EVIL
CATALOG DREAMS No.3 - EVIL SPECIAL
Catalog Dreams: Do you ever get the urge when out driving late at night to pull up outside a strangers house, stand at their window and steal a look through the curtains inside? Over a billion homes on this planet and in each and every one a unique home movie plays out night after night. What do people do when they’re home alone? What do they wish for? When they sleep, what do they dream of? Catalog Dreams: Four ever-evolving photo-essays. Furtive fantasies. Original life.
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INTRODUCTION
‘HORRORSHOW’
‘Good,’ they both said, ‘good good good.’ And they went on turning the pages. There were like pictures of real horrorshow devotchkas, and I said I would like to give them the old in-out in-out with lots of ultraviolence. There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the litso and all the red krovvy everywhere and I said I would like to be in on that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy droog of the prison charlie’s carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I would like to have the old hammer and nails. Good good good.’
Catalog Dreams: So speaks A Clockwork Orange’s villainous narrator Alex The Large as the state seeks to ‘cure’ him of his unnatural goodness. But is Burgess’s Alex an out-and-out villain or in part a desperately warped victim? Is it possible to read the book or watch the film without feeling just a little sympathy for malevolent Alex as he becomes the state’s experiment, no matter his deplorable depravity? Are we desensitised if for just a moment we almost begin to like him? Because evil is everywhere nowadays. The headlines are awash with it: ‘Murder accused claims he was an evil and bad man’. ‘Terrorists unleashed pure unadulterated evil’. ‘Vaccinations for evil diseases’. ‘Russian evil cannot be tolerated’. ‘Neighbours brand grandmother evil’. Even ’texts between Vardy and agent were evil’. But what exactly is ‘evil’?
You say ‘potato’ - and I also say ‘potato’. But you might say ‘villain’, and I could just as well say ‘misunderstood antihero’. Because it is the ‘potato - po-tato - tomato - to-mato’ of it all that’s the problem. Is evil not more nuanced than that? More subjective? How acutely is your sliding scale of wickedness calibrated? How fluid is it? Where do you draw the line between endearingly naughty and downright wicked? Where do you ‘shop’ as it were? Do you tolerate wickedness better when it’s in the service of a ‘greater good’? How bad is ‘bad’ and how ‘good’ is good without it? Is ‘goodness’ any more a natural state than its sexier and not so distant cousin? Is evil not an extreme expression of free will and could there be free will without it? Call me an incurable romantic but, are we not just a little down on evil?
How do you like your bad guys? Quintessentially English like our Alex (there’s nothing quite like an English accent in the service of evil) or a gloriously camp Germanic Hans Gruber? Do you prefer a comedic and redeemable Felonius Gru or is a psychopathic and terrifyingly unpredictable Bobby Peru more your speed? Do you like your bad to not be ‘guy’ at all? As we’ll see, ‘bad guy’ will prove itself to be a woefully inadequate label that fails to appreciate the full spectrum of badness commonly available today. There’s little quite so accessible to all as evil so what’s your preference? Lite: a wronged and angry Elsa or full-fat: the sensitive damaged child that is Lord Voldem…
By way of a mischevious icebreaker at dinner parties or funerals and even business meetings it’s always fun to ask fellow guests or colleagues what ‘the worst thing they’ve ever done is?’ A delicious question no one wants you to ask but once it’s out there in the room it just won’t go away, pointing its accusing finger of suspicion until inevitably it’s answered. So let’s ask it… Let the mischief begin. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Stealing candy from a store? The divulging of a secret? The destruction of a career or even a life? Or is it impossible to be certain of the very worst thing you’ve done? Then clearly you’ve been busy.
So with an open mind let’s get to it and at the very least try to understand the stranger within us that we feel compelled to vilify. Like Willard and Marlow before him let’s journey up-river and get to know evil. Let’s go shake hands with wicked.
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No.14 - JOSEPHINE & TULLIO
Above - Josephine wears: Dress: Zara - Hat: Vintage - Tullio wears: Suit: Cock of the Walk - Shirt: Vintage Deborah & Clare - Shoes: Vintage Gucci - October 2023.
