SELFIE SERIES
When I see this picture, I realize that in the stream of our consciousness concentrate with the smart phones, and all perceptions are click and a swipe away. In the past forty years on 6th October 1976, Thammasat students try to call for liberty. It leads to the victims’ gruesome demise from the brutal crackdown, as caught and recorded by the various cameras. It reveals the inhuman lack of sympathy beyond social norm. In the context of those troubled times, it may not have been too surprising, given the amount of hatred generated toward the Left by the government of that time. Street confrontations are accompanied by the media input and output, and now of course by the social media on the smart phones. And in the contemporary context, it may seem that the “Smart phones” protesters of the present day are no less keen to gawk, revel in and share gruesome details, and no holding back on the hate. The “self” on the phone is now self-important, self-assured, highly liberated. Keen to be on the scene and expressing the “self” in just about anything goes. This artwork can reflect Thai society in nowadays.