idea entry: week 07: october 14

word of the week: PRESENTMan's attempt to visually depict "the present".

quotes:
"The direct experience of the present for each human is that it is what is here, now. Direct experience is of course subjective by definition yet, in this case, this same direct experience is true for all humans. For all of us, 'here' means 'where I am' and 'now' means 'when I am'. Thus, the common repeatable experience is that the present is inextricably linked to oneself.

In the time aspect, the conventional concept of 'now' is that it is some tiny point on a continuous timeline which separates past from future. It is not clear, however, that there is a universal timeline or whether, as relativity seems to indicate, the timeline is inextricably linked to the observer. Thus; is 'now' for me the same time as 'now' for you on a universal timeline, assuming a universal timeline exists? Adding to the confusion, in the physics view, there is no demonstrable reason why time should move in any one particular direction." -wiki

"What we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation."
– Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature

"To design a conscious creature you have to ensure two things: one, that its consciousness can be suitably embodied in a collocation of matter; and two, that three should be properties of its consciousness that it is conscious, of, i.e, introspectable properties. You have, then to build in a deep and a superficial layer. Both demands need to be met, but there is every reason to suppose that they cannot be met in the same way." (McGinn, 80)

"Thy letters have transported me beyond, this ignorant present, and I feel now, the future in the instant." - Shakespeare, Macbeth.

annotated source:
"Because time is such a slippery concept, we tend to image the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today. The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes. Presentism occurs because we fail to recognize that our future selves won't see the world the way we see it now. " (Gilbert, 162)

"When brains plug holes in their conceptualization of yesterday and tomorrow, they tend to use a material called today." (Gilbert, 125)

"If the past is a wall with some holes, the future is a hole with no walls. Memory uses the filling-in trick, but imagination is the filling-in trick, and if the present lightly colors our remembered pasts, it thoroughly infuses our imagined futures. More simply said, most of us have a tough time imagining a tomorrow that is terribly different from today, and we find it particularly difficult to image that we will ever think, want, or feel differently than we do now." (Gilbert, 126)

[Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. United States of America: Vintage Books, 2007.]

We are broken. According to this man, we are default-ly broken, from the very start. We are like hamsters running forever in our little wheels.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html

summary:
It has been a constant struggle to feel at the most conscious; I've been on auto-pilot.
The hardest thing is not the trying to keep up with all the commotion surrounding me and words exchanged part; it is merely the fact that my body is aching to act conscious, over all the unconscious atoms in my body. It is like a candle flame trying to with stand the gusts of wind, thriving to burn bright.
And I am having trouble imagining that things will be better tomorrow, that tomorrow will differ from today in all the good sense.

progression of imagery for project

SUMMARY ON CONVERSATION WITH PAUL:
"Paul and I talked today about gravity, physical forces upon objects, quantum mechanics, Heisenburg's uncertainty principle, how particles are move and the inability to measure them, the camera can capture metaphors or it can be a scientific instrument, what can a camera measure, the principle of looking, observing.

We spoke of sleep, a period of time where our brains can rest, is it possible to disengage it from all forms of stimuli, modernized studies of Muybridge, multi-tasking, why people behave differently when monitored, we can only be slightly conscious when we look back on memories, where the unconsciousness of our behaviors and manners surface.

All these subjects and sub-subjects that Paul and I spoke about were potential paths in which this body of work could easily walk down. The the body of images that I am creating act as a hub, from which all these paths shoot off from it. Now it is only a matter of collecting data, observing, witnessing and analyzing the data; it will be an attempt at finding an unending "spiritual resevior - ineffable, mysterious, and yet the surest, truest ground of existence."

I asked Paul how he felt about the in-camera vignetting, which lead to be an aspect in which the work could be addressed by. The barrel of the lens is part of the raw, it is what we see, the honest photograph is actually in the form of a circle, not a rectangle. We we talk about being an observer of phenomena, we must see in its true form.

"SUBJECT 04"

"SUBJECT 03"

"SUBJECT 02"

"SUBJECT 01"

Images attained so far for the project, subjects will soon submit a working title to me. It will accompany the image and serve as a reminiscent artifact, a moment of conscious reflection on the unconsciousness that may have surfaced in the image of the past, a re-evaluation of the memory created, a step back in time, to live "consciously in the past" and make sense of behavior, mental states, and the physical being.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
I am wondering if anyone knows of willing able bodies in the age range between 30- 70 plus, who would be kind enough to allow me to photograph them in their space. If you would be kind enough to gently ask around and see if they are interested, then put me in contact with them, I would appreciate it. Think of family members, friends of friends, etc. I am not lucky enough to have that kind of connection being here in Richmond. Paul and I believe my work will benefit greatly if the demographic could be expanded.