‘A POLISH PERSPECTIVE’
Catalog Dreams: "Growing up, what did you think evil was?"
Josephine: “From a Polish perspective it would probably be communism. Evil for me is no freedom. Limited freedom. Someone who is trying to take your freedom away is evil. Controlling people. Telling people what to do, what not to do, this is evil. Restrictions are evil.”
No.13 - JONATHAN
Above: Cake: Prada Caffe - Photographed November 2023.
‘A CULTURE OF ENDLESS TEMPTATION’
Jonathan: “We live in a culture of endless temptation. I’ve done more than my fair share of capturing that temptation, of packaging and delivering it - in advertising. And though I know it’s less than wholesome, I’ve loved that dance with the devil precisely because it’s increasingly taboo these days. When you tell people you’ve worked in advertising you can catch yourself doing so apologetically. But I’ve loved it precisely because it was often an opportunity to make unique work, out-there stuff or darker visions when so much of corporate now is sterile and safe. That was the challenge in it all and the appeal - making it hard for myself by swimming against the corporate current. Makes me think of the black canals that snake all over Tokyo and Chiba under the expressways or the waves of dark water they’re releasing out of Fukushima after the tsunami. It’s a strong current to swim against. There’s a fair chance of drowning."
No.12 - MAIA
Above: Sculpt: ‘Princess’ by Maia Flavell circa 2022/23 - Photographed November 2023.
‘IN THE IMAGE OF GOD’
Maia: “If we’re just tiny anomalies in a massive empty universe and consciousness is so rare, then how lucky we are to be alive. It’d mean that everything is probably just completely random and that we’re not 'made in the image of God' or rewarded at the end of time for good morals but that we’re a result of a random universe and are at its mercy. So I can’t see nature as an evil thing at all. I think evil is a very human concept. Evil is selfishness, greed and power.”
“Some might say a volcano erupting and destroying a town is 'evil' but it's also sort of beautiful. The volcano isn't trying to hurt anyone. It was probably always going to erupt so why not enjoy the beauty of it. We’re not the rulers of this world. We’re as much a part of the universe as animals, plants and rocks. We’re flawed as a species. We throw off the natural balance of our planet for our own selfish reasons and impulses and yet we’re still victims of the natural world. The only certain thing in this life is that one day we’ll all die and our bodies will become another part of the universe.”
No.11 - JONATHAN
Above - Shoes: Paris Texas - Dress: Wolf & Badger - Hands: Disney - Jacket & Tie: Vintage YSL - Trousers: Phix - Shirt: Vintage M&S - October 2023. VFX: Adam Crocker / Andrew Bartholomew / Matthew Hutchins - Producer: Paul Branch / Kit Hartley @ Black Kite Studios.
’PRETTY EVIL’
Jonathan: “Thinking back to when I was a child in the 70s and 80s my father’s greatest fear was that I’d grow up to be gay. Had I come out to him I imagine we’d never have seen each other again because I don’t think he’d ever have got his head round it. Not him - not his ex-wife. So he was always hyper alert to any sign of what he thought of as ‘effeminacy’ in me. I can remember him catching me playing once, as a child, pretending to have breasts. He was livid. Furiously angry - but I think he was just plain scared. I’ve forgiven him many things because he was a product of a less thoughtful and compassionate time, his generation and those before him. I’ve made my peace with him. I miss him. But when I think about the children who are still living in fear and shame, unable to develop, unable to enjoy being who they are because they’re too scared to reveal their gender or sexual orientation or just whatever to the very people who conceived them and claim to care for them, well I’d call that nothing short of child abuse. When I hear the British Prime Minister declare only this year that “a man is a man, a woman is a woman”, it’s more than shameful. To me, that’s pretty evil.”
No.10 - JONATHAN
Above - Photographed September 2023. VFX: Adam Crocker / Andrew Bartholomew / Matthew Hutchins - Producer: Paul Branch / Kit Hartley @ Black Kite Studios.
