“Nobody ever has enough”, confesses Trimalchio, in Petronius’ Satyricon. This is a statement which applies more than ever to mass culture, characterized by the nesting instinct, as well as by overfilled regurgitation and self-sufficiency in its indulgence and sleepiness. Everybody wants more, and this need is bound to be fulfilled at the very moment the thought crossed our mind, without taking into account that the multitude of options is often more likely to be an anxiety-provoking factor instead of a benefit of civilization. The selection capacity of the modern man has diminished substantially in order to allow space for another hypertrophied organ, that of consumption and rapid elimination. Short-term memory, minimal concentration and ready-made perceptions are the daily fare, and our eyes are larger than the capacity to actually process information. The effect is not prosperity or satisfaction anymore, but a kind of cultural indigestion, ultimately converted into overall indifference to the abundance, and then anxiety and loneliness. History seems not to matter anymore in a century of five-minute celebrity, only as the base for the newly deposited layers of information, whether relevant or not. The monotonously pixilated present, populated by the ready-made images created to satisfy any taste and by things granting a rapid solution to any problem, moves too fast for us to notice the richness of details.

Parr’s breakthrough came in the 1980s with a series centered on a British resort, which documents with a programmatically astute observance the holiday life of British working class, endlessly guzzling soft drinks, overweight, sun-burnt and having fun among run-down, semi-rural cityscapes and overflowing trash bins. The black and white neo-realist view one would consider suitable for such topics was replaced by the colorful glitz of the heavily saturated images which remind of the glossy advertising trying really hard to sell a way of life which, more often than not, has nothing to do with reality. Not only replacing the black and white with color, the artist also uses a day-light flash to photograph his subjects, and the result is a semi-unreal feeling. Even if less obvious in that body of work than in the subsequent ones, Parr’s coherent discourse is all about the consumerist culture dominating existence and having as a result the uniformity of geography. Wherever we are, reality will seem strangely familiar because everything has become a huge mall, with similar labels and awnings that only reinforce the ever-present best-selling brands and a nauseating déja-vu feeling. The subliminal purpose of advertising is to bend our minds in believing that we could wake up the next day thinner, richer, with better complexions, or simply overall improved, just because we bought the same product the models are using, but reality seems to contradict it. Everything around us screams about the overwhelming temptations and the cool, funky, and mostly funny gadgets that supposedly make our life easier, and about the need to own the most recent one without considering the pros and cons, or the ways it could influence our existence for the better or the worse. Years ago, Umberto Eco described this fascination with the techie gadgets in a hilarious essay about airline catalogues, pointing out the fact that they fulfill needs we were not even aware of before reading the explanations.

Martin Parr’s “Mobile Phones” series presents snapshot images of people from all over the world, in a documentary manner. There are frontal views, rear views, regular cellular phones, tulip hats, business-like glasses, black suits, little ornamental charms hanging from the phones, sandwiches, umbrellas, landscapes, bunny covers, the whole variety of tools that supposedly help us “keep in touch”, various shapes representative of each one’s individuality, and the grotesque or business-like outfits that make us stand out and be who we want to seem. Mobile phones are ubiquitous, a part of the civilian gear nowadays, and have become common in the landscape to such an extent, that nobody turns around to look at people using one. They are weapons integrated in the modern man’s arsenal, and the artist’s vision of the cell phones in the contemporary world illustrates the obvious next step of this sophisticated societal multiple-regression analysis. Just like the nobles of Velasquez or the characters in “The Night Watch” by Rembrandt had swords hanging by their belts, each one with a particularly shaped grip, modern people have phones. Life has changed though, apparently softening, and weapons have evolved too, developing another connotation that has to do with the obsession of time, with the fear of losing something that might never be recuperated if it has been missed, and it could be missed at any step, without us even knowing it. Only in the process of apparently staying connected and in control, life seems to go by faster than ever. We live in the era of communication, but also of endemic loneliness, and we indeed miss something, different though than what we thought in the beginning.

The title of the series programmatically refers to the object itself, and not the user. Somehow, the control factor seems to have shifted in a paradoxical and definitive manner from the animate to the inanimate. The human is not in control anymore, but a voice at the other end of the line, depending on this lifeline, ready to answer at any time, to be there for the interlocutor, no matter where he or she is. This has changed completely our perception on fundamental issues in life, including the way we communicate with others, lead wars, issue ultimatums. One has to notice that the smiles are not directed to the photographer, or to the passer-by, but to the voices of the people otherwise invisible at the other end of the line, in a sort of parallel reality. The enemy or friend has eluded frontal combat once again, and moved into a remote, imaginary space even though they are seemingly present for the interlocutor. Parr’s work is an epitome of today’s society, of the oblivion for the ones around us, of the self-centeredness and desire for instant gratification with little or no regard for the reality of others, which, ultimately, has shifted completely out of focus.

In a consumer-led society, ready to fulfill any fantasy that might gather more than two fans and which indulges any fictional desires, it’s no wonder that, for example, the only increase in music sales in 2004 has been downloadable ring tones. This tells us something about the intensity of the wish to personalize an object whose functionality is supposed to be the primordial attribute. Even though the tones are not for free, as opposed to pirated music available one click away on the internet, there is obviously a whole community of mobile phone fanatics out there, ready to pull out the credit card to beautify their favorite new gadget, just as other people are ready to have them customized with rhinestones, just to be noticed in their constant search for individuality in a uniform society.

What Parr’s new body of work shows us is that there is no escaping from this phenomenon which is in fact creating a standardized contemporary landscape, but in the same time there is no real wish to escape this self-created dependency, which has become a second nature. Even if it is fundamentally a love-hate relationship, it definitely stresses the already established terms of our life surrounded by technology and gadgets. Parr’ subjects are immersed in their private worlds, and in spite of the fact that they use what is supposed to be a tool whose main function is to enable communication, they all exist in their own time-bubble, and seem to communicate in fact less than ever. Parr does not pass any judgment, but shows us openly what is going on out there, hoping that it would help us with our own conclusions.

Martin Parr takes photographs of people, but also of things, and the interaction between the animate and inanimate. He is fascinated by the mundane, the prefab houses, the daily indulgements, interior decorations, flip-flops, flowers, trinkets, embroidered hats, and the unsettling but overwhelming feeling is that he exposes something that would be better off staying hidden, even if sometimes we show it openly to everyone. The vulgarity and kitsch of daily life, revealed with brutal honesty, have definitely not made him the most popular, but his images reflect something that is more valuable than a popularity prize, which is the courage to stand up and document a reality which exists independently from personal taste, vision and judgments.