artist entry: week 07: october 11

Dave Nightingale: photography: i can lose myself in the moment

interest and relations:
Nightingale's images caught my eyes, not just because of the vibrant colors that burst from every seam, but also because of what he said in an interview that sounded honest and sincere. He responded to a question in a interview (below in quotes), and it was his response that gave more value to his images, for me personally. Sometimes, I cannot explain why I photograph the things I photograph. I believe anyone can relate to this, sometimes you just photograph what you do and just do it to rid it from your system, perhaps it will take more than a few shots, but a lifetime commitment to the content. But if only you could just go on and release that indescribable driving force, satisfy that hunger or curiosity, follow that desire, do all of that without having to explain, justify, or reason with anyone else. Why, why, why? I honestly am so over hearing that question. Should we not encourage one another to seek, to explore, to search, to find, to discover? Not everything in life is worth the breath or time to explain and reason with. By the time one has reasoned, the moment has past by and you are left standing without ground beneath, holding you up. Not every moment of the now photographed needs some sort of profiting or gaining reason behind it to be projected into the future. Every shot should be taken, because it is for the now, for the here, for the selfish self. I try to practice that, because I do not want to lose myself over to _________.

Another thought that came from Nightingale's images is, I find a strange relationship between the images that I have chosen below. The number of people does not have as strong of an effect as the color atmosphere of the image. For example even if there are two beautiful people portrayed as together, happy and carefree, when it is set against a calm, self-losing tone of blue, the only feeling that comes across is loneliness, something that once was, a memory. Another image with just a single hunched over person surrounded by radiating gold and yellow, warm and wonderful, gives the meaning of individual, singular, alone, a whole new meaning. Pictures rendering great distance render different feelings depending on the number of people, the atmosphere. For some reason, we are all drawn to the "other side", even if it equates to the "vague out there". When we are given the choice of thinking it and acting on it, the "out there" is the most gorgeously rendered stretch of land. However, when we are forced and projected out there involuntarily, due to forces out of our control, we seek to return to "square one", to "the other side before this side". It is sad that we suffer uncontrollably, but I laugh thinking about it, perhaps a nervous laugh to cover up the fear that seeps from the truth and the on going pain in each and all.

biography:
"David Nightingale is the photographer behind Chromasia, an award winning photoblog that was selected as "Best Photoblog" by numerous publications, and was ranked as the 6th most influential blog in the UK by the Financial Times."

quotes:
"Question: You seem to take a lot of photographs from strolls on the beach. Could you tell us a little about that?

Answer from D.N: One of my favorite ways of relaxing is to take a walk along the beach, photographing either the landscape, or any items washed up along the shore. In some ways, though I’m not sure I could explain it all that coherently, walking along the shore and taking photographs is one of the ways I can lose myself in the moment."

"Being aware, really aware of these colors and how they affect our perception and the responses they evoke inside of us is important. Understanding how you can affect these colors with the tools we use every day is even more important. I'm not talking about Photoshop or some bizarre filter, but basic tools you should have in your camera bag or vest at all times."

[http://www.moosepeterson.com/techtips/color.html]

images:
review, artist & gallery link:
http://www.chromasia.com/
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/davidjnightingale

idea entry: week 06: october 07

word of the week: BOOKS

quotes:
"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested:
that is, some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously, and some few
to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. " - Francis Bacon

"I've traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books."

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." - Joseph Addison

"She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." - Louisa May Alcott

annotated source:
"Language externalizes the disguise consciousness throws over thought. The original obstacle to our doing logic correctly is thus the apparent structure of our conscious thoughts, rather than that of public language. Language gets the blame because of its relative palpability: you can point to the offending portion of the sentence but not to the corresponding component of the thought." (McGinn, 96)

McGinn, Colin. The Problem of Consciousness: Essays towards a Resolution. Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell, 1991. 96. Print.

I think this quote is fascinating, the fact that if we took this analogy of thoughts and consciousness and applied it to a photograph. We can point to the physical aspect of movement and behavior shown in a image, but we cannot point to the very "gesture" of a person in real time and analyze. It has to be done through memory, whether recorded through an image or a film. Only then can we dissect each part of the action and study it. So with my project, a study of behavior prescribed from unconscious states of mind, I can point in the image part of a person's action that reveals their mental state of mind, but I cannot uncover that state of mind in the present real time. It is fleeting, intangible, ungraspable and only be looked at and analyze in terms of the past.

summary:
We look to books for answers. We read to understand. We read and over analyze what we read and begin to contradict ourselves. We escape to books to live other lives. We hide in books because we need answers and we are too afraid to let anyone know and ask for their help. We live in books because it has happy ending sometimes. We live in books because we can choose who we want to be around, who we want to fall in love with, and who makes our wishes come true. We read books to better understand ourselves. We look to connect through books. We look to be books, because new ideas in books can be metaphorical to hands that lead and pull us in new directions we haven't thought to go about. Books understand us. Books are non-judgmental. Books only echo our curiosity. If we are clever enough, we can get through life and find all the answers to our troubles along the way through books, loyal company and guidance.

