Wokeness is in a state of transition. From the heights of hip it has fallen to the pits of parliamentary derision. This represents a clear shift in the broader community’s understanding of the implications of woke. A shift that takes us beyond wokeness into a new space : the post-woke. To my mind we don’t all react to the post-woke in the same way. Instead we choose a stance that is for or against the ideal.

Of course many of us still want to embrace the qualities of woke. We see things in the world that are not ideal and we want to work towards change. But it is also clear that there are a growing number among us who don’t share these ideals.

In essence post-woke is a further manifestation of fragmentation and division within our culture. Particularly within male culture as woke inevitably reflects on our attitudes towards “the other” and it is often men who have the most aggressively restrictive views about the other (eg incels). Consequently to be post-woke means seeing yourself as different to an opposing version of maleness.

This growing fracture can be seen as yet another signpost of the seemingly inevitable dissolution of our culture. In essence the end is nigh and the post-woke fragmentation of maleness is just the latest sign of it’s coming. Therefore it is an apt moment to survey the psyche of the post-woke male.

A survey that avoids the pre-woke masculine bravado of the decisive moment. Instead seeing photography as a progression of moments and employing a methodology that maximises the many moments of the photographic process. I call it Dystopian Constructionism. A virtual mindspace where the invariable shininess of consumer culture and an unreliable future meet in the shadows of post capitalism’s fragmentation. A beta version crypto-solvent designed to break the rigid bounds of mass-produced masculine necessity. Praying to rediscover the dream of freedom in the space between understanding and incoherence. A world beyond the false freedoms of constructed maleness. A world where we respect our environments, cultures and all variations of the other.