“Here I sit, and I am nothing, And yet, this nothing begins to think… on a grey Paris afternoon, think this”
-The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rilke
Tired and weary; exhausted, irritable & overwhelmed, I wander the streets of Paris, cornered by a seemingly endless array of lines and cues. The people I encounter here no longer project the feelings of easy ‘french’ bohemian living. Paris is changing and has already changed. Once the capital of art, it is quickly becoming mainly or rather simply, capital.
Wealth in this city was always present but it once seemed to matter less. Two years ago, while visiting friends, I was blissfully content and comfortable in my poverty. Everyone in the city seemed to share their drinks, two to a coffee, three to a glass of wine and not a second glance was shared or caught over the course of a 9 day trip.
Paris not only lived up to my grand literary expectations, it once surpassed them. There, we jumped the metro doors, snuck on trains to Versailles, sweet talked people into giving us free rides and drank, often, in public. When a friend surprised me by pissing, in broad daylight, in the gardens of the Versailles, she justified the act by reminding us that French nobles did the same things a hundred years ago. It made sense. I think. Art was everywhere and it was pervasive in the french way of life. Throughout the entire trip, I felt an inner peace only too rarely hinted at in the day to day slough of working life.
The wonders of Paris were/are available to all. It is a city filled filled with museums and galleries, brimming with accessible culture and cheaply acquirable art. The night life, when you know where to find it, is inviting, memorable and soaked in the history of the city. But all is not well in the city of lights. The people visiting are changing. The citizens themselves may be changing and the old way of life is under severe pressure and strain…
One of the world’s most loved paintings’ and museum experiences can be found at L’Orangerie. Monet painted the Water Lilies (Nymphéas) with the specific intent of providing respite from the overwhelming brash and overtly loud nature of city life. Here, in two rooms, he hoped workers could sit and rest in a space that encouraged both relaxation and pensive contemplation. A friend said she used to skip school and take afternoon naps, transporting herself within the paintings, alone save for a guard or two…
How quaint.
The same cannot be said to exist in the age of social media. Paris and its museums have become a sort of pilgrimage for the clusterfuck of people who participate in selfie culture. Travellers to Paris are bound to feel as though ducking and dodging selfie sticks is a way of life. Where once citizens and travellers duelled with blades, they now duel for the perfect vantage point. The desire to push, shove or simply launch the clueless off one of the many bridges nearly overwhelms, but then what doesn’t anymore.
Nothing is sacred. Everything is photographable and so everything is photographed. Susan Sontag once said: ‘Today everything exists to end in a photograph’, now it stands ‘everything exists to end up on Social Media’.
People let their food cool to capture the steam, photograph live shows all the while missing the live moment. When did we start staring at our screens rather than the stage? This isn’t meant as an attack but an acknowledgement. We are barraged by positive action shiite. Live.Love.Laugh. Active. Present type stuff. But where’s the Kitchen signs in all caps saying drop the phone. kiss your partner. unplug your ears…
Should we not share the memory instead of the photo. The story rather than the video. We aren’t running out of things to talk about, we’ve simply taken to sharing images as they happen rather than sharing moments over a bar or a kitchen counter and where’s the social in that?
*Title taken from the notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
describing space 