Back in 1987 and way before the selfie craze ever took hold, Boston-based artist Karl Baden starting taking a picture of himself every morning.

Fast forward 27 years and 9,543 images later, and Baden has created a two minute time lapse video called “It Ain’t Over Yet: 24 Years, eight months, 11 days, in 2 minutes” which shows him aging over the years.

Besides documenting his aging process, Barden says that his project is comment about artistic process.

He says, “Artists need to be obsessive to get the work that they have to get done, done. They have to have some inner drive to do it; this is taking it to another step. This is a comment on the obsession and obsessively making work.” 

When I watched the video, I was struck by how quickly time seems to fly, and I was reminded of my own experiences of catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and seeing an older looking face than I remembered looking back at me.

(It also made me wonder if others might be inspired by Barden’s project and document their own aging.)

Many of us don’t think about it, but the truth is we are aging every minute of every day that we are alive. Despite all the anti-aging creams, plastic surgery, etc., the only sure-fire way to avoid it is to die.

In the meantime, Barden continues to take a picture a day and plans to continue until he dies.

My hope is that eventually he or someone after he passes will make one long video showing him age from the age of 34-his age when the project started-to whenever he passes.

 

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Editor: Bryonie Wise