jesper ulvelius
stuff by jesper ulvelius. see more here.
[all jesper ulvelius. top to bottom: untitled. 2006-7. the river. 2006. starship. 2008.]
Monday, June 30, 2008
[all jesper ulvelius. top to bottom: untitled. 2006-7. the river. 2006. starship. 2008.]
andy freeberg
andy freeberg's photos of gallery front desks. see more here.
[all andy freeberg. from the series sentry. top to bottom: sonnabend. luhring augustine.]
Friday, June 27, 2008
interview • katja mater
i heart photograph: this image is from your series 'burning with desire'. what is your process in making this body of work? where does the title come from?
katja mater: the series ‘burning with desire’ shows pictures of the complete content of books by shooting all the pages on only one negative. i ‘show’ the entire contents, and by doing so, erase them. the result is a summary, a book shaped blur. the books i used for this project are books that were recently important to me for my thinking about photography.
the title of the project comes from one of the books i used, a book by geoffrey batchen called burning with desire. batchen writes about very early experiments with photography, starting about 45 years before its invention was announced in 1839. he analyzes the emerging desire to photograph which preceded the actual invention. he examines the output of various very early experiments by the ‘first photographers’. he finds they were not, as many historians seem to have thought, devoted to capturing reality, but that their main interest was in deconstruction.
the title further comes from the act of ‘burning’ as used in the darkroom, leading to more image showing up by overexposure, one of my desires using the medium.
i.h.p.: you've said before that your subject matter is the ‘medium-specific characteristics of photography and its framework.’ what are those characteristics? how/why did they begin to interest you?
k.m.: i see the possibilities and impossibilities of the medium as the medium-specific characteristics of photography. its framework, lighting, history, the relationship between photography and its referent, three-dimensional space within the limitations of a flat surface, time that eludes a normal sense of time. conventions such as these and their inherent limitations intrigue me.
most intriguing are the border zones of the medium—i try to find a balance there. analogue photography has clear-cut rules, its standards are not subject to change. many people see photography as a medium with a highly focused function. to me it functions as a sort of grid in which i aim to trick the camera into recording unrealistic scenes. i try to capture phenomena and moments that one would think are impossible. thereby, creating extra space to view the medium and focus on photography more as a creating medium than a recording medium.
i.h.p.: in many ways your photographs work to make transparent what most photography aims to keep well concealed: its process. can you talk about this deconstructive impulse?
k.m.: my work is like an investigation, experimental, but unlike the methodological approach of scientists, i examine the subjects of my investigations with keen interest, almost in a playful way.
mostly, photography is considered to be a very factual medium, devoted to constructing and revealing matter, but it can disturb and deconstruct just as well. i emphasize the deconstructing and concealing qualities. i am interested in and see photography as essentially experimental. i take it apart to see what is inside, what makes it tick. i am intrigued by the technical context of the medium, in contrast to the ‘magic’ of the photographic process. i emphasize and at the same time escape it, break it with itself.
i am intrigued by phenomena such as light, time, and color, and how these aspects change when you photograph them in a certain manner. photographic registration is often compared to the perception of the human eye. by placing the photographic perception of the camera next to the perception of the human eye, i show the extreme differences in outcome. i turn the medium in on itself, and by doing so disturb its status of accuracy. i offer the viewers my look at photography and at the same time make them experience their own perception.
i.h.p.: many photographers make control over the way a subject is framed, lit, composed, etc. an important part of their practice. one thing i've always loved about your pictures is that they feel against this way of working. visual decisions seem to follow from content or subject matter more than rules about what makes a good photograph. how do decisions about what a photograph will look like play out for you?
k.m.: i feel that my subject matter and the visual decisions that i make about the appearance of an image need to be balanced, need to complete each other. i guess i am a purist in that sense. the construction of the images is almost self-reflective in the sense that the process is always present and apparent in the work in such a way that a viewer cannot look at the image without seeing a reflection of the process of its making. in the 'dancers' series, for example, the audio equipment that i used to play the music is visible in (almost) every frame, as a ‘production-still life’. i like that kind of thing and i think it helps to create images that go beyond the flat surface.
