The Backwards Man
This piece responds directly to a photograph by Diane Arbus – “The Backwards Man in His Hotel Room”. Ever since first seeing the photograph, I have always wanted to write music to accompany it. Music that would be both tentative and voyeuristic, and that expresses that same sense of loneliness.
The work is one of Arbus’s early works, and in each piece, there is always a sense that she recognizes the subject and the subject recognizes her – an act of mutual seeing. This picture in particular always seemed like such a complete picture of loneliness, and the despair one feels when they are at odds with their own body. There is something poignant about the hotel room as well – the bare lightbulb, the asymmetrical furniture. The sense that the very world of the photograph is temporary and fleeting. That the man in the picture – maybe a contortionist? – is performing for themself.