BUT, they also drive us crazy! Book make us doubt ourselves. Books contradict our views. Books argue with our believes and confuse our mind with what we have previously acquire. Books lead us to feeling of mistrust, sometimes. Books sometimes lead us down stray paths. Books play games with us. Books trick us and attacks our mind with unexpected twists of plots and endings. Books sometimes hurt us with the truth. They keep us in balance with the thoughts and imaginations that we make up in our head.

Everything said is relevant to my work, from ideas arising, to satisfying curiosity, to looking for answers. Photograph can substitute in for the word book above and everything remains the same.

julika rudelius: lecture questions & response

Visiting Artist Lecture: Julika Rudelius: October 5th, 2010

"Julika Rudelius (b. 1968, Cologne) addresses a broad field of complex themes in her videos and photographs, ranging from structures of social power and prejudices to role clichés, identity, and cultural hegemony. Rudelius sees art as a form of social expression, as a communicative tool for drawing attention to seemingly trivial observations of everyday life, revealing at the same time their complex social characteristics."


Question one: "In addition to Rudelius's delicate sense of social dynamics, it is these clear structures that make the sometimes edited, sometimes free dialogues in her works so powerful for the viewer." How do you think the edit of your questions out of these "conversations" effects the audience? You remain unheard, yet your questions are what lead your subject to think and speak of something they did not think to project out vocally.

Question two: "Her photographs document the tension between togetherness and distance most subtly. For these pictures are by no means “documents” in the sense of authentic representations of social reality in the Netherlands. The pictures are faked. And Rudelius has carefully inserted little mistakes into her arrangements... Sometimes the mental clichés block access to the world around us and then we see a person only as a race rather than as an individual." If this is so, then why try so hard to embed "artificial elements in to make a point? Is the act of that, not only embed a little of your mental cliches into it rather than the audience?

Response after lecture:
I believe the most interesting part of the lecture was towards the end, the artist's attempt to re-evaluate her methods and research and answer questions that arose from the audience. Perhaps because of her honesty and genuineness in trying to answer the questions that made her answers more believable. I think the way I felt at the end was what Rudelius wanted me to feel through all her other works too; assessment of truth, curiosity to find it, and where truth tends to show up.

Three words to describe Rudelius & work: curious, human agitation, connectedness
The find the ability to feel disconnected and yet still try and try and try to understand and become whole with other elements surrounding you is inspiring. It is hard to constant want something solid to stand on. And also harder to keep it and feel secure enough to not be constantly worried about it being taken away from you at any moment.

After listening to Rudelius's lecture, something that stands out to me was the things she said towards the end, after watching her work "Forever" and "Politician; Charismatic Leader", was when she spoke of her work being "manipulated". That in this manipulation lies the truth.
Because she "controls" her subject through head pieces, guiding them to answer certain questions and move in a particular fashion, it is contradicting when she originally states that "although I manipulate the films, my subject, and the viewers, I still keep the authentic nature in it". From that I have been able to form this:

:People will not have "truth" be handed to them.
:They deny the thought that "truth" can be a gift to give.
:Non-controlled parts of people are only easy to detect when every thing around them is controlled.
:We desire to have truth, but we refuse it when it is handed and delivered to us.
:So we come up with this way to sort of trick ourselves, we manipulate the "truth", steer it in directions we want it to go, push certain ideas forward, and only then do we begin to reach the outer skirts of "truth". By seeing what is left behind, the honest "slips" or "mistakes"; the truth is revealed. And in these mistakes, we are able to trust ourselves, we feel human again, human enough to admit to mistakes and that is the the sincerest form of truth.

We basically trick ourselves only to later realize that, it was and will always be the only way to get ourselves to where we want to be.

All of Rudelius's work have lead me to that conclusion, and that conclusion is only relevant for the "now", because tomorrow everything will be re-analyzed and re-evaluated again.

