stircrazy narrates the downward spirals of my addictive relationship with stress. In trying to overcome feelings of meaninglessness, productivity became the rewarded placeholder value to strive for. New York is the backdrop of all of the images presented; it was often an aggravating factor in this vicious circle. Tightened frames mirror the claustrophobic component of social mimicry. External gazes were both the instigation and metric against which I measured myself. This gaze is mirrored through questioning looks in the book’s double spreads, their looks asking, “Just how well are you really doing?” In striving to do as much as possible, I often found myself emotionally strained. The thinner I stretched myself, the harder I wanted to pull on the edges. The subjects of stircrazy embody this progressive decline in their gradually worsening emotional states. Eventually, this tension becomes too heavy, and the subjects succumb physically. Despite these charged emotions, stircrazy explores them through romanticism and comedy; it’s an absurdist “let’s party at the edge of meaning”. It plays on the iconic photography location to anchor its subject in the city's aesthetic; they become an integral part of its character. The outlandish and, honestly, selfless displays of self-expression mirror the all consuming nature of the city.
You can be the most miserable person, as long as you’re interesting or rich. I didn’t care for the money. For a long time, it was beneficial; I was working hard on myself and becoming a better person for it. But there was a constant need for productivity. Ah! There’s that buzzword again. I was accumulating stripes on my uniform, all the while unsure what I was fighting for. Everyone else is doing it! I was so caught up in myself, you’ll just have to understand why it wasn’t obvious when it began to take a turn. I was hooked on it; I had to acquire as many experiences as possible, had to hear my own voice speaking, had to see how I looked in the elevator mirror, and had to rehearse the story so it sounded wittier.
The evolutionary advantage that my stress response offered has been hijacked. There is an adrenaline rush that comes from going past your breaking point, one that doesn’t let you out of fight-or-flight mode. I was obsessed with whether I was doing “well enough”. It turns out there was no such thing for me, no greater infraction than not doing anything. It’s a degenerative social performance, a vicious circle that perpetuates coping with uncertainty.
Today, my belly button is the only thing worth looking at, so I look at it all day!