Addiction

This has a lot to do with my project due to its new conceptual turn, in which it deals a lot with obsession and purposeful isolation. The movement of the photographs has this addiction undertone by showing first the subject controlling the light, but soon one sees the light is what drives the subject to draw themselves back and into isolation. This is the same pattern addictions follow. First it is something some one thinks they can control and monitor, but soon the tables turn and the addiction overcomes them, isolating them from friends, family and their life in general. The article talks about how prior to the development of modern psychology, people saw people with addictions as morally flawed, instead of having a serious mental disease. This idea of being morally flawed i think could extend to my series, due to this obsessive, magical quality to the images.


"It is considered a brain disease because drugs change the brain - they change its structure and how it works. "(Drugs, Brains, and Behavior)


"Those views shaped society's responses to drug abuse, treating it as a moral failing rather than a health problem, which led to an emphasis on punitive rather than preventative and therapeutic actions." (Drugs, Brains, and Behavior)


""Drugs, Brains, and Behavior - The Science of Addiction"" Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://www.nida.nih.gov/scienceofaddiction/>.
This article had a lot of information, but it did get a little too Above The Influence as it went on. It focused a lot on the psychological aspects of addictions and it briefly stated past opinions on addictions. The first two pages were very informative from a general psychology standpoint, by explaining the reasonings behind addictions as well as the actual brain's illness when dealing with addiction. On the next pages though, the focus was much more on preventing teen drug abuse and awareness of the harmful effects of drugs which didn't really have anything to do with my project.