P.S: I wish I could have actually seen all her work in its full length. What a let down, they were truly intriguing and engaging. The role flopping back and forth from spectator to participant definitely exist like she wanted.

artist entry: week 06: october 04

Matthieu Ricard: photography: looking within, looking without on happiness

interest and relations:
I found Ricard through TEDTalks. It was first listening to his words and ideas that made me more interested in his photographic work. It was powerful to feel those inspirational words that were carried through in his images. I felt the rawness, the happiness he spoke of. The unexpectedness of happiness to come out of nowhere if your mind is not settled and determined to feeling it; that is when it comes to you. However there was a sadness that emitted from his imagery. I felt as if the happy moment capture in the image is not pressed into this flat two dimensional image, a memory that has already long be logged into the brain somewhere deep inside. After hearing his talk, I wanted so eagerly to feel all those feelings through his image. There was a richness to them, but they also feel a whole world apart from the now and here, and it becomes a disappointment because those desired feelings are un-graspable.

biography:
"Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, an author, translator, and photographer. He has lived, studied, and worked in the Himalayan region for over forty years.

The son of French philosopher Jean-François Revel and artist Yahne Le Toumelin, Matthieu was born in France in 1946 and grew up among the personalities and ideas of Paris’ intellectual and artistic circles. He earned a Ph.D. degree in cell genetics at the renowned Institut Pasteur under the Nobel Laureate Francois Jacob. In 1967, he traveled to India to meet great spiritual masters from Tibet."

quotes:
"While everyone wants to be happy..there's a big difference between aspiration and achievement. That is the tradgedy of human beings. We fear misery but run to it. We want happiness but turn away from it. The very means used to ease suffering often fuel it. How could such a misjudgement occur? Because we are confused about how to go about it.We look for happiness outside ourselves when it is basically an inner state of being. If it were an exterior condition it would be forever beyond our reach."

"We are all a mixture of light and shadow, strengths and weaknesses. Our mind can be our best friend, and our worst enemy. But this state of affairs is neither optimal nor inevitable. Each of us has the potential to free our self from mental states that cause suffering for ourselves and others, to find inner peace and to contribute to the well-being of others. But just wishing for this is not enough. We need to train our minds."

images:


review, artist & gallery link:
http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/index.php/index/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

idea entry: week 05: sept 30

word of the week: BODY LANGUAGE
quotes:
"Sense perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of outward objects independently of the matter of which they are composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the gold or other metal of which the seal is composed. As the subject of impression, perception involves a movement and a kind of qualitative change; but perception is not merely a passive or receptive affection. It in turn acts, and, distinguishing between the qualities of outward things, becomes “a movement of the soul through the medium of the body.”

"The body is a medium for purposeful creativity. Through it, active change is achieved by integrating the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the individual. The result may be practical such as problem solving, dissolving stress, and healing emotional or physical trauma and pain. Or the result may be as simple as discovering new feelings and finding freedom in unblocked self-expression."

"People often do not realize it, but their body movements are an example of unintentional behaviors that can give away their thoughts to others. Because different personality types exhibit different behaviors, you need to be conscious of how you move, as many times people are able to measure you by the behaviors you display."

"Again unconscious body language can give a lot of information about how a person is feeling or what they are thinking, without actually saying a word. The problem with unconscious body language is that it can sometimes reveal things that we – as individuals – do not want revealed. For example if we are nervous about something we might absentmindedly bite our fingernails or continually rub our eyes. We might drum our fingers on a desk or fidget uncomfortably in our chairs, the list is endless for the physical movements but there are a limited number of emotional corresponders."

annotated source:
"These reflections on temporal objects and experienced time indicate that the flow of our conscious life is the condition for the possibility of the disclosure of temporal objects and experienced time, a condition that begins from the privileged standpoint of the now, which, again, nevertheless occurs in an interplay with past and future rather than in isolation from them. More than this descriptive account of some essential features of time’s appearance, however, Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness concerns itself with the structure of the act of perceiving that allows us to apprehend a temporal object as unified across its manifold moments."

"Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. .

Why is it that we cannot truly experience life each second as it comes? I would like to think of memory and consciousness and unconsciousness as being stations in an assembly line in our brain. Each second of life passes through our senses, first it reaches the unconsciousness station where we just absorb in the information and our automatic system runs to keep us focus, then the "event" passes through as being a memory, in which is recall and think about it and analyze it, this then becomes the moment we are conscious, as conscious as we can be. Basically, we think we respond quick, but in reality we are delayed in our mental processing. We are only 'conscious' when we recall events from our memory. I believe we always speak in terms of past tense. Example "the show was amazing", notice this is the moment you realize that you have been experiencing something and are now ready to address it. Although cases when you say "the show is amazing," this is you just wishing and wanting it to continue so that later on, you can revisit the experience and say "the show was amazing."

summary:
If our mind could be compared with a camera. It goes like this. When are think we are conscious in our experience, this is when we click the shutter release button. Even though, when we are experiencing we are actually unconscious, this is when the shutter is open and you look through the view finder and cannot see anything, yet. Only when the camera shutter closes and the image is revealed on the back of the camera (digital era) or appears on the film and looked on a light table, this equates to us "evaluating" the event, recalling memories.

