joanne Carter

The life of an artist encompasses many avenues, one perhaps that I am frequently reminded of is the need for solitude, to create. French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre said ‘hell is other people‘. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree with this sentiment, like many, it depends on the company. Orson Welles said ‘we’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone’, I disagree, I was fully present when my three children were born, I’ve never lived alone and nor would wish to and I’d be surprised if I die alone. I have experienced a death of a loved one, who died alone but many of the deaths I have experienced, have had company. There’s a difference between the feeling of solitude and the feeling of loneliness. The former is a luxury, one where we enjoy our own company, where we can create with all abandon. Loneliness can be an exhaustion. Professor John Cacioppo has been studying the effects and causes of loneliness for 21 years. He is the director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. His book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection examines the pathology and public health implications of the subject. In this very interesting book in answer to the following question he raised, “How many confidants do you have?”, he discovered “25% of Americans said they had no one at all”. This is a sad figure, but is one confidant enough to change brain chemistry if it is a quality connection? Professor Cacioppo explains “Enough is always a hard term, but certainly one is hugely better than zero. Two is probably better than one. The true answer to this question is that it depends on context. If, to take an extreme example, you are in a state of war, then one probably isn’t enough – you need a small army of people around you”. In the UK, in 2018, the first Minister of Loneliness, Tracey Crouch was appointed, we have an epidemic due not less to the breakdown of communities and connections. Cacioppo also disclosed that loneliness is contagious and leads to early death. It’s so important to de-stigmatise loneliness and we would love to see a mobile photography project devoted to it. At this time of year, with the holidays upon us, many people feel lonelier than ever. If you would like to create a project of loneliness, we will feature them, join us to help prevent social isolation. Please send a series of 12-15 images to this email address – joannetheappwhisperer@protonmail.com and please include narration.

I hope you all love this weeks mobile photography and art showcases much as I do. Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section #theappwhisperer.

Deborah McMillion, Juta Jazz, Tomaso Belloni, Hanni K, Clint Cline, jim yoksimovich, Gianluca Ricoveri, Oola Cristina, Jerry Clack, Susan Rennie, p.a. hamel, Rita Colantonio, Cintia Malhotra, Scott Simpson, Lorenka Campos, Karen Axelrad, qingxian guo, Jun Yamaguchi, Catherine Caddigan, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, G R Fotos, jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Peter Wilkin, Sailisa Li, Mark Swanson, Cathrine Halsor, Laila, borisbschulz2009, Mikhail Grebenshchikov, marc gommans, Sebastian Burczyk, Manfred Major, TSOriginaux, Fleur Schim, Kathy Clay, Phil Harris, Judy Wahlberg, Lydia Cassatt, Jane Schultz, Heather McAlister, VeraJane Vickers, soul_engine, Mehmet Duyulmus, Susan Latty, mitrydate, Jean Hutter, @tankaqueen – Alexis Rotella, Diane Neubauer, @tatteredphotographs – Kim Clayton, Eliza Badoiu, Rejane Rubino, @stillcindyjane, nielsb, Joy Sussmann, ja_graham, Chehalis Hegner, @clau_clara, @klimtt – M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, @alban_rita, em.visualartist – Eduardo Marques, @alice1280, Filiz Ak, Marian Rubin, Fernando Prats, bartonsup, Derrick O Boateng.

Music this week is CLANN with ‘I Hold You’

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 17 November 2019

2019-11-182019-11-17 by Joanne Carter

I was delighted this week to learn that 45 year old Ivorian artist, Joana Choumali has become the first African photographer to scoop the Prix Pictet prize, winning with a series of embroidered photographs responding to the trauma of terrorist attacks in Ivory Coast in 2016. The series is entitled ‘Ca va aller‘ – meaning – ‘it will be ok‘, a reference to stoical reaction to adversity that she said permeated Ivorian culture. Her images were printed onto canvas and then later embroidered with stitches directly onto the surface. Combining photographic imagery with fabric and therefore, creating ‘conceptual portraits‘. She created this work ‘as a need to process the pain‘. She said ‘each stitch was a way to recover, to lay down the emotions, the loneliness and mixed feelings I felt‘. Her work is stunning but what particularly interested me was the way it helped her to process her inner pain. I believe pain is the root to many artists’ work, whether that be pictorial, sculpture or the written word and I refuse to believe anyone who tells me, and they frequently do, that it has no place – it has every place. I am luckily enough to be invited to many exhibitions and shows around the world and earlier this year, I attended the opening of Tracey Emin’s brutal portraits of female pain exhibition ‘a fortnight of tears‘. I spoke with her and discussed her work. Her background repeats in much of her art and as she gets older, also the sleeplessness, exhaustion, whirling anxieties and the fear of running out of time contribute. The power of female art has become vital for women and not ‘just‘ artists but for all women. French writer and poet Andre Breton once described Frida Kahlo’s art as a ‘ribbon around a bomb‘, I say, standby for the blast…

I hope you all love this weeks mobile photography and art showcase as much as I do. Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section #theappwhisperer.

Chhororo, klimtt – Cecilia Sao Thiago, Jun Yamaguchi, Sebastian Burczyk, Clint Cline, woltarise, borisbschulz2009, Catha Li, Catherine Caddigan, Deborah McMillion, Lorenka Campos, Sherrianne100, Hanni K, Southfield Photos, Laila, Rita Colantonio, I-C-Things – David Starling, Gianluca Ricoveri, Judy Wahlberg, Susan Rennie, p.a.hamel, Jane Schultz, Marguerite Khoury, Vadim Demjianov, psychephoto – Robin Cohen, kathyc2136, Eliza Badoiu, Anca Balaj, J A Graham, @filizakart – Filiz Ak, @schwitter.li, @pause.and.breathe – Susan Latty, mitrydate, Rosalie Heller, Diane Neubauer, Judy Wahlberg.

