Shameless: in the spirit of Picasso, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Edison.

The Author:

Silas Snodgrass, a cultural and social exile, has turned himself into a witness. He has shut himself up in his apartment, where, on his website www.snappedshots.com, he comments on life, media and his dog. A shameless self-promoter and, clearly, a compulsive diarist, he updates his website – which he calls an artistic sit-in – daily with images and opinions. Snodgrass, with a mirror and two different hats, interviews himself.

The Article:

SnappedShots, stripped down, is yet another web log or blog – a forum and an experience no doubt doomed to be a technological artifact of the early part of this century. But it’s more than that, says Snodgrass, who updates his website every day. “The technology, like a gallery, or a Starbucks, for paintings, or, for that matter, a bathroom stall for graffiti, is incidental.”

And it’s clear that Snodgrass takes his project quite seriously. He has locked himself up in his apartment for his “sit-in”. “With one exception,” Snodgrass indicates on his blog. “I still have to walk my dog ” Every day since May 1 of last year, he has posted an image and a diary entry. “It was a solution to a problem I was having. I was looking for what I called MyLuckyBreak, which I felt I kept missing. SnappedShots seemed like a mathematical solution to my problem. With SnappedShots I can be, at least in theory, globally accessible.”

“I’m not convinced it remains that, however”, Snodgrass amends. “I’m not sure that there is any mission left, but, as with any habit, the mission to continue.”

Snodgrass, for the most part, has spent a year documenting his habitat in images. Reviewers have called his images “pleasing, simple, relevant, enigmatic, and wonderful.” He has also been archiving and documenting his life. Whether it’s describing a bored and lonely Friday night or reviving some childhood anecdote, he frequently hits the mark. A recent reviewer says: “Yours is the most interesting and yet enigmatic blog I have come across. It has some of the most pleasing and yet simple images I have yet seen put up by anyone. I love your ramblings too.”

“I reject the word art, or the usefulness of the word art, for the most part,” contends Snodgrass. “That’s a word that removes people. It removes the maker. It removes the witness. And it removes the experience.” Snodgrass sits and thinks for a moment. “Funny that I should have a problem with removal, isn’t it?”

“It’s a little curious,” Snodgrass admits. “Like anybody who ever made anything or wrote anything – I love the attention. But in order to continue SnappedShots I have to pretend I’m all alone, I have to pretend nobody is watching. There’s a lot of power in watching and a lot of vulnerability I think in being watched.”

On SnappedShots, Snodgrass has mentioned giving up the project on its anniversary but he’s coy about his plans. “The truth is, I don’t know what I’m going to do. SnappedShots has become a habit – a good habit or a bad habit, I can’t say. When it’s done, I will always have this space in time where I documented in detail all the banality and all the wonder too, I suppose, of living.”

SS