Alpha: Simon Mullan

As the world is globalised the local is polarised, tribes become increasingly based on ideology rather than ethnicity. Kids from the same street wearing the same clothes express their belonging to different clans of the intellect (well…) by which hue they pick for their nylon Alpha Industries MA-1 military flight jackets: neo-nazis – green; graffers – blue; hoodlums – black; turks – red; gays – silver; et cetera. Presumably Orwell or Huxley could not have imagined how well the human aptitude for conformity would fulfil their aesthetic visions of dystopia.

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Platform Stockholm, August 2011.

Maestro Mullan stands in the middle of an industrial courtyard, conducting a thundering sound performance from the sub-woofers of super-tuned Audis circled around him, their neon lights beaming in the black night. The species is different, but this is the exact same behaviour exhibited by the vivid birds of paradise or the peacock – male adolescents aesthetically signalling their reproductive advantages, in part by displaying a vulnerability; an invitation to attack.

Simon Mullan is attentive to these instinctive idiosyncrasies. Not for criticism or fetischism, just for observation.