a designer
a wonderer
“our resident art historian”
based in Los Angeles and Oakland, California.
[about]
He is currently studying at
UCLA
pursuing a B.A. in Design | Media Arts & Art History and typed this text in the third person. This site is constantly under construction.
© 2025 Calvin McClure - All Rights Reserved
NATIONAL IMAGE ENFORCEMENTSUMMER 2024
Apple iPhone 13 Pro, Panasonic HC-V600M, Canon EOS R50
I‘m fascinated by the emergence of photographic
technology, from the first camera obscura to modern-day DSLRs. I created
the NIE (National Image Enforcement) to satirize the immense power a camera
affords its wielder: a fictional organization designed to use the myth of photographic
objectivity as a means to reinforce and control the hegemony that dictates society.
Hyperbolizing reality, it takes inspiration from some of the NRA (National Rifle
Association) 's inflammatory, fear-mongering rhetoric such as "Defend Your Right to
Self Defense", given the prevalent equivocation between cameras and firearms in
the NIE's marketing material. In fact, the NIE logo itself is a modified rendition of the
NRA's.
However, rather than encouraging the sale of military-grade rifles to American
citizens, the NIE encourages Americans to ideologically sell themselves to its
authority- granting the NIE a "Big Brother" esque reign over visuality, the gaze, and
subsequently our culture.