‘THERE WILL BE CASUALTIES’
Jonathan: "It was never about the money. It was about the original vision - the entertainment I could make. And for good or bad - about making really effective advertising. I had to spend many years persuading clients scared of the dark that without darkness there was no light. They seemed to think metaphorical and literal darkness are one and the same thing - and they were terrified of it - like children at bedtime. They wanted endless sunshine. They wanted day, not night - white, not black. When did you ever see blood in advertising? Or death? Yet these are fundamental aspects of our existence. Why exactly are we denying all that we are? And if it’s about escapism, what are we trying to escape? Our mortality?”
“Of course they were most often wrong - darkness is infinitely more thrilling and interesting and exactly what advertising needs to transfix viewers and take them on an extraordinary journey - and when I did persuade them we created great stand-out work. Because darkness is where the unpredictable runs amok - where the most exciting stuff happens. Why deny darkness? Why deny sex and desire? Ultimately why collude in denying our own mortality? It isn’t going to be painless. There will be casualties. But we’re going to die anyway - so we need to get living."
No.9 - WAI-LING
Above - Shoes: Terry de Havilland - Raincoat: Noisy May - October 2023.
’CHINESE VAMPIRES’
Wai-Ling: “To ward off evil spirits Chinese people hang a mirror in front of the door. You also put a ghost catcher, it’s a statue, out front. If there’s a celebration you light firecrackers to scare the ghosts away. It’s not just a cliche - Chinese people really are very superstitious. My Mum’s seen a ghost. She said it all went dark when it was daylight and all the windows went black and she couldn’t move. She thinks it was a member of her family that came to her. My Dad’s scared of ghosts but he loves horrors. Chinese vampires with no feet - he believes in all that - but then he really likes being scared. But I think that if you believe in them, you see them. I had to come up with that (not believing) because of the scary movies I watched when I was way too young. It’s not a Chinese tradition. I just don’t want to see ghosts so I choose not to believe in them.”
Catalog Dreams: “Doesn’t that suggest that you do (believe)? Do you genuinely not believe in spirits and ghosts or are you just saying that because you don’t want to experience them?”
Wai-Ling: “... No. I don’t believe in them… But I’m incapable of watching horror movies now.”
Catalog Dreams: “Why?”
Wai-Ling: “Because they could be real…"
No.8 - JOSEPHINE & TULLIO
Above - Tullio wears: Trench coat: 1980’s vintage YSL - Suitcase: 1980’s vintage Tanner Krolle - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Josephine Wears: Trench coat: 1980’s vintage Escada - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Blue hose: B&Q - November 2023.
‘MAGIC CIRCLE’
Catalog Dreams: “What’s the worst thing you've ever done?”
Tullio: “I think there’s a whole host of things I’ve been up to. But mainly as a child. At school there would be bullying. But then likewise I would equally be bullied by the year above me and we’d have what they called ‘Magic Circle’ where they’d gather around and you’d have seven bells kicked out of you. But yes, there are terrible things we used to do.”
Catalog Dreams: “I admire your honesty. I bullied and was bullied at school. It’s funny how whenever I ask this question people talk about their childhood. I wonder if wicked is a very natural state in children? Because I saw some truly terrible things perpetrated by children on children at school. Things I can’t un-see. But it seemed to come so naturally to them. Almost effortless."
Above - Josephine wears: Dress: 1970’s vintage - Shoes: 1980’s vintage Renata - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Tullio wears: Suit: 1970’s vintage - Shirt: Turnbull & Asser - Boots: Husbands Paris - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Blue hose: B&Q - November 2023.
‘DESTROYING NATURE’
Josephine: “When I was a child playing in a park a group of us, maybe I was 7 or 8, we were climbing the trees and picking up birds eggs and then playing kitchen, frying the eggs on a metal plate in the park. We were destroying nature. Killing them. When we were doing that we didn’t realise that was wrong. We were catching insects and killing the insects - for no reason. It was during communism so we didn’t have really toys so we had to think how to play. Going to the park and picking up animals. A frog or something. It was kind of fun for us, but it’s not funny now. It’s not funny at all. This was bad definitely."
Above - Tullio wears: Suit: 1970’s vintage - Shirt: Turnbull & Asser - Boots: Husbands Paris - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - November 2023.
