Calvin McClure is 

a designer
a storyteller
“our resident art historian”

based in Los Angeles and Oakland, California.


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.

  1. IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS  / (陰翳礼讃)

  2. TRUST REGISTER 

  3. EVE GRILLZ (pt 1 & 2)

  4. NATIONAL IMAGE ENFORCEMENT

  5. MOTION & MISCELLANEOUS WORK

                                                         

NATIONAL IMAGE ENFORCEMENT
SUMMER 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.