So I have let this blog go. AS life dealt me many cards at once, the need to socially, verbally, and visually document the happenings of my life, faded into the background. However, now I find myself on the road engaged in the drama, bullshit, and magic of being the subject of a reality television series called Roadtrip Nation. This will be a dumping ground for not only a photo collection of the road, my thoughts and reflections from the interviews conducted and the experiences embraced, but an analytical and impassioned deconstruction of the hollow tomb that is forced social documentation.
(This is where it starts and what it looks like.)
I applied to be apart of this show back in December, and three days after my father's passing, I was informed that I would be a member of three man team. I was excited to have a project to work on in the wake of my life taking on a new chapter and meaning. The program would sponsor our (two other individuals) travel across the USA in a 35ft RV, on a 40 day 4500+ mi trip from Maine to California. In that time we would individually and collectively line up interviews with "leaders" who care talk about how they found their path in life. In my mind, at the time, this seemed like a great opportunity, especially after leaving teaching in pursuit of the unknown and more autonomous freedom. The whole thing was pitched as the magical experience this revelation in the pursuit of freedom and self-understanding.
The aforementioned battle cry is really a hollow smoke screen for narrative based reality television (though they love to make the distinction that this is a "Documentary Series"). Perhaps in its inception, Roadtrip nation, which was the brainchild of three wealthy white kids from Laguna Beach, was a genuine voyoge into the void of American Society to seek out experiences and conversations. However, whatever flicker of spontaneity and wild freedom they sought after, has been extinguished with the presence of production minded film school children and a need to create a profitable product. "Be natural on camera, and be real," they say as the microphone rips my chest hair, the camera shutter speed snaps and cracks, and I am asked to drive past the same spot for the third time while discussing my feelings about driving a large vehicle." Their are quotas and needs for The Story's arch, which was written years ago, and to which our lives are now stretched across its brittle skeleton.
Now, its not all bad. The people that film us aren't bad people, but they on the same token are forced to prodcue with out a need for growth or progression--they are told to document what has been done--to seek out the safe and familiar. A human beings they are agreeable. The two other roadtrippers, who applied just like me, are a lovely lot. We are making our relationship a reality in moments when wires and red lights cease to cloud the foreground. We have the challenge of maintianing our authenticity, and to fight to make this trip our own. So shall I be obstinate and defiant? Yes, only when I feel like it is warranted.
Below is my written response to the mild mannered director, after she wrote me an email addressing my statements on the pre-trip interview, acknowledging my awareness of editing and the biased gaze of the lens, as potentially problematic ingredients in this experience (Also some photos to tickle your visual needs).
Godspeed Citizens,
Kuhn
I thank you for your thoughts. What I mentioned in my first pre-thoughts interview, has ignited from a spark of fear to a wildfire of concern. So as of today, July 9, 2011, I will give you the two sides of my perspective on this project:
1) The Long-Winded Verbose Negative Brain Fart: I dislike this process, because in its essence it is not three people on the road, and truly the emphasis isn't on documenting the conversations with the leaders and the revelations which occur there. Those moments seem totally authentic and inspiring, and in that sense the cameras become a tool. However, when the focus then becomes, "well what are we going to do with the rest of our day, and how can we make a narrative out of it", it totally shuts me down, i.e. let's go for a swim in the ocean, but stage the entrance into the water, or let's get to know each other on a rocky cliff with a great skyline, or let’s turn off the music so I can shoot you eating cheez-its, or let's go get the oil changed, and have you all stand there, even though this could be done by one person, and the event isn't a revelation.
The superfluous filming of our lives outside of the moments that are directly linked to the researching, attainment, and reflection of the interviews with leaders, seems cheap, forced, counterproductive, and aims no higher that to be just another cog in the wheel of modern reality TV.
The beauty of this idea, was the conversations with leaders, the work it takes to break down social and self imposed barriers to have a pure conversation with an inspiring individual. However, that seems to have taken a back seat for film school ethics on plot development and the recapitulation of a pre- existing narrative: “Three lost 20 somethings, hit the road in a big scary RV, to struggle with new experiences and places, and to engage in some “changing life shit”.”
This is not 2001, we are not Nate and his buddies, and when you put the cameras into the hands of people (strangers) who have been trained to do a job (create reality programming), the scenarios become anything but organic: moments are stopped and started for angles, quotas, needs, and inherently the lens is not coming from those on the trip. This trip is between five people not three--there are silent figures here that occupy the space of controlling the entire situation, yet are free from having to display themselves in a marketable and consumable way.
I feel like all I have heard from RTN is about this magical experience and all of this amazaingness which is beset before us, but there is a failure to acknowledge or address what it has meant for your movement to take the agency of documenting the experience out of the hands of those who are supposed to be at the core of it. To put the gaze of the lens into a third party and to initiate an experience with the intent of creating a product, is somehow glossed over as a side note or secondary, when in fact it has become paramount.
2) The Nicer and Briefer Side: I know I should just let go an embrace this experience for what it is, and accept the cameras as apart of this process, and in many respects get off my fucking high horse, and just have fun. I know that our travels to the leaders is also apart of the overall journey to speak with them, so it is valuable to acknowledge that it should be documented. Brooklyn, Nekeed, Dan and Willie, are great human beings (and I feel us all getting closer, especially when we are out in the evenings). We are learning about each other, and seeing many new things. I can embrace an awkward camera here and there, and not feel like I am compromising my morals. This is an opportunity to try and utilize the platform of RTN to strengthen my self confidence, and to access situations which might not normally be available. A spectacle isn’t always a bad thing.
As for your Question:
Worst case scenario in 10 years I have chosen to stop pursuing interests, challenges, and creativity, and I am sad pathetic man--I am not shooting for a job or a rank or a specific goal. I feel totally confident that I will accomplish what I am supposed to do with this life and that happiness will be my reward. I came on this trip to speak with leaders, simply to speak with them and engage in conversations which challenged me intellectually and emotionally, and allowed for a mutual musing on the struggles of life and the pursuit of contentment---but I am not approaching them from the standpoint that I am lost or somehow need guidance--I am exactly where I should be, and have complete faith in that fact.
I have fear of owning my role as an artist in this world and not being super confident in my skills. But somehow I have a feeling that I will make that happen for myself, be it on a personal or global scale. I have a life time of growth ahead of me.
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