Music this week ‘You mean the world to me’ – Freya Ridings

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 22 September 2019

2019-09-222019-09-22 by Joanne Carter

The three of us, our bodies sharing a common goal and process, the same level of exhaustion reached – potentially. Coming together, tearing apart. Despite the degradation of our bodies, we pushed through. Toll was the point, haggard breaths, sweating foreheads, shaking thighs, pushed to the limits, exhaustion was the symptom but not the goal. The late night service station off the motorway, still somewhere far up North, was stark. But contained pockets of human existence joined by essential basic common needs, in the dead of the night. A millennial loved up couple, cuddled in the queue, ecstatic with the elation of food quashing their hunger, the woman pirouette’s around her man, rocking her ample breasts simultaneously, he yawns. A family, wife/mother (45) hunched and dressed in a hoodie, texting frantically, the husband/father (49) repeating loudly ‘I am so angry’ , the boy (12) expressing ‘she’s only going to live in the car for a year, Dad’. The sister (13) staring blankly into space. Another couple, man (65) woman (25) wander slowly into view, heads down, the woman I notice with heinous black inflamed eye, as they share an order booth. She selects (with difficulty) their food, her elongated manicured white nails, not fit for a touch screen. Another couple, man (29), woman (70) attempt to select their food in the booth with coupon codes, it takes 25 minutes for them to choose, as they finalise the order, the woman cries, she wanted to add a hot chocolate, they begin again. And now it’s the two of us, having left our middle son, miles and miles up the motorway, at university, we drive home, semi autonomously. Sometimes I feel I can do without the present, the past is more than enough, I silently weep, a job well done. Homeward bound…we change gear.

Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section #theappwhisperer.

clau_clara, marshadraws, _soulkitchen_, dayindigo, wstairs, ja_graham, joe.legrand61, klimtt – M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, ilemusi – Ile Mont, clizit2020 – Clint Cline, mitrydate, thelma.penteado, cooksbay, alisasmithwilliams, laurence_bouchard, coeiphoneart – Gerry Coe, rejanerubino, berleyart, lillorizzo, ritaipunina, dinalf – Dina Alfasi, eva.peopleoflondon, imaco57 – Isabel Alfonso, csernusphotography, kein_grund, Lee Atwell, p.a. hamel, Susan Rennie, Gianluca Ricoveri, Andy Alexandre, Jennifer Bracewell, Cintia, Sebastian Burczyk, Jun Yamaguchi, Damian De Souza, Tomaso Belloni, Lorenka Campos, Deborah McMillion, Christine O Sobczak.

Music this week is by Freya Ridings entitled ‘Lost Without You’

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 25 August 2019

2019-08-252019-08-25 by Joanne Carter

“Everything was calm. The sun was shining. I was swimming in the deep. And then, when I surfaced twenty years later, I discovered there was a storm, a whirlpool, a blasting gale lifting the waves over my head. At first I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the boat and then I realised I didn’t want to make it back to the boat. Chaos is supposed to be what we most fear but I have come to believe it might be what we most want. If we don’t believe in the future we are planning, the house we are mortgaged to, the person who sleeps by our side, it is possible that a tempest (long lurking in the clouds) might bring us closer to how we want to be in the world…Life falls apart. We try to get a grip and hold it together. And then we realise we don’t want to hold it together.” The Cost of Living, by Deborah Levy a book I have been engrossed within this week. This was part of an autobiographical project by Levy, something she calls ‘a working autobiography‘, it’s a mediation on marriage, death and writing. Levy is a woman of our times, she confides in the reader, giving an account of her internal life, which to many, is so much more interesting than their external life. This is a book that hits hard and fast, in some ways, not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto or what Levy describes ‘a new way of living‘ and thus mobile photography and art, represents ‘a new way of seeing‘ and this is as clearly apparent in this weeks showcase as it is in the post-familial world. Enjoy!

Clarrise Debout, Eliza Badoiu, Aanca Balaj, Oola Cristina, @talesbytully – Tully Chant, @not218.808, Wemarriage_goddes – Bridget Robertson, @ja_graham, @rain.is.poetry, @after.1st.illumination – Jane Schultz, Manuela Matos Monteiro, Marshadraws – Marsha Estes, kmartist – Kathleen Magner Rios, elaineofyork – Elaine Taylor, john_nieto – John Nieto, cresting_wave – Paul Yan, eilisrealize – elis, @mariette_schrijver -Mariette Schrijver, filizakart – , @janisbrandenbury – Janis Brandenburg, cpatrickphoto – Cindy Patrick, emilio.nadales – Emilio Nadales, marian.rubin – Marian Rubin, aqua_libra – Max Lies …, Anne Highfield, Arko Rayhan, columnsovsleep, Charlie Little, Candice Railton, Karen Axelrad, Linda Hollier, Paul Toussaint, Oola Cristina, Jun Yamaguchi, Vadim Demjianov, Lorenka Campos, Albion Harrison-Naish, Sebastian Burczyk, Clint Cline, Salwa Afef, woltarise, Susan Rennie, Laura Peischl, Hanni K, Deborah Field, zananiro, Judy Wahlberg, Gianaluca Ricoveri, jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Barbara Braman, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Rob Pearson-Wright, Sina, Tuba, p.a.hamel, Deborah McMillion, Jeremy Cassell, Rita Colantonio, Sergiy Beliayev, Catherine Caddigan.

Music this week is by one of my favourite British performers, Rhodes with his live track ‘Close Your Eyes’ at Burberry Menswear Spring/Summer Runway Show