’KILLING HUMANITY’
Tullio: “It’s the old pulling the wings off flies. It’s what we (all) did.”
Catalog Dreams: “Can you imagine if nature found the same pleasure in our destruction that we find in destroying and consuming it? If killing humanity was industrialised in the same way? Glamourised even? Advertised?”
No.7 - TRACIE
Above: Lipstick: YSL - Photographed December 2023.
‘CARNAGE'
Tracie: “My hair was like all falling out and I started getting these lesions in my mouth. I was finding it hard talking. They thought it could be cancer so I went (to) see a specialist. When I told him what sort of work I was in he got all serious and said he’d seen my type plenty before. Said it never ended well - that we all wind up ‘casualties’ was his word. His advice was (to) quit. He wasn’t wrong. When I… (coughing) started out I couldn’t believe the… carnage that went (with) working there. The guys at the top were getting mega rich but trying to get to the top… There were suicides - drug addiction. Sex addiction. Alcoholism was normal. The hedonism was just crazy. Brain aneurysms at 30,000 feet - guy with a cardiac arrest in the office restroom fucking some intern on coke. It was all nepotism. And fraud. Plenty fraud. Jail. Vendettas - everything was payback. Power struggles. Take-overs. We went to war! It was like the NFL. You couldn’t find your desk in the morning for all the cock on the table. It was like you were on a team but you couldn’t trust no one. No… (coughing) no one had your back. There were people going crazy - they’d have to go take a ‘lie down’ and you never saw them again. There were endless divorces. We all divorced. People lost everything. And when I started guys who’d been there in the 80’s said it’d gotten boring! (laughing / coughing) That it wasn't like it used to be! And you know - it really was that unhealthy - for sure - but it was also... totally magnetic. I never felt so alive!”
“The lesions? Yeah. It was. Guess I’d been telling too many corporate lies."
No.6 - CRYSTAL TRAN
Above - Crystal wears: Body: William Wilde - Hat: Vintage Nasycon Italy - Boots: Vintage Prada - January 2024.
‘A PERFORMANCE’
Crystal Tran: “I don’t like the label ’sex worker’. I don’t do sex. I bring fantasies to life. It’s creative - like a performance. You’d be surprised at what you can get in this city. If you can dream it you can get it - if you’ve got the money. When I came here, the first few clients, my head was spinning. It was like the drapes were pulled back and there’s this whole new world I never knew. It was exciting! I used to like the men desiring me - I gotta be real about that. But then I guess I got to like them fearing me."
Catalog Dreams: “So is it mostly physical or is it virtual as well?”
Crystal Tran: “Well I work between the two in a way. It’s whatever their fantasy needs, right? It’s like everything's ‘immersive’ at the moment but what I do really is - that’s what they want - total immersion. Not just to feel real but to be real in some way. Every client wants something different but I do attract a type. Generally they’re into wicked. We roleplay killer - Olympic coach - East German terrorist I’ve had - aggressive android (laughing) - vengeful wife - double-crossing mistress - er… kick-murder squad assassin… psychotic Hooters waitress which I guess you’d say I’m not exactly equipped for (laughing) - um - bunny boiler - homicidal Mom - that one’s come up more lately maybe on account of my getting older I guess (laughing)!”
No.5 - JOSEPHINE & TULLIO
Above - Josephine wears: Red lapel jacket / Skirt: Custom Madame Blue Orchid / Blue Designs Atelier - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Tullio wears: Jacket: Bespoke Cock of the Walk - Shirt: Bespoke Liberty print- Trousers: Mendoza - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Blue hose: B&Q - November 2023.
‘GIANT INFANT FAUNA’
Catalog Dreams: “Could you imagine if nature did that to us? Giant infant fauna breaking into our homes and pulling our legs and arms off? For fun?”
Josephine: “Now I’m a vegetarian. I got to a point where I go shopping I can’t go close to the meat department. It makes me sick. The smell. When I imagine the cow or pig being killed - crying - it’s something tragic. Like cosmetics - they should be tested on humans only - because they use them. Animals never should be abused by any testing. Animals should never be treated as if they were things, as if they’re humans belongings.”