artist entry: week 05: sept 27

Dave Nitsche: photography: every emotion I have is here

interest and relations:
When I first came across his artist, it was his technical skills that drew me into his images. They immaculate, sharp in detail and well refined in terms of composition, color, and concept. The second thing that drew me in were the simplistic nature of his images. Objects personified emphasized with the selective use of color. He understands postures and gestures and is able to translate all those elements from the human world into inanimate object world. The images are very symbolic, it is up to viewer's knowledge to decipher the elements to understand the message. I think Nitsche's works are smart, precise, and engage viewers because it seems so "orderly" at first glance, once you understand the message, the piece begins to look chaotic and "messy." It's the kind of work that if you want to stay "clean", don't look too close into it. I have always enjoyed minimalistic still life and Nitsche brings so much more to table in that. I would love to watch him work, because his techniques for some of the images are phenomenal.

biography:
"About 6 years ago Dave bought a camera to shoot some family stuffs. One wintry day he decided to go into his basement and try shooting some studio stuff. For the next 3 years all he did, aside from work, was shoot. He’d spend 40-60 hours a week in his basement clicking away. During that time the art world started noticing. He had his first solo show after shooting for only 18 months. Eventually through this process he found his own voice. Shooting human subjects was never his intention. He wanted to find a way to bring out human emotions in inanimate objects. After 6 years he is still growing and looking for ways to inject emotion into images.

Dave’s work has been featured in over a hundred magazines world wide (Digital Photo (UK), Popular Photography (US), Unique Image (Taiwan), Digi Photo (Romania), Shutterbug (US), Popular Photography (China), Australian Photographer (AU) magazines to mention just a few), he’s had shows around the globe and is considered a fresh voice in photography. His images are immediately identifiable and in the abundant world of art photography these days, that’s pretty amazing. "

[Nitsche, Dave. Dave Nitsche Conceptual Photography. Web. 26 Sept. 2010. .]

quotes:
"He wanted to find a way to bring out human emotions in inanimate objects. After 6 years he is still growing and looking for ways to inject emotion into images."

I think the core of Nitsche's work is stated in that simple sentence. I was not able to find much text on Nitsche at all, but his images is publicly spread and distributed out there. I'm not sure how that works. He holds honorable positions in many organizations of the field, but there doesn't seem to be much scoop on what he has to say. Although in his biography, what he wrote there in those sentences, sums up his work. His work does really do all the talking for Nitsche. His views of the world, of people, of himself can be found in his imagery.
I would still love to be able to hear him explain on all of his processes though.

images:

review, artist & gallery link:
http://www.davenitsche.net/
http://www.davenitsche.com/
http://www.jamesschotgallerystudio.com/
http://1x.com/

idea entry: week 04: sept 23

word of the week: SOLITUDE
[Margin, By Huge. DavidMixner.com - Live From Hell's Kitchen. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. .]

quotes:
"The common definition of "solitude" is "the state of being alone." But the nature of solitude is complex, since one can be "alone" in the presence of another person. Solitude can encompasses a variety of states that may range from pleasurable to exceedingly painful. In the latter case, it is termed "loneliness". (Modell, 121)

"Even the word Utopia has fallen on bad times. A design can be dismissed peremptorily by calling it Utopian, which means, in plain language, unrealistic, impractical, and expensive." (Sommer, 146)

annotated source:
"Solitude is often equated with loneliness, but the two are poles apart. Only in deep solitude, when the mind becomes still, does the state of fullness exist. When solitude decreases, the mind tends to become extroverted, dependent upon its surroundings, living in crowded memories. When we are occupied with memories and anxieties, the present experiences lose their vividness. The mind becomes dull. Meaning-full communication is choked, and inwardly we feel agitated, restless, and in the extreme, lonely." (Mumbai, preface)

Everything is a cycle. You start from top and slide to bottom, then you turn and climb again. We go from one thing to the other, not knowing that it is one a preconditioning to go back to what we started with. Instead of "back tracking", we are circling back to point A, by taking another route.

summary:
My work looks to explore the nature of the mind when it seeks for solitude. When it becomes its own sort of company and entertainment and guidance. If you think about it, it does all those things. We never think about it that way, but our mind is consistently doing those things to help keep us sane. We are guaranteed solitude, can you imagine that, sleep, the time of the day designated to refresh our body and mind, to free it from other forces and let us look inward. We escape right there and then. When our own mind clouds up our being too much we seek diversion from the outer world, we let our thoughts fade away with distractions and busy our bodies with things we force ourselves to do, our "responsibilities" to the outer world is a way to get away from ourselves. I want to explore with my work the idea of escape the world to be alone with ourselves, to be our own kind of company. Our "beings" is like a rubber ball, ricocheting from the outer world, to our personal space, to be with ourselves, then projecting ourselves into other mediums of the world (books, television, nature, material goods, etc).

