What Are We Looking at?

Saengsouriyheth's work is rooted in obscuring faces to emphasize the prism of all our mixed gene pools, our self-effacement under the tyranny of unachievable, idealized advertising, and broader concerns with self-image, identity, and profiling (Figure 28.1).

He does this effectively and with elegantly choreographed aesthetic anticipation as he makes his candid images. When contemplating them I was struck by another thought. In a reversal of how freedom is interpreted between the US and almost anywhere else, Americans have the right to protect themselves with arms and other devices, in some states with negligible restrictions. One of these other devices is the radar detector. The police use radar to catch speeders and in turn American drivers, if they so choose, can install radar detectors in their cars to be forewarned of such speed monitoring. This cat and mouse game is advertised as helping the accidentally inattentive drivers to keep their insurance rates down, which would almost invariably increase were they to be caught speeding.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

Saengsouriyheth's images led me down another path though. In contemplating his work, it suddenly struck me that the “Incognito Face” or “Incognito Pendant” or however such a jamming device might be named, is not yet hanging around everyone's neck. This is not so much a personal radar detector but a jammer to obscure the appearance of someone when filmed or photographed. This would be a device that either distorts the three-dimensional heat signature or throws off a camera's focus to the point of rendering an image useless. On a recent trip to an impoverished island nation, I also visited a resort with a harbor full of luxury yachts. These multi-decamillion vessels were gracefully basking in their bays. As obvious targets for piracy, sophisticated security systems must have been a given for all of them. Some were ostentatious, not just in their appearance but in their warnings on the side of the hull. A huge skull and bone insignia, comparable to the international warning sign for poison was prominently painted on the hull of one of them. While I interpreted this symbol as a warning to stay away, it too might have had a subtext, maybe someone thought it funny to make reference to corporate piracy practices that might have paid for the vessel in the first place. What drew my attention was the most elegant and understated yacht of them all. Not the biggest and not painted in white but coated in something that looked like Teflon. I turned my lens on it to photograph it for its beautiful design and sleek futuristic appearance. Unlike with the skull and bone ship, the autofocus would not lock on. It whirled frantically between useless points of focus despite areas of contrast like the windows and the hull. The only remedy was to photograph my subject by manually pulling focus. My attempts to research the technology the yacht may have been equipped with turned up nothing useful. It is highly likely that whatever technology was in use was designed to prevent lock-ons from more nefarious devices than cameras.

Still, it took that one experience with the yacht and Saengsouriyheth's images for me to make the leap between the two. Whether the technology is cheap enough, small enough, and readily available, or restricted for use under limited circumstances, are all relevant questions. It seems unlikely that such a device will be making its debut imminently nor will it be on the latest must-have gadgetry stage.

Under the watchful eye of “Transit Watch” insignia, Saengsouriyheth captures a man in makeup and costume, likely an advertisement for a theatre production or opera. The woman beside him is again obscured with her cellphone in hand as in the previous image. So what are we looking at? The photograph of a photograph sets the emotional stage for us. The unreadable face of the woman gives us arguably less to go on. The man looks sad, defeated, his costume ruff more similar to a bib and his makeup reminiscent of a black eye. Is he incapacitated to symbolize a victim of domestic violence in this iteration of the photograph? Is the virtual communication between viewers, stranger, and ad a silent vigil to our collective disconnects, an exponentially manufactured experience of emotion reported in this manufactured image (Figure 28.2)?

FIGURE 28.2 Untitled. © Thap Saengsouriyheth

As a viewer I am grateful for how these images lead me astray. For I recognize that loneliness. I recognize it as I wait for a train and commune with images plastered on the other side of the third rail. By contrast, the actual faces around me avoid eye contact and sound, defended by earplugs with their eyes glued to a screen, just as my own are. This is code to avoid offense of any kind in large urban settings and a longing to escape the perceived boredom of transit that has transformed our lives. The personal invisibility devices are indeed already with us.

You may counter that commuters used to hide behind newspapers, books, and eventually Walkmans before the digital translation of all of that emerged. True, though the printing press and magnetic tape are technology too, as is photography. I don't think that most of us are interested in the technology per se but what it can do for us. As consumers, it transports us away, to fill the increasing void with melody and prose, fantasy and dreams. One aspect of this consumerism, especially on mobile devices, has ushered in a new era of shopping via apps and click-bait. In so doing we remove ourselves a step further from other fundamental relationships of interaction, such as the trader and customer. As social animals, this still begs the question for how long will we be able to sustain this virtual diet and how it will impact our ability to actively rather than passively connect, engage, and experience.

FIGURE 28.3 Untitled. © Thap Saengsouriyheth

Conclusion

Saengsouriyheth's work is therefore not just asking where we come from but also where we are going. Is our need for oblivion and to isolate ourselves self-perpetuating? What will it take to escape the centrifugal forces of such seductive self-reinforcement? When will the binary bread for the masses go stale?

For now let me leave you with the “Night Manager” as we continue to pull the wool over our eyes (Figure 28.3). Night, night.