Cover photo: "Detroit Disassembled," by Andrew Moore, a 2010 photo book on Detroit.
The creator of the detroitfunk photo blog has written a short essay -- "The Thin Places" -- on what he calls "the elephant in the room:" ruin porn. (He terms it "ruins porn.") The writer is anonymous on his blog, as he is on this summary.
"The Thin Places," an excerpt:
Let us analyze this descriptor, shall we ? From my perspective, it is meant as a pejorative term which is intended to shame both the viewer of such images, as well as the creators of these images. The term “porn” right away casts the activity in an inappropriate light, and even implies that the viewer or creator of the imagery is somehow perverse in their interests. It also smacks of exploitation, as this is usually implied when people use ill defined terminology like “pornography.”
Traditionally this would involve exploitative imagery of vulnerable people for the perverted and voyeuristic enjoyment of the viewer, and for the profit of the pornographer. But when we transpose these terms to abandoned buildings, these ideas become completely abstracted to the point of being nonsensical. Nobody is exploiting abandoned buildings, or humiliating them, or morally debasing them by making photographs. The primary purpose of pornography for the end user is auto eroticism – to put it in very plain language. I have never witnessed anybody masturbating at the sight of an abandoned building, nor while looking at photographs of them. And neither have you.
So why is this such a popular catch phrase ? It reeks of ignorance and completely glosses over every important issue concerning the abandonment it seeks to describe. It is carelessly and arrogantly applied in most news media or comment sections and forums that talk about such topics. Sometimes bad things go viral . . . like viruses.
