Camera and edit: Matthijs Treurniet.
Texts for voice-over Pictureman, based on an interview with Akbar Simonse.
Sometimes I feel lonely.
But not when I’m behind my computer.
A picture can be company, you know.
Writing comments.
Being social.
Making connections.
I know them.
I’ve met them.
They know me.
So that’s it.
When I freez, I socialize.
I like documentaries.
And… the Simpsons.
But that’s personal.
I almost never look at movies.
I hate dramaseries and soaps, I don’t care.
I don’t understand.
Games and shows are not for me.
Don’t even talk about it.
I just don’t understand that kind of fun.
I never watch television on my computer.
I need a big screen.
My eyes are getting tired very often.
I’m a very tolerant person.
The only thing I hate are intolerant people.
It would be a nightmare for me, if my pictures would be used for something I can not identify with.
Identification is important.
I love my pictures.
I love people.
I love to learn.
But I hate manuals.
I never read them.
When I bought my camera, I read the first twenty pages.
Then I stopped.
I thought: when I need something, I’ll look it up.
When something goes wrong with my computer, I call someone to help me.
Technique has to be easy.
Technique should make me feel comfortable.
Most of the time it makes me feel stupid.
I don’t want to feel stupid.
It has to be simple.
Look at me.
Just an old man with a camera and a hat.
This is how I look, late at night.
This is me.
I never try to look like someone who isn’t me.
These are all parts of me.
Privacy doesn’t exist anymore nowadays.
Not in this society.
Don’t touch the internet, they say, for it will touch you.
But I don’t want to stay at home all the time.
Why should I?
The moment you walk the street, you lose part of your privacy.
There it starts.
I don’t care.
I have a mobile phone.
I call and sms.
That’s it.
Once I took a picture with my phone, but I don’t know where it is right now.
It’s gone.
I have my camera, so why should I take pictures with my phone?
Internet on my phone? I don’t think so.
I will become an old, maybe a bit worried man.
I’m not very enthousiastic about my own health.
My health bothers me.
Being alone bothers me.
How did it change me?
Did it change me?
It’s hard to say.
(Silence)
I have to think about that.
(Silence)
Well, I look things up.
If I want to know something, I look it up.
I’m in charge.
I read newspapers.
I watch the news.
But I never search for news on the internet.
I don’t have to know everything.
Most of the time it doesn’t interest me.
Maybe it will interest me in a few years.
I can wait.
I’m not in a hurry.
I don’t want to be informed about anything.
I just de-connect from information.
I’m glad I’m not a news addict.
I’m addicted to people.
I like comments.
Sometimes it becomes a story.
I upload a picture, give it a title, and people start to comment, just like that.
They start to interpret.
Sometimes they see things I didn’t see.
It makes me laugh.
Sometimes I love to be offline.
As if it is not there.
Time flies when you’re online.
I also love to stop.
A few days, a week.
And now something completely different.
I consider it a world.
Strange, yet common after a while.
It’s all about how quick you get used to certain habits.
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