Monomad: The industrial and the chaotic

All of these photographs were taking in the car during a drive into Yerevan. I have recently started to notice the chaos of the surrounding environment, the ways in which the city is becoming more and more mechanical and industrial, which is an ironic statement to make about a former republic of the USSR which has since heavily de-industrialised itself. This is nothing specific to Armenia, however. It seems the entire world is in a weird state of self-destruction at the pursuit of endless growth as it relies on someone else to fill the gaps that hold flaws to the nation. I feel most people in and around cities can say that their skylines are growing taller, cranes towering above. The endless drilling and machinery evident throughout. There's a chaos in it all, an endless noise and lack of soul. For once I figured it might be fun to point the camera at such themes.

I think once you start to really pay attention to these things, it really opens up regarding its obscene nature. The mechanical arms and their odd forms, the contorted anatomy of steel that has replaced the flesh hands that can't compete. More reliance on the robotic to fulfil our chaotic dreams of growth. Is there an end to it? Will these structures continue to reign over our natural views going forward? To some degree there is a beauty to it. A nihilistic sense of how we have replaced ourselves with objects that copy our very moves. Large webs of cable that connect the sprawl, nests of urban tentacles that reach far above our heads to the surroundings as if they're a live being attempting to combine into something stronger. I guess, in a way, that is precisely what is taking place. I think this brings me to the next though I have: the chaos in repetition, and the loss of landscape with the continuous ideology of sameness. As we branch out and spread ourselves into a larger web of connectivity.

There's something deeply dystopian about this though. The ways in which we close ourselves off from each other. Tall apartment buildings which block natural light, all the same in their designs. Repetition all over the place. The loss of identity that comes with the mass consumption and production of things. I look around and see the history here in Yerevan, the old apartment buildings and the modern and dated homes. Each of them tell their own stories in their designs and colours. The beauty in the ways in which personalisation impacts a surrounding, showcasing the individuality within. Though this hardly feels the case anymore. You move between spaces and see the same structures, the same colours, the same patterns. And I have no idea how people are approving, even supporting such ideas. Is it really a good thing to be so similar to everyone else? Is is a positive to industrialise to the point in which we replace the natural skies? No longer the beauty of golden sunsets and mountains in the horizon, simply the endless glowing of the same apartment building opposite you.

The normalisation of things that are not normal is an interesting concept. It brings question as to what the human mind may be like going forward. What the result of all of this may actually be. And what point does this normalisation get replaced with another new normal? It's odd to look at steel and notice the comparisons in our own structure. The ways in which an arm folds and extends. The joints, muscles that push and pull, and the connection yet total disconnection from the natural world. At what point do we lose that resemblance? Anyway, these were my chaotic thoughts and photographs from a car ride into the city. Vast amounts of industrial land alongside the mechanical. So few signs of nature remaining. Trees are starting to look like the odd ones out. Isn't that strange? Patches of grass almost look lost. Birds fly around with confusion over where they should even attempt to land. Things are certainly not normal for them. Nor are they really normal for us.