TRAUMA #177
A photographic collection exploring the death of industry through the capture of wrecked automobiles.
Each photograph was made using a Hasselblad 501 and a Metz flash.
We have moved into an age of information, no longer working for necessary industries but working in jobs that we consume ourselves, producing goods that guarantee few basic essentials. An age of automation lies on the horizon, the fate of our livelihoods in its robotic hands and the looming presence of becoming obsolete individuals. In a world where Universal Basic Income and automation are becoming more of a reality, what would it mean for the idea of human work and labour to become voluntary as opposed to a necessity? Would people be discarded, obsolete as a force of labour, free to enjoy life and explore spiritual and creative aspirations? Will neoliberalist forces take advantage and forge a hegemonic dystopia?
It seemed natural to visit this site of steel barbarism harbouring carriages of accidental death and neglect, a Fordist graveyard for an industrial age, where airbags loll like dead tongues from dashboards, children's toys sit showered in windscreen glass or used packets of Durex lie under steering columns.
Alex Hall, 2018
