Louis Neven’s Blog
Old Punks
Do you know Exactitudes? If not, google it, it’s worth it. Exactitudes is a long-term photography project by Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek. They use photos to record the ‘dress codes’ of different social groups. I’m a fan. For me the most relevant series of photos is this one. It is a series of photos entitled “grannies” and taken in 1998, so 25 years ago this year. And at the time you also saw these women in the streets. Gray raincoat, water waves or permanent, with an always friendly and slightly vulnerable appearance. I not only saw them at the time, I knew them. My dear three great aunts, who I often visited, also looked like that on the street. It is a recognizable image from that time. But this image is no longer current. This became clear to me again a few weeks ago when I was at the annual meeting of the Socio-Gerontech Network. The SGN Network is a group of social scientists and engineers from around the world who study the relationship between older people and technology. Among them were Helen Manchester and Tot Foster, esteemed colleagues from the University of Bristol who delivered a project focusing on older people, innovation and culture. Part of that project involved older people using modern digital technology to express the way they grow older and experience being older. That gave unique results.
Punk Reunion
For example, Roland and Fanny made a video together that was inspired by the fact that they turned out to share a past. They met in the context of this art project and soon discovered that they both had a past as punks. For me, the punk movement stands for, among other things, young, unruly and militant. Do not use terms that you associate with the elderly. In 1977, the Sex Pistols released “God Save the Queen.” If you were 25 then, you’re 71 now. Old punks are a reality.
Old and Militant
But in Helen and Tot’s project there was one lady who was perhaps even more punk than Roland and Fanny. I don’t know whether Elanora was a punk at the time, but she is certainly contradictory, militant and, in her own way, absolutely young. With her pink hair and her ‘in your face’ provocative attitude, she rebels against “the beige”, which stands for all the things you are expected to do, not do, be and not be as an older person. Elanora doesn’t want to garden or knit, she doesn’t want reading glasses and a stand-up chair, or an unadventurous holiday with a boat on a river. Elanora lives life full throttle, with her hair on fire and everyone can see it, whether you feel like it or not. So cool. She points out that we need to adapt our images of the elderly and, by extension, our policies, our technology and our products for the elderly. And maybe some things should just go in the trash. To put it in music terms: it’s not Vera Lynn and Edith Piaff anymore. They are the Beatles and the Stones and now also the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Very different music, for very different people. And we will increasingly have to adapt our policy, our care and our technology to this.
Louis Neven – Trendbureau Gelderland
Trendbureau Gelderland provides research, advice, lectures and workshops on social themes.
Website (in Dutch) :https://trendbureaugelderland.nl/