Here’s a little excerpt from the piece I’m working on, along with some images from the first night I landed in LA. It was really too appropriate, considering I’ve got sci-fi dystopia and apocalypse on the brain.
“Every American city boasts an official insignia and slogan. Some have municipal mascots, colors, songs, birds, trees, even rocks. But Los Angeles alone has adopted an official nightmare.” – Mike Davis, City of Quartz
The night I arrived in Los Angeles to photograph for this piece, a friend invited me to the End of the World [party]. At the club, mock emergency news bulletins encouraged the crowd to pretend that apocalyptic catastrophe was imminent, and to rage as if there were literally no tomorrow…Though the film industry is centered there, Hollywood has only perpetuated a dystopian vision of Southern California. From the Planet of the Apes series (1968–73) on, future LA has been routinely trashed by nuclear, technological, and automotive catastrophe, police brutality, pollution, and crime…In Richard Kelly’s apocalyptic Southland Tales (2006), the Santa Monica pier is where the world ends “not with a whimper, but with a bang” taking LA’s palimpsest of corrupt politicians, soulless celebs, activist porn stars, and deranged cops with it.”
Kristin M. Miller 