We have become archivists of the self, I thought, curators of a life half-lived. Each countless photograph of a wonder, of dinner, of a view, of our children, of the utter banality of our everyday lives, was not a memento, a way of remembering the things we did, but instead evidence of the poverty of our engagement with the present moment.

Our photographs are not memories; they are advertisements, billboards for a life we are too preoccupied to live.

In the 2010s many of our public spaces started to be molded, physically and literally, by the market advantage of luring patrons looking for highly Instagrammable shots. Businesses that once paid large sums of money to have photographs taken for advertisements that cost even more to run now had access to an army of free labor, taking pictures for f... See more

The lack of instant feedback is important for Jayaraj. “When you’re taking photos on your phone, it’s almost like you’re disconnected to what you’re actually doing – when you’re standing there hammering that camera button, you can kind of manipulate the scene or the situation you’re in … you can keep retaking it until you’re happy with it.”

Human expression was perfected into pithy thought-capsules (Twitter, LinkedIn), glamour shots (Instagram), and performative soundbites (TikTok), all perfect carriers for human emotions and — most importantly — ADVERTISING, which we were also now expected to do, newly equipped with our “personal brands.”

The dominance of these formats and mindset mad... See more