Catalog Dreams: “I’ve long thought that it’s cognitive dissonance that seems to be our species greatest evil. We can justify anything to ourselves. We can forgive ourselves just about any hideous practice, but especially if it looks or tastes good.”
Above - Tullio wears: Jacket: Bespoke Cock of the Walk - Shirt: Bespoke Liberty print- Trousers: Mendoza - Sunglasses: Linda Farrow @ The Ocularium - Blue hose: B&Q - November 2023.
‘BECAUSE - BECAUSE - BECAUSE - BECAUSE’
Catalog Dreams: “So why is darkness so sexy?"
Josephine: “Because it’s different. Because it’s… unlimited. Because darkness doesn’t have to be negative, just different.”
Catalog Dreams: “Because it’s not the norm? So it’s a kind of luxury?”
No.4 - JONATHAN
Above - Socks: Pantherella - Shorts: Sunspel - August 2018
‘LOLS’
Jonathan: “An agent I used to work with in Los Angeles who I’m very fond of contacted a less appealing London representative of mine to ask them if I’d lost my mind because there appeared to be an image on the internet of me being ‘sucked off’ by a vacuum cleaner. When I caught wind of this exchange I replied that I wasn’t being ‘sucked off’ but rather that said Hoover was up my arse - or at least supposed to be - but hey, you’ve got to let people see what they want to see right? The consensus seemed to be that I was destroying my career. The subtext was simple - ‘this is of no commercial value’. But I guess the London agent had missed my subtext - making these images was itself a resignation. From an old way of life. So I said goodbye. Because if you can’t have fun and maybe even make people smile making simple playful images for fear of damaging your commercial appeal and their revenue stream then you can be very sure that someone really doesn’t have your best interests at heart. I’d always known that relationship was predicated on profit, and I can’t say it wasn’t mildly amusing at times watching them pretend otherwise, but ultimately I’m in it for the art and the ‘LOLS’, not the smoke blowing and not even the ‘$$$S’. And the very last thing I want is to be creatively controlled.”
No.3 - CRYSTAL TRAN
Above - Crystal wears: Jacket: Jayley - Hat: Ka Ho Restaurant - Shoes: Paris Texas - January 2024.
‘THE ULTIMATE SERVICE’
Catalog Dreams: “I imagine you largely work at night?”
Crystal Tran: “Quite often I’m going to work when everyone’s going to sleep. I thought about that. Everyone’s dreaming and I’m here inside someone’s dream, making it happen.”
Catalog Dreams: “So how do you make it immersive?”
Crystal Tran: “Well… mostly they don’t like to know when I’ll come for them - these men like to be surprised - cos it’s almost always men. And men in their line of work or religion or whatever - they have a lot of power. A lot of control. So it excites them to give that control to me. I get permission to do whatever I think’s necessary to get them what they’re looking for. Physical danger most often but I do digital stuff. Hurt them financially. Smear them on social media. Sometimes nothing’s off-limits - their families - their work. They really like to go deep - for me to really make them believe it. But once we start there’s no off-switch - that would kill their buzz right, if there was a safe word or something - they have to know that I’m the one in control - so it’s up to me to say when we’re done. So I gotta read the room and that’s not always easy.”
Catalog Dreams: “So how do you know where to draw the line?”
Crystal Tran: “I don’t always get it right. Sometimes it can start to become about what I want. I’ve found myself fantasizing about seeing it through to its logical conclusion. Giving them more than they think they want. Taking total control and ending all that dissatisfaction - with their jobs and wives and life and stuff. More and more that seems kind of obvious to me. Like the ultimate service. They’d probably thank me - if they could (laughing). - Suicide’s a sin right - if you’re Catholic? But where’s the freedom in that? Never being able to get off the ride. Helping them end their suffering, well to me that sounds... like an evolution? Getting them the thing they can never ask for - because they can't override their biology. That’s not evil - that’s kindness right? Because they’re prisoners to their instincts - to staying alive. I see it a lot. Torturing themselves cos they’re trapped inside their own bodies.”
