Every Hour on the Hour
Sometime in the late 1990s, I found myself signing up for a membership on Classmates.com. I did this thinking that it would be the end-all be-all way to find those lost friends which seem to have been scattered like leaves through the years. Soon, however, I was told of a new website which “everyone is using,” called Friendster.com. I refused to attach myself to this trend, because I saw the rhythm of the Internet. She is mighty like the waves of the sea, yet she changes like the tides…
Then there was MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else comes next. I write this, not in that oh-look-at-me-I’m-so cool-for-not-having-a-Facebook-page kind of way, but more of a what’s-next-in-the-seemingly-endless-line-of-social-networking-sites kind of way. True, I don’t have a Facebook page, and while I think I have a MySpace account, I know that if I do, a friend of mine set it up and I am unaware of the password. But surprisingly to some, I don’t have any negative energy towards social networking sites. In fact, I can see the relevance.
If I were in a band, I would quickly jump on that MySpace page and create something which reflected the style of music I was a part of creating. However, I am not musically creative. Twitter also seems to be more geared for famous people to communicate with their fans regularly and effectively (though, at times it does seem to become abused—sorry, Khloe Kardashian, I don’t care about your views on Cory Haim’s death). With that said, for me to establish a Twitter account would seem forced and a little trite. Facebook is certainly an option, but frankly, I have little interest in starting a page. With that said, all social networking sites prey on the one aspect that keeps people coming back to them: narcissism.
I dare not even imply that I am somehow less narcissistic than anyone else. Instead, I might argue that I am more narcissistic. With that said, I have created my own new social networking site. One which has a few rules and a goal, of sorts.
The idea came from a professor of mine at Southern Illinois University, Charles “Chuck” Swedlund. His idea was to take a single picture every hour on the hour. He did this well before digital photography (Whew! Imagine processing and printing all of those pictures!), and while I never saw all the images, the concept stayed with me.
At a certain point, I had been mulling the idea of doing my own take on a year of Every Hour on the Hour, but always felt like I was stealing the idea. “Enough!” I told myself. “2010 is your year. Just start taking pictures!”
Therefore, while I would love to take the credit for creating the idea, it was not mine. Maybe it wasn’t even Chuck’s idea. Who knows where it came from? The important part is that this led me to believe that what’s important in art is your own personal take on it. If we are all assigned to draw a banana, your banana and my banana might look very different from one another. I might draw a purple one with crayons. Andy Warhol might make a silk screen banana and use it on the cover of a Velvet Underground album. The point is, that doesn’t mean bananas shouldn’t be drawn any less, just because someone else draws one.
Therefore, I would like to use this website medium to merge my two philosophies:
1. Social networking seems to be at an all-time peak, and what better way to “update my status” than to show the world what I’m looking at every waking hour? It’s like my very own Twitter.
2. Personal takes on someone else’s art concept are valid.
Perhaps we were meant to scatter like leaves. Perhaps people were meant to come into our lives for only a random weekend, and we cling to that memory for years afterward. Perhaps the reality of being with that person for more than a single night is not as pleasant as we might think; that person is probably far more annoying than we actually remember. In the words of Pee Wee Herman, “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.”
Thanks Chuck.
-Robert Cannon
Mission Statement
