MODEL MAYHEM #4326372

“#4326372” When I first landed in New York I swam, confused, upstream through a roaring river of sound and visual stimuli. The cabs were honking at the people, the people were yelling at the cabs, then at each other. Everyone became a mass, yet everyone wanted to make their mark, to be dis- tinct somehow against the sensorial rush. Overwhelmed by this boulevard of personal display, I stopped and stared up. In front of me loomed a skyscraper-sized fashion ad above Broadway. Suddenly, someone pulled on my knitted red cardigan. Startled, I looked down to a small older woman, a little hunched over. She wanted my attention. It was urgent. She said, “you seem shy. You shouldn’t live in New York.” Heed her advice, I did not. But observe I did. In the Austrian Alps where I am from, privacy is the greatest luxury, blending in the greatest virtue. In a village of twelve hundred people, bringing attention to yourself isn’t well regarded. But my village is serene — a place so silent you can hear birds chirp or leaves blow in the wind. Loud noises there are shocking. I remember my first apartment in New York. The passing garbage trucks were so loud I dreamt my bed was on the BQE. New York caricatures banged taxi hoods around me shouting, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!” Every day I awoke in a daze preparing myself blearily to wage war against the elements. And I came to understand, with the great cha- os, came a great need to defend yourself against the onslaught. You’d be swallowed whole in New York, it seemed, unless you came out fight- ing, fearless, shouting: “it’s me, I’m here, and what the hell you gonna do about it?” They say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. The fashion industry touts those ethos like a face tattoo. I left Austria to be a photographer, an occupation limited there to weddings and sport events. I found myself on lots of sets with beautiful people who were there to “make it.” It was a refrain “to make it,” I presume, to a mythical firmament where one could flash and fly higher than the wall of sound, free from the infinite battle against the elements. And the mere mortals below would grant you the greatest gift: to be seen. I came to learn that being seen is very important in America. And I thought a lot about the people I passed on the street who didn’t possess traditional star-making qualities. The people with clipped wings who couldn’t gain velocity of flight through the machine of marketable beauty. Were they destined to be forever in the dark? As a child in my village, I was obsessed with fashion catalogues, especially underwear. I was excited by the beautiful women, sure, but more by the strange freedom in their faces. Public displays like this are not common in Austria. So, I was always taken with their cheeky liberation page after page. Ironically, nudity is very normal in Austria because we have sauna culture. The sauna contains every shape and size you can imagine: young and old, round and bony, red and blotchy, white as snow. The vast differences in the human physique fascinated me. On fashion sets, I mostly saw homogenous beauty of the professional variety. I wanted to find everyday people searching for that spark of liberation I saw in those catalogues. Yet, I wanted to celebrate the heterogeneous tolerance of the sauna. I wanted, I think, to find people with clipped wings. With social media, the only of tide of stimuli that competes with rush hour in New York City, the elite barriers of fame and beauty started to break down and be reworked. With enough likes and followers, a place on permanent view in the firmament was yours. In the palm of your hand, you can have your own fashion ad on broadway. But I wasn’t interested in social media aspirants. I wanted to find a group of people with starry eyes, for whom the new pseudo-democracy of fame was still out of reach. I came across a website called “Model Mayhem” — a sort of Craigslist for DIY fashion portfolios. Soon, I was deep in a worm hole, falling in love with a variety of subjects. They were people of all ages, races, shapes and sizes, all of whom were posing confidently as models. The resulting project is entitled “#4326372”, my membership number on the site’s database. Each of the talents I portrayed also have a member number, which I provide beside their portrait should a viewer wish to access their self-generated portfolios which captured my fascination in the first place. Anyone can have the option to research even deeper into the lives of Model Mayhem models or even photographers, or hair and makeup artists. Their personal portfolios range a spectrum of extremes: some feature full nudity, some are chock full of costumed fantasy. After months of scrolling, I realized I was in a subculture of social media. On this website, subject after subject developed a distinct persona free from the judgement of real life interaction, and the bruising constraints of likes, hashtags and followers. Each portfolio I dsicovered celebrated their own unique alter ego. Without disrespecting my subjects, I can vaguely elaborate that this is a group of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, doctors, magicians, insurance brokers, lawyers, nurses and so on -— all of whom exercised a cosplay of empowerment. One woman wanted to be a mermaid. Another, a colorful unicorn. Another, a goth queen. Another, a silver dressed sex party man. I started to notice pat- terns: most of the men wanted to express their muscles, more than one woman wanted to be a mermaid, most of the subjects had shrines. And every subject had one prevailing similarity: they all possessed ring lights. No one purchases a ring light who doesn’t take their photoshoots pretty damn seriously. It was as if completely independently, yet somehow all together, they were shouting, “it’s me, I’m here, and what the hell you gonna do about it? I’m walkin’ here!” If fame is a religion and stars are gods, social media subculture is the Reformation of fame. This project celebrates the reformers: normal work- ing people who have the courage to author their own fantasy when no one is looking. Here, they are the star, free and flashing, above the wall of noise.