No.2 - JONATHAN
Above - Photographed October 2018.
‘SNIGGERING AT DINNER PARTIES’
Jonathan: “I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything I wasn’t prepared to do myself. I’ve done a lot of thinking about our freedom to express ourselves. In every respect I think it’s about rejecting the herd so that you can be ‘you’. That seems to be the great leap - wriggling free of the fear that constrains you and them. So now there’s no image I wouldn’t make if I felt the urge to do so. There’s nothing I wouldn’t wear and I’m just as happy to wear nothing at all, no matter the imperfections and scars and burns that reveals if it asserts my own sense of freedom, my right to do so. Because there’s something insidiously nasty and wicked even about those that skulk around smirking at the behaviour of others. Even now I’ve lost old friends to sniggering at dinner parties where a peek at my Instagram was enough to get them off. It’s sad to say but if the one thing you love to do is make interesting images then it’s probably best to see anyone who has a strong opinion on what images you can and can’t make, or for that matter how you can or can’t live, gone from the little life you have left. You won’t ever regret shedding them because once you break out the box you’re out for good. They need you to care what they think and once you don’t their sly words and smirks amount to nothing at all. They’re history. You’re alive.”
No.1 - JOSEPHINE & TULLIO
Above - Josephine wears: Sunglasses: Oliver Goldsmith @ The Ocularium - Dress: 1980’s vintage - Shoes: Terry de Havilland - Tullio wears: Jacket: Bespoke Cock of the Walk - Shirt: Vintage 1970’s Deborah & Clare - Sunglasses: Oliver Goldsmith @ The Ocularium - Blue hose: B&Q - November 2023.
‘THE PROBLEM’
Tullio: “A friend said to me recently, ‘you’re always changing your style’. She said ‘I can never tell what’s going on in your head’. But that’s the same with everybody. You never do know what’s going on in their heads."
Catalog Dreams: “It’s a compliment surely? Mystery is freedom. To be who you want to be.”
Tullio: “Yes - Every human has the right to live on this planet the way they wish to live.”
Catalog Dreams: “Being born in the twentieth century I’m pretty much hard-wired to want to agree with you, but today… is living however you want to live not also the problem?”
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CONCLUSION
‘WICKED’
Catalog Dreams: If there’s one thing Catalog Dreams intends to celebrate it’s individualism. Original life. But has individualism become selfish? Because it does seem to be going out of fashion fast. It’s the archetype we wicked witches of the west were born to admire. It’s the essence of counter-culture; not-conforming, and everything that marks us out as different to ’them’, everything that tells us that we’re ’special’ and unlike all the ‘others'. For many of us over 30 individualism is our identity, and that’s a good thing - right? But is it starting to look irresponsible through the prism of youth? Antisocial? Evil even in the face of everything this world faces? Maybe it’s no mistake that the term itself, ‘individualism’, was conceived first as a slur? Because more and more the age of the lone hero seems to be becoming a thing of the past and I wonder if at last that hero is finally becoming the villain?
‘SLYTHERIN’
But then the individualists we’re documenting here are increasingly rare breeds. Exotics. As each day passes they become the exception, not the rule and deliciously all the more interesting for it - all the more worthy of cataloging. The appeal and urgency of capturing them in their prime grows precisely because they will soon be gone forever - gone somewhere - up there maybe, or perhaps just a little more likely down there. Because in the ‘catalogasm’ of evil that is Catalog Dreams No.4 the Devil's not only in the detail, they’re right there in the photographs too. If like me you tend to sort your friends and family Hogwarts style then in the case of ‘Jonathan’ the answer to the question you may have been asking yourself could well be Slytherin, but should that really be such a ‘bad’ thing? If we’ve learned anything from all of these stories it’s surely the indelible damage that stigma and moralising bring? Is your ‘wicked’ simply not someone else’s ‘misunderstood’ or ‘damaged’? Is it not all a little arbitrary?
