Stealing Fire and Lighting the way to Understanding The Problem
Photojournalist James Year makes his Masters Project available for a limited time public viewing.
Friend and collaborator James Year, who has been a frequent guest of the Voice Of GO(r)D podcast, recently completed and submitted a beautiful project to cap off his Masters degree in Multimedia, Photography, and Design, from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. James even invited me to what might loosely be called a ‘thesis defense’, but which was more of a presentation with about 2 dozen students and faculty present. I was honored to go, and thoroughly impressed with seeing his project on some very big screens at SU.
James project, as many of you will know, has been to document the effects of the implementation of driverless vehicle technology on the workers whom are soon to be replaced by it - truckers. James’ photography and research does a hell of a job of that, and it has been my pleasure in helping him with the project, insofar as taking him for rides in the logging truck I last drove, and having frequent discussions with him in person, on the phone, or on my podcast.
Due to some technical wranglings, the website is not exactly meant to be fully public as yet, but in the interest of those whom have been following James’ work, including the fans and followers of this Substack, James is having a limited time ‘opening’ of the website, where you can find his photography and reams of research which document the interregnum between the human and tech driven trucking industry.
Also included on the site are a short story written by James himself, a dystopic vision of life in America post-automation which is eerily reminiscent of the present, as well as a beautiful music video featuring what might be the first folk song ever written that specifically addresses the question of automated trucks, performed by the one and only Long Haul Paul Marhoefer.
You can find the website here - https://www.stealingfire.tech/
I anticipate that it will only be open for about a week or two, so go check it out while you can.
You can also find James on his his own website or over at Instagram
If you’re reading this after the masters project site returns to temporary private mode, at very least you can enjoy this great song by Long Haul Paul on YouTube -
As always, questions, comments, suggestions, and hate mail, are encouraged and looked forward to; you can write me at gordilocks@protonmail.com
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