I had a strange dream. I was walking through a city of gold, sheltered from most deprivations of the world, with glittering towers beneath a clear blue sky, and through houses of opulence brimming with all the treasures one could ever desire. Along its boulevards, I saw marvellous machines and flawless beings who seemed to lack nothing. But they all looked hastened, in a quest for something…
An animal takes only what it needs, but the human animal is different. Each of us wants something, wants more. Although sometimes it seems that the continuous upgrade of who we are and what we possess can only momentarily quench our yearning for external appreciation and self-esteem. Why are we like that?
Psycho-evolutionary studies in Terror Management Theory submits that throughout history, the pursuit for more has acted as a suppressor against the innate fear of death and other human anxieties that rumble beneath our daily lives. It allows us to view ourselves as enduring and valued individuals belonging in a culture of meaning, rather than merely transient beings in a sisyphean frenzy destined for oblivion.
Indeed, not even our recent ability to consume auspiciously and its implied exploitation of lives elsewhere hindered our desire for more. If anything, the rise of highly affluent, self-indulgent societies has brought to the spotlight some of humanity’s most paradoxical traits. We can be caring and compassionate, but also egocentric and reckless. We worship and we subjugate. We give and we hoard.
With the unique approach of photography, these images of bustling streets of Melbourne in Australia aim to catch a glimpse of a society that moves in a complex structure of symbols and dreams, roles and statuses. A world with abundant yet finite resources, simultaneously constructed and overwhelmed under our infinite quest for significance.
“The human animal is a beast that dies and if he’s got money he buys and buys and buys and I think the reason he buys everything he can buy is that in the back of his mind, he has the crazy hope that one of his purchases will be life everlasting”
― Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
All images shot in 2024~2025 with a Sony Alpha Nex-3 camera, 16mm/f2.8 kit lens and ND filter. Shutter speed around 1/8~1/15 sec. Exposure, contrast, dodging and burning done on Photoshop with no further editing.
Text references: The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker 1973.
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