artist entry: week 04: sept 20

ATTA KIM: photography: all things eventually, however, disappear

interest and relations:
Kim's work explores the nature of man kind. He also explores it with the most graceful method, long exposures, a passive act of witnessing and recording. Waiting behind the lens to see the actions fold and play out, with not much force or shaping, but just letting the nature of visual happenings happen. I really enjoy the mystical nature of the imagery. It is sort of a gift. Eight long hours have been compressed into one two-dimensional photograph for you to see. It is kind of like a cheat-sheet in life. It is like being given a map, rather than you yourself explore the land. Given that the experience cannot compare, but it is a condensed artifact of life.

biography:
"Atta Kim (born 1956) is a South Korean photographer who has been active since the mid-1980s. He has exhibited his work internationally and was the first photographer chosen to represent South Korea in the São Paulo Biennial.

His early works were black and white portraits of subjects including psychiatric patients, individuals designated as "cultural assets" by the Korean government, and his own family. His later and most notable series of works have been exhibited as full color, large scale prints: The Museum Project, which depicts people "preserved" within Plexiglas cases placed in various settings, and ON-AIR, which uses long exposures and image compositing to make individual people and objects dissolve. Kim's work has been heavily influenced by Zen Buddhist concepts of interconnectedness and transience, and he commonly uses Buddhist iconography." - Wiki

quotes: "Eastern philosophy says, “The past has already passed, the future is not here yet, and the present cannot be held.” I know this is my best moment. We don’t know what is going to happen next. If my life is glorious today, then tomorrow will be an extension of today." - Atta Kim "Many New Yorkers went off crying seeing the one I took in New York," Kim said. "They couldn't bear to see their vigorous city empty. But I told them just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. The void does not mean emptiness but actually means everything." -Atta Kim

images:

review link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/design/12atta.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/the_museum_project.php

artist & gallery link:
http://www.attakim.com/main.html

idea entry: week 03: sept 16

word of the week: TRANSFORMATIONAL[Photoblog. Web. 16 Sept. 2010. .]
I want to be able to see that as "a scar in the sky" again.
quotes:
"Most people soon find themselves drifting into imagination and thought associations, demonstrating that man is not conscious of himself for most of the time. The illusion of his being conscious is created by memory. We actually remember only moments of consciousness, although we do not realize that this is so. In retrospect we remember those moments and assume we were fully awake the whole time... Man does not know himself. He does not know his own limitations and possibilities. He does not even know to how great an extent he does not know himself. So he assumes his mental state to be "conscious", fully aware and self-determined, when in fact he is acting to a very great extent on automatic responses and continuously dramatizing all the influences of his past. "

["Transforming the Mind - Transpersonal Psychology." Personal Development at Trans4mind. Web. 16 Sept. 2010. .] "First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. " - Napoleon Hill "It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory." - Edgar Degas

annotated source:
"The psychologist Howard Gardner provides the following examples: To one four-year old child, a streak of skywriting is "a scar in the sky"; to another of about the same age, her naked body is "barefoot all over"; to a third, a flashlight battery is a "sleeping bag all rolled up and ready to go to a friend's house"; and so on. Much of the magic of childhood is expressed by, and owned to, these metaphors and metaphorical - that is, transformational - ways of seeing." (Phillips, Escapism, 169)

[Tuan, Yi-fu. Escapism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998. Print.]

This passage leads me to another quote, "Although maturation is desired and desirable, not all of it is gain. There are also losses - losses of innocence and of wonder." (Phillips, Escapism, 161) I makes me think that sometimes we tend to see only on the surface, we tend to want to be so grounded that we become dull and lack that youthful feature of children, imagination and simplistic deciphering. I want to have a nice balance between the two, innocence and maturation of the mind.

summary:
This passage here scares me, "The illusion of his being conscious is created by memory. We actually remember only moments of consciousness, although we do not realize that this is so." I feel that with long exposures and time lapse images, it is like breaking across all those rules and boundaries. The element that fascinates me the most in long exposures and light drawings is the inability to recreate the exact same image again. Memory is the same. Once you have passed through the moment of experience, everything you think, breath, thought of, talk about, remember will never be precise and exact like that first intake of life. And each time you remember an event, the memory grows further and further from the "raw" truth, the raw data from the first moment it entered your mind. We are not as conscious and alive as we think we are... are we?

wafaa bilal: lecture question & response

Visiting Artist Lecture: Wafaa Bilal

"Iraqi born artist Wafaa Bilal has exhibited his art world wide, and traveled and lectured extensively to inform audiences of the situation of the Iraqi people, and the importance of peaceful conflict resolution."