it makes little sense to further improve or perfect my technical skills, i don’t consider them very necessary for what i do. it would be more distracting to smoothen all asperity out of the images, making them look like they are in ‘dustless still-life heaven’. i want them to visualize the connections to time and space and sometimes even show the context of the studio.
since i have no formal training in photography i have been free to be inquisitive and to explore it from an informal angle without the limitations of conventions. i work in an investigating and experimental way, so i consider trial and error part of the job. a failed experiment might still become a frame, the subject of a discussion on the parameters of failure and success.
katja mater: the series ‘burning with desire’ shows pictures of the complete content of books by shooting all the pages on only one negative. i ‘show’ the entire contents, and by doing so, erase them. the result is a summary, a book shaped blur. the books i used for this project are books that were recently important to me for my thinking about photography.
the title of the project comes from one of the books i used, a book by geoffrey batchen called burning with desire. batchen writes about very early experiments with photography, starting about 45 years before its invention was announced in 1839. he analyzes the emerging desire to photograph which preceded the actual invention. he examines the output of various very early experiments by the ‘first photographers’. he finds they were not, as many historians seem to have thought, devoted to capturing reality, but that their main interest was in deconstruction.
the title further comes from the act of ‘burning’ as used in the darkroom, leading to more image showing up by overexposure, one of my desires using the medium.
i.h.p.: you've said before that your subject matter is the ‘medium-specific characteristics of photography and its framework.’ what are those characteristics? how/why did they begin to interest you?
k.m.: i see the possibilities and impossibilities of the medium as the medium-specific characteristics of photography. its framework, lighting, history, the relationship between photography and its referent, three-dimensional space within the limitations of a flat surface, time that eludes a normal sense of time. conventions such as these and their inherent limitations intrigue me.
most intriguing are the border zones of the medium—i try to find a balance there. analogue photography has clear-cut rules, its standards are not subject to change. many people see photography as a medium with a highly focused function. to me it functions as a sort of grid in which i aim to trick the camera into recording unrealistic scenes. i try to capture phenomena and moments that one would think are impossible. thereby, creating extra space to view the medium and focus on photography more as a creating medium than a recording medium.
i.h.p.: in many ways your photographs work to make transparent what most photography aims to keep well concealed: its process. can you talk about this deconstructive impulse?
k.m.: my work is like an investigation, experimental, but unlike the methodological approach of scientists, i examine the subjects of my investigations with keen interest, almost in a playful way.
mostly, photography is considered to be a very factual medium, devoted to constructing and revealing matter, but it can disturb and deconstruct just as well. i emphasize the deconstructing and concealing qualities. i am interested in and see photography as essentially experimental. i take it apart to see what is inside, what makes it tick. i am intrigued by the technical context of the medium, in contrast to the ‘magic’ of the photographic process. i emphasize and at the same time escape it, break it with itself.
i am intrigued by phenomena such as light, time, and color, and how these aspects change when you photograph them in a certain manner. photographic registration is often compared to the perception of the human eye. by placing the photographic perception of the camera next to the perception of the human eye, i show the extreme differences in outcome. i turn the medium in on itself, and by doing so disturb its status of accuracy. i offer the viewers my look at photography and at the same time make them experience their own perception.
i.h.p.: many photographers make control over the way a subject is framed, lit, composed, etc. an important part of their practice. one thing i've always loved about your pictures is that they feel against this way of working. visual decisions seem to follow from content or subject matter more than rules about what makes a good photograph. how do decisions about what a photograph will look like play out for you?
k.m.: i feel that my subject matter and the visual decisions that i make about the appearance of an image need to be balanced, need to complete each other. i guess i am a purist in that sense. the construction of the images is almost self-reflective in the sense that the process is always present and apparent in the work in such a way that a viewer cannot look at the image without seeing a reflection of the process of its making. in the 'dancers' series, for example, the audio equipment that i used to play the music is visible in (almost) every frame, as a ‘production-still life’. i like that kind of thing and i think it helps to create images that go beyond the flat surface.
it makes little sense to further improve or perfect my technical skills, i don’t consider them very necessary for what i do. it would be more distracting to smoothen all asperity out of the images, making them look like they are in ‘dustless still-life heaven’. i want them to visualize the connections to time and space and sometimes even show the context of the studio.
since i have no formal training in photography i have been free to be inquisitive and to explore it from an informal angle without the limitations of conventions. i work in an investigating and experimental way, so i consider trial and error part of the job. a failed experiment might still become a frame, the subject of a discussion on the parameters of failure and success.