‘HORROR HAS A FACE’
Perhaps the problem is the word itself. When we define someone or something as ‘evil’ we invoke allusions to other-worldly supernatural forces. British slave traders, Belgian colonialists and German Nazi’s weren’t possessed by a demonic malevolence, they were representative of almost entire societies consciously enacting years if not centuries of barbaric systemic policy, benefitting directly from the colossal horror they inflicted on more vulnerable communities strikingly similar to their own. Has the term ‘evil’ become a smokescreen, humanitys excuse, a way of externalising and denying the horror that lurks within us all, exonerating and displacing blame? Given that any one of us are at any given moment a mere thought away from tipping headlong into wickedness, when we suggest that ‘evil’ acts are inhuman do we not know quite the opposite to be true? Is evil a label for something other than ourselves or is it a species, one we are all too familiar with? “The horror!” as Colonel Kurtz said. “Horror has a face”. Yes, our own.
'CEREBRAL GREEN BELT'
Unexpectedly the same two themes occurred over and over again in these interviews: childhood and nature. It seems the moral conditioning baked hard into us in childhood is nothing if not destructive. When it comes to education and parenting clearly we need to rethink how we interact with sensitive young minds. It may be that we must ring-fence children’s psyches, treating them like imaginative game reserves or cerebral green belt, like the sacred ground they are, re-wilding the psychological landscape we’ve been clumsily terraforming with our adult agenda and fears - denying in them something innate. When it comes to our relationship with nature, no matter how much looking the other way we do this is surely one genocide none of us can ever claim to have been unaware of.
‘INTO THE LIFEBOATS’
Yes society is slowly starting to rethink the models we now aspire to. But to what end? The twentieth century’s individual has become more of an outcast than ever and for young society the romance of that loneliness is hard to explain. The individualist chose long ago to ‘live fast, die young’, but the collective will, the human hive-mind is holding in there as if we are all cells of a single organism intent on survival - old and young alike - no matter how bland and compromised that survival may prove to be. Me personally? Well, I ask myself - must humanity survive? No matter the cost to this planet or ourselves? Sounds like biological heresy I’m sure to those of us not inclined to question our instincts, but do we have a moral duty to let our demise happen or must we lay low and hide out and adapt? ‘Adapt’ or, you might also say, ‘mutate’? Does either not sound more than a little ‘viral’ to you? Because that survive at all costs mentality does sound a lot like another species we’ve had experience of lately. Some wouldn’t even think to question 7.888 billion (and growing) peoples right to not only exist but reproduce further, but what I hear in the fearful language of those that are intent on survival at all costs is the most base genetic programming of our species at work and I find that fearful inner cellular voice distasteful. I find it risible that we hold our own species in such high-esteem and yet in a tight spot our instinct and mentality is no different to that of a bacterial infection. I find those that can’t even contemplate overriding that programming, that seem intent on elbowing their way first into the lifeboats - vulgar.
‘LEAVE NO MARINE BEHIND’
Just how ‘evolved’ are we really? That evolved that we can’t even begin to subvert our base instincts and slow our hastening demise? Are we simply walking talking expendable cells of one vast global creature, endlessly generated, shed and regenerated anew? Are we mere neurons with smartphone synapses in one vast collective consciousness? Yes we’re a species that developed consciousness (along with every other species on this planet that we eat / wear / enslave / ride / lab test / hunt / torture), to the extent that we learned to commit suicide (something else we may not have the monopoly on) but when it really counts there appears to be no ‘taking one’ for the planet. Rather, we’re determined to save ourselves so that we can no doubt do it all over again. Not just ‘save ourselves’ but save all of ourselves. If there’s a mantra that captures our 21st century mindset it’s surely ‘leave no Marine behind’.
‘A SPECTACULAR AND IMMINENT END’
I must admit that en masse, I’m not that enamoured with us. Given a choice between bland survival and a spectacular and imminent end I’d sooner choose the latter, not least for the fabulous light-show and the dignity it confers but mostly for the huge favour it would do a truly beautiful planet that will continue to silently move through space and time without us - re-wilding itself gloriously. Were I to come across a tiger, a mature oak tree and a human and I could only save one, which would I save? Call me evil if you like but I’d sooner put the tiger in the tree and save that - this Earth isn’t heaving under its own weight in tigers. Perhaps it’s my own peculiar programming speaking when I say that I find the epitome of evil to be the unthinking self-regard humanity has for human life above all other flora and fauna. I’d contend that we are all innately and intrinsically ‘evil’ if such a word exists - by nature. What’s the very worst (and best) thing that I’ve ever done? Existing at all.