Question one: Having the subject for the majority of your work, be something so political, bold, and harsh, while you are trying to highlight the importance of peaceful conflict resolution, I do understand your methods by portraying brutal, violent performance pieces. Why would you choose to do harm unto your own body, if you understand how painful and unethical it is for people to conflict pain unto each other? Should you not be the one to put a stop to it?

Question two: Does putting yourself in these "conditions", make others see the "lack of peace" in the world? Do you think that by experiencing these conditions in first person, and showing it to the world brings the action into light for world, or is it really for yourself, as an artist, to experience?

Response after Lecture:
The most interesting quote of the lecture was "all art is political art, the refusal to make political work is political art." I felt towards the end, I was able to genuinely connect with Bilal despite our differences in background, life, experiences, beliefs, and everything, but somehow after leaving the lecture, I felt a quite light and open mentally. It felt what he said, was almost as if he read my thoughts. I came in hesitant and reserved thinking I would not really enjoy Bilal would have to say, having previously looked at his work online. The three words that original thought of that described his work was violent, sadistic, angst. However, when I left the three words I had brought with became empathetic, compassionate, and honest.

I felt one of the things he spoke about in all his works was the idea of comfort zone versus conflict zone. The way I had felt originally, being ignorant and hesitant about understanding what he had to give was shifted and soften and changed at the end, after having exchanged a one-way dialogue with him, being spoken to and listening. I was in my comfort zone with not wanting to deal with the issues he so passionately follow. He brought me out of my comfort zone with his work. He brought me into a conflicting zone, his work made me uncomfortable, the intensity, the violent, and startling nature of warfare and blood and death. But then he told stories of his experiences in these work, film clips of his vulnerability, fragile state of mind, and stories of other encounters on the web, for his paintball project, similar to mine. People did not take the time to understand and engage themselves with the things that they fear. I am moved by this and was able to change my heart and listened, listened beyond the words that we was saying, but also feeling his personal pains and experiences. He was able to show me that "the body has its own language." He made me feel that it was possible to take on responsibility of a greater cause, even if you are just one man/woman. I saw this paintball project for something greater then it first appeared to be. He was finally able to deliver me back home, into my comfort zone, but now to contemplate on the big questions in life.

His work is powerful, but it was through what he had to say about the works afterward, that was intense and striking. The physical nature of the work itself, I did not care for. It was his experiences and growth from the work, afterward that I craved for more.

artist entry: week 03: sept 13

ALEXEY TITARENKO: photography: time standing still

interest and relations:
I chose this artist because not only are his images moving in that sense that they are intangible, but there is something mysterious about what the image renders and what it does not. The idea that if one stands still to be rendered "clearly" in a photograph, one must not escape, or "flee" out of the border. The movement shown in the photographs can be seen as escaping from, flee to, walking away, not seeing, and those are fragments of the private mind when it does not feel at peace. I am understanding what is means to escape, the differ "forms", "methods" of escape and what makes us come back. Why do we escape to, just to realize that we need to escape back to where we started? Is it possible to escape, without moving at all?

biography:
"Alexey Titarenko began photographing his hometown of St. Petersburg when he was 8 years old. At that age his aesthetic sensibilities were pretty inchoate; but a mere five years later he was searching the back streets and courtyards of old St. Petersburg, pre-Soviet relics, “under the influence of Dostoyevsky.” When he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Culture in 1983 and began his career work, Winogrand was less than a year away from death. Titarenko’s first body of work was the “Nomenklatura of Signs,” a wryly-ironic riff on the semiotics of the end days of the Soviet Union."

["The ASC: Street-Wise: The Photography of Garry Winogrand and Alexey Titarenko « John Bailey's Bailiwick." ASC: The American Society of Cinematographers. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. .]

quotes:"In the purest tradition of documentary photography, Titarenko plucks fragments from daily life with no staging whatsoever. But the use of long exposures and the subtlety of his black-and-white cameos endow the reality he confronts with a metaphysical dimension, timeless and introspective."
-Veronique Bouruet-Aubertot
Beux Arts Magazine

"The nuances of Titarenko's prints convey solitude and arrested motion, the blurred effect of long exposures and the camera’s intentional movement... The photographs are driven by an intense interest in the esthetics of the image."
-Edward Leffingwell
Art in America

[ALEXEY TITARENKO | PHOTOGRAPHY. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. .]

images:
review link:
http://www.ascmag.com/blog/2009/12/07/street-wise-the-photography-of-garry-winogrand-and-alexey-titarenko/

artist & gallery link:
http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/index.html
http://www.nailyaalexandergallery.com/artist/alexey-titarenko

idea entry: week 02: sept 09

word of the week: ESCAPE

(Babes in bathing suits, balloons, bows and arrows. Digital image. Wired Magazine. Web. 8 Sept. 2010. .)

