What is there new to say about car culture that hasn't already been said? My intention with this blog is to address this question in consideration of my own personal history and experience of the motor car. Looking at cars I have owned and other car history within my family. Searching the internet for car statistics and relevant contextual information, referencing publications on car culture with particular reference to Autopia: Cars and Culture - Edited by Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr (Reaktion 2002) - Vrrooom! Vrrooom! Hans Aarsman (NAi Uitgevers - Nederlands Fotomuseum 2003) amongst others.
To some degree this excercise is inspired by my love/hate relationship with the automobile; The costs and other traumas of running a car, a nostalgia for a "Golden age of Motoring" which I am too young to have experienced firsthand, the desire and passion associated with cars (including explorations of Classic car ownership), notions of personal space associated with the car (Road Rage), ephemera, in particular finding uses (in an art context) for the materials I have accumulated over the years which link directly with car culture, other artists with a particular interest in the subject and other stuff I may find along the way.
Using these materials and following threads explored in previous works (particularly "The A-Z of Anger Management") I shall attempt to create a body of work, including: Photography, Video, Digital Images, Model making and set building and maybe even a bit of essay writing!
In part this is an exploration of a personal psychogeography of car culture, using my 1950 Geographers map of Birmingham to guide me I shall drift along the highways and byways.