[photo: het fotografish genoegen by katja mater. see more of katja's work here.]
interview by laurel ptak
Thursday, June 26, 2008
shirana shahbazi
from the project 'flowers, fruits and portraits' by shirana shahbazi. see more here.
[all shirana shahbazi. top to bottom: schaedel-01-2007. frucht-02-2007. mineral-04-2007.]
wang qingsong
work by wang qingsong. see more right here.
[all wang qingsong. top to bottom: heaven. 2003. dormitory. 2005. poisonous spider. 2005.]
hank willis thomas
from hank willis thomas's project 'unbranded.' as hank says about the work "unbranded is a series of images taken from magazine advertisements targeting a black audience or featuring black subjects, which i digitally manipulated and appropriated....i have removed all aspects of the advertising information, e.g., texts, logos, in order to reveal what's being sold. nothing more is altered." see more here.
[all hank willis thomas. from the series unbranded. top to bottom: oj dingo. jungle fever. 1991/2007. 1980/2007. make a radical departure. 1985/2007.]
[all hank willis thomas. from the series unbranded. top to bottom: oj dingo. jungle fever. 1991/2007. 1980/2007. make a radical departure. 1985/2007.]
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
archive • larchmont historical society
all of a sudden many small towns, libraries, and organizations are putting their pictures up in online archives. these all tend to be a odd mix of personal, government, and professional pictures. one of these is the larchmont historical societies collection here.
[all from the larchmont historical society.]
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
yamamoto kansuke
jessica williams
jessica williams's 'calendar'. "visual notes and images were layered on top of one another on a daily basis. no specific requirements were given to what could be put into the work; in the end the calendar included drawings, collages, photographs, photocopies, texts, old assignments, computer printouts, personal documents, film stills, etc. the work was only considered to be finished when the papers themselves become so heavy that nothing else could be added without everything falling apart." see more here.
[all jessica williams. calendar. 2008.]
Sunday, June 22, 2008
nina katchadourian
nina katchadourian's 'sorted books' project transforms book titles into something along the lines of visual minimalist poetry. as she explains "the project has taken place in many different places over the years, ranging form private homes to specialized public book collections. the process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom." see more here. and thanks to barry for the link.
[all nina katchadourian. from the series sorted books. top to bottom: akron stacks. 2001. bookpace. 2002. shark journal. 2001.]
lucy mcrae + bart hess
work by lucy mcrae + bart hess. "an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. they share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression...they work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low–tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement." see more of their work here. and read an interview with bart right here.
[all lucy mcrae + bart hess. top to bottom: grow on you. germination. exploded view.]
[all lucy mcrae + bart hess. top to bottom: grow on you. germination. exploded view.]
adam farcus
adam farcus's 'store interventions' at big box chains like target, kmart, and walgreens. he reshelves commodities based on color and formal arrangement (top and bottom) and inserts his own artwork into frames already for sale (middle). see more here.
[all adam farcus. top to bottom: tuesday, october 16, 2007, 8:16:26 pm, target, 1154 s clark st, chicago, il. walgreens intervetnion 1. sunday, september 30, 2007, 2:40:34 pm, kmart, 1360 ashland ave, chicago, il. ]
Friday, June 20, 2008
club internet
club internet's latest exhibition launched yesterday: the oracle show curated by harm van den dorpel. featuring work by aids-3d, kari altmann, charles broskoski, carl burgess, jeff carey, chris collins, aleksandra domanovic, harm van den dorpel, constant dullaart, joel holmberg, infobeard, oliver laric, guthrie lonergan, ilia ovechkin, rafael rozendaal, travess smalley, tntet, damon zucconi. up through july 12th see it here.
[all club internet. from the oracle show. top to bottom: dreamcaptchas by kari altmann. still from edge transfer by damon zucconi. still from resurrections by harm van den dorpel.]
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