quotes:
"Nature, to geographers, is the external natural environment. Where he does that leave the body - in particular, my animal body? The body is clearly nature. But it is not external to me. It is me: I don't want to, and in any case I can't, escape from it.Yet, this isn't quite true. In pain, I have often wished that I could abandon my body and be elsewhere. It is even possible to do so to a limited degree." (Tuan, preface)

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

""Escape to nature" is dependent on "escape from nature." The latter is primary and inexorable. It is so because pressures of population and social constraint must build up first before the desire to escape from them can arise; and I have already urged that these pressures are themselves a consequence of culture- of our desire and ability to escape from nature. "Escape from nature" is primary for another reason, namely, that the nature one escapes to, because it is the target of desire rather than a vague "out there" to which one is unhappily thrust, must have been culturally delineated and endowed with value. What we wish to escape to is not "nature" but an alluring conception of it, and this conception is necessarily a product of a people's experience and history - their culture. Paradoxical as it may sound, "escape to nature" is a cultural undertaking, a covered-up attempt to "escape from nature."" (Tuan, 19)

source:
(Tuan, Yi-fu. Preface. Escapism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998. Print.)
This particular section in the book speaks about escapism. In this particular section, nature, which is desired location for my work to take place. I did not have a concrete reason why I was drawn to portray this body of work outside in the wild and the reason is the outside world yields to endless and boundless possibility, perfect for a pre-meditative escapist. The vast space open to infinite paths to take. Tuan was able to present two contrasting ideas and both making logical sense. The ideas contrasted and ironically cancels out the other, but it also points arrows leading to one another, back and forth, justifying my attraction to the outside world for this project.

summary:
Proust quote act as an inspirational voice to me. The words bring me back down to the ground and allows me to plant my feet for awhile before I take flight again. Sometimes, it is hard to stand, to be grounded in reality, to be surrounded, invaded, looked-in upon, be a part of, contribute, and connected. It's not to say that those things are bad, but I think there is something about exclusiveness. The space to think, to breathe, to be, untouchable, untainted, unbreakable, for there are no external forces pushing and pulling from all directions.

Tuan allows me to look at escapism as a choice, as a two-way road. It can be a struggle both to and from. Living life with the mentality that the grass is always greener on the other side can be detrimental and disappointing, but so is living with no hopes, dreams, or a sense of curiosity for what is beyond the eyes immediately see. I want my imagery to be dark, but hopeful. And endless supply of fuel and a destination unknown.

artist entry: week 02: sept 06

TOKIHIRO SATO: photography: photo-respiration

interest and relations:

I have chosen this artist, because from the very first moment I saw his photograph, I was inspired. I felt life stirring within the image, it rendered me breathless, nonetheless, his intent was to create images that were "expression of living, breathing existence." His work process would take from one to three hours to create one image. A good portion of my fascination for long exposures, rooted from Sato. It is the mysterious nature of exposing an image for a length of
time, expecting the expected to render, but also expecting the unexpected to be captured as
well. I admire Sato's work, from an artist to artist aspect, because of the meticulous, immaculate process. Patience and persistence are key component in his work, and I have realized that those are two essential ingredients in my work as well.

biography:

Japan's best known artists working in photography. Sato, born in Japan, intention to become a sculptor, working with iron and steel into forms that directed flows of water and light. Highly aware of the physical process of creating, as a graduate he began to learn how to use a large format camera, and began incorporating photography into his sculpture. He, soon, was able to explore the nature of space, light, and movement.

quotes:
"As in his early experiments with sculptural forms, these pictures reveal a relationship between matter and energy, stillness and movement, actual forms and potential ones." (Siegel, 7-8)

"Although a photograph is always a translation of a three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional image, Sato purposefully emphasizes this discrepancy, which he calls "the gap in perspective... the physical nature of his activity through the landscape - running, swimming, breathing, sweating - is tremendously important to him... the artist welcomes his labor and refers to this ongoing series as "photo-respiration", or "breath-graphs," because of the human experience that the pictures record." (Siegel, 8)

(Satō, Tokihiro, and Elizabeth Siegel. Photo Respiration: Tokihiro Sato Photographs. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2005. Print.)

images:review link:
http://www.japanexposures.com/2009/01/30/photography-between-actual-and-potential-forms-in-tokihiro-sato/

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/photographer-tokihiro-sato-plays-with-light-and-perspective-to-capture-a-fresh-vision-of-the-world-around-us/Content?oid=1679523

artist & gallery link:
http://www.fristcenter.org/site/exhibitions/exhibitiondetail.aspx?cid=861
http://www.hainesgallery.com/artists/Sato_Tokihiro/Sato_13.html