Satire, selfies and the state we're in

In photographer Martin Parr's frame, humour becomes essential as the world loses its balance

PARIS:

British documentary photographer Martin Parr says the world has never been more in need of satire like that in his images, arguing that many people are now too wealthy and living in ways that cannot be sustained. The 73-year-old warned that the state "we're all in" is appalling.

Known for his humorous snapshots of bronzed beachgoers and selfie-snapping tourists, Parr spoke to AFP in Paris during a visit to promote his autobiography, titled 'Utterly Lazy and Inattentive' — a phrase taken from his French teacher's scathing school report when he was 14.

"We're all too rich. We're consuming all these things in the world," he told AFP, referring to the surge of tourists mobbing European cities like Venice and Rome. "And we can't. It's unsustainable. This joke about going to net zero [carbon emissions] — it's never going to happen."

Parr's latest book combines a selection of photographs with his trademark wry commentary, tracing his journey from the son of a birdwatching father to a professional photographer with a sharp eye for the absurdities of everyday life.

Among the images featured are Ireland's first McDonald's drive-through in 1986, the toilets of a Masonic Lodge in London in 2001, and an adult clutching a Donald Trump doll in 2016 — just before his first election.

Parr has photographed life in North Korea, Albania, Japan and Russia, among other countries, though he said he never received a visa to visit Iran. His frontline, he added, has always been the supermarket.

Everyday spaces of consumption remain fertile ground for his work, said the Magnum Photos member, "because they change all the time". "Now you don't actually have to go to the till. You just walk out," he remarked, referring to shops where a tracking system automatically charges customers.

Parr's autobiography spans an era from spotting steam trains to Tesla cars, but he said the single greatest societal shift in his lifetime has been the arrival of smartphones. "I think smartphones made a huge difference to things like tourism — what people do, and how they respond to reality," he said.

He added that visiting landmarks today seemed less about seeing the sites themselves and more about taking photos. "You collect points, like you would collect points towards a toy or a game," said the photographer, whose more than 100 publications include 'Death by Selfie'.

Parr said he was far less worried about artificial intelligence. "I've seen AI interpretations of my work. They're horrible," he said. "Gaudy colours, just a mess. It will get better, but it doesn't worry me at all." He was equally unimpressed by AI-generated writing.

While promoting his autobiography, Parr discovered several supposed books about him online that he had no involvement in. "They're all AI-generated, printed digitally — horrible, generally speaking," he said.

AFP located one such biography on a US website, written by an unknown author, with a 17-word title and a clumsy description. Parr confirmed he had bought it. "I'm collecting them just for the hell of it," he said.