‘POSTER BOY FOR NAUGHTY’
Regardless, I feel that a confession is overdue. Mea culpa - in keeping with our theme perhaps a lie or two has been told along the way. But then - much like poster boy for naughty Pinocchio and his nose, no Catalog Dreams story will ever stand still, instead growing, evolving, updating even in death. Equally there will always be the capacity for redemption. Why? Because for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ we are nonetheless learning to transcend our bodies and linger longer in our imaginations, indulging our fantasies, reimagining ourselves daily. Cruella - Regina George - Imelda Marcos - Fraulein Maria - Princess Diana - the media's portrayal of Amanda Knox. Which is the odd one out? None and all of the above.
‘SACRED COWS'
Where once the good cowboy wore white and the bad cowboy wore black because their behaviour was virtually indistinguishable from each other, binary labels are fast becoming a thing of the past. As the sheer diversity of modern living, both ‘real’ and virtual, hopefully moves us closer to greater social acceptance and understanding of the nuance in our difference, somewhere in that process do ‘good' and ‘evil' get thrown out with all the other old binaries and sacred cows? He / she. Black / white. Straight / gay. Young / old. Nature / nurture. True / false. Right / wrong. Forbidden / permissible. Taboo / acceptable. Fact / fiction. Real / unreal.
‘BAD BOY’
So how do we want to live? Where do we want to get to? Do we take the long righteous path or if we’re prepared to get our hands a little dirty might 'speedy boarding' be available? What do we desire? What is ‘it’ that we really want? Well, it seems the Devil really does have all the best tunes. It appears that what we really want is ultimately whatever's worst for us. We crave the toxic. The unknown. The untried and the untested. The unsafe. The uncontrollable. No? Then ask yourself which you would rather hear; the nicest thing someone’s done, or the wickedest? Don’t we all secretly love a bad boy, a bad girl, a bad them? Don’t we all long now and then to be an outsider, unbound by the rules and restrictions and suffocating morality of society? Why? Because in our flirtations with mischief, with wickedness and ‘bad’, in encountering danger and flirting with the taboo we come alive. Isn’t that what it is to be human? Isn’t that what’s missing from puritanical pious now? As the big man up there in a more thoughtless time before pronouns once said; “To restrain man is not to redeem him.”
‘GOODNESS IS BORING’
But what if you’re immune to evil? What if for you there’s nothing tempting about temptation? What if you’re perfectly content with your lot? What if you crave little and have nothing to strive for? It’s no coincidence that the question I leave you with is itself a seemingly throwaway line of dialogue stolen from an unlikely but favourite work of movie fiction (I wonder if you might recognise its source?). Because undeniably there’s something a little boring about reality and something really very boring about goodness and if goodness is boring and boredom really is the absence of desire then the somewhat mischievous question we all might benefit from asking ourselves more regularly must surely be more relevant now than ever; ‘?llud eb yhW’
END
Photography: Johnny Hardstaff 2023 - Styling: Catalog Dreams & all interviewees 2023 - Text: Catalog Dreams October 2023
VFX: Adam Crocker / Andrew Bartholomew / Matthew Hutchins - Producer: Paul Branch / Kit Hartley @ Black Kite Studios London
With thanks to Yumi Yoshinaga & Ben Webster @ Leica UK / Verity White / Founding Partner Graham Bird & Black Kite Studios / Chris Barrett / the Stanley Kubrick Archive / David Mason / Alex Marden @ Art Department / Breeze Yoga / Josephine & Tullio & not least Wai-Ling.
Creative Director: Johnny Hardstaff
Supported by The Jonathan Foundation - 459 Dirello Street. San Francisco. USA.
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Copyright © Nov 2023 Johnny Hardstaff