Photographers on ISOLATION/LONELINESS = (n 4) Gonzalo Bénard

https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/gonzalo-benard-b-shot-by-a-stranger/ = Gonzalo Bénard In the beginning of 2012, artist Gonzalo Bénard in a quest of understanding the loneliness of youth, its causes and consequences, asked to a few strangers/volunteers – through social networks -, if he could shoot them through webcam, avoiding the physical or energetic presence, as pre- installed security cameras at their rooms, dorms, bathrooms, and other living spaces. https://onartandaesthetics.com/2016/12/06/shot-by-a-stranger/ = Shot by a Stranger Google “millennials” and “loneliness” and you will find a flood of articles. Our generation is rich in virtual connections, poor in concrete companionship. Since 2011, French-Spanish artist Gonzalo Bénard (born in 1969 in Lisbon, Portugal) has been working on a photographic project called “B Shot by a Stranger”, which he hopes will be the subject of further sociological and psychological interpretations. The project looks into the lives of the lonely youth of today – according to Gonzalo, “the screenagers” – through the webcam. It is an enterprise that exposes one’s vulnerabilities and can seem invasive but is it built on a pact of trust. The subjects are volunteers, young men between the ages of 18 and 28, from all over the world – from Ohio to the Philippines, from Austria to Puerto Rico, Poland to South Africa. Across different cultures and religions and occupations and worries, there is one constant. Everybody is suffering from the illness of the century. “Shooting through the webcam, I only direct the volunteers to get better compositions, angles and light,” says Gonzalo. “All the rest is up to them: I just follow their own lonely rituals, usually in the morning when the light is often better. This has given me some technical worries though, mostly at the beginning: some connections are not the best; some houses don’t have enough light, etc. It’s never an easy task, especially because you’re not there with the volunteer and we can’t go around the screen to have a better angle. Or compose with better light. But at the end, as any other challenge, it can only make us more creative and flexible.”

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