Source Buch 12/30: theanyspacewhatever

theanyspacewhatever - a cinematic moment that is divorced from the rest of the narrative, a free-floating moment that often links one scene to another, but when isolated makes no sense, a moment of pure possibility



ok so this exhibit at the guggenheim museum lost its subletly and/or its sense of relevance on a couple of occasions, but i did feel i was inhabiting something pretty real throughout. it was super-theatrical.

i am looking for other examples of theanyspacewhatever. what about shots of planes in flight from old tv shows and movies -- that are in fact toy models in a bathtub? maybe that is just what they did on the brady bunch. see here one example, wherein the harlem globetrotters guest star on gilligan's island, 1981:

Guta 2008: another emulation project

After my first emulation project, I sketched another emulation idea that I had in mind. My friend Ben has called it, "the most tritely college-feminist idea ever." But I think it's worth sharing-- maybe even with that as a promise.
I wanted to interpret the self-portraits, the author portraits from 1154 in Strasbourg by German nun Guda. She was a medieval illuminator. See her image of herself here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=JYH7Pc11oGYC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=medieval+illuminators+and+their+work+guda&source=bl&ots=92wpC16UTl&sig=VAP_wf04DBId0dblZEc82N2Uxmk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA20,M1

I was struck by Guda's banner. I was particularly intrigued by how she calls herself a sinner. Of course, in a medieval context, her self-expression is to be understood differently. Christians believe all people are sinners, although it is often forgotten in popular culture and understood to be condemning. In calling herself a sinner, Guda wishes for future generations who read her work to pray for her and for her salvation in the after-life.

By using the words, 'bitch,' 'idiot,' 'slut,' etc. I attempt to reference how Modern women condemn themselves as such not to seek forgiveness, but rather, to illustrate for others that they recognize their human shortcomings. I wish to point out how extreme this truly is -- while women use these words casually, they in fact cast themselves in fixed portraits.

How do you react? They came out feeling kind of confrontational to me, but I'm not sure it is clear to a viewer what, exactly, elicits this confrontation.

Abigail and Rebecca into the Woods: a Utopia/Staged Narrative Project

With these photographs, I pulled two characters from film I made in high school. In the film, these two girls develop a friendship-cum-love affair in their Mennonite village, as the village swiftly modernizes midst the Mennonite schism of the 1950s. I wanted to express the intimacy of the girls’ friendship midst the tension of the town's growth. Sorry I keep saying 'midst.' In my film, I attempt to parallel the tense expansion of the town with the coming of age of the girls. In one sense, it's about loss of innocence.
I intended to show the girls on a walk in the woods together (not as teen runaways, as I said in class - I think I said that because I had Justine on the brain and because I directed the girls that way - so that they would look a little more longing/desperate/supportive of each other in their gestures) Their relationship grows in these quiet moments together and in the context of the village's expansion. My original plan was to sketch the architecture of the city that sits just beyond their town and influences its growth into the skyline behind their woods. This might capture the context. I am still interested in going back and sketching this idea - maybe by layering negatives instead of drawing the architecture in myself.
I wished to reflect my puzzlement about staged narrative photography (or more specifically large e format color photography, like Justine Kurlan's work) with the hand-drawn architecture and the super-styled costumes of my characters-- that is, I am tempted by this artificiality and fascinated at why I am so pulled to it. It seems that created a super-straightforward, super-imaginative narrative in a big nature scene gets at a draw to superficial/natural tensions - and with artificial architecture I want to see how my reaction changes. I think I also need to heighten the superficiality and accessibility of my narrative.

My Family Portraits: a persona project

When asked my Mother's profession, I always feel strange answering that her career is as a homemaker. I imagine that the children of artists might feel similarly about their parents' occupation. Like an artist, my Mother's career centers around acts of creation – including human birth.

Typically my family photos don't include my mother as a subject. She is, however, included as an author—she photographs these portraits. I more often see fathers as family photographers, but as a housewife my Mother gets asked to assume all family responsibilities with the exception of funding. Among these responsibilities is the job of documenting and archiving our family. With this charge, my Mom is given license to construct a family identity in images. As a homemaker, crafting these images is just another dimension of cultivating a sense of home and family.

I present my Mother's role as photographer by posing as her at the respective moments of her scenes' creations. I want to implicate her in her role as homemaker as ex-oficio photographer and artist. The three portraits at top are her originals. In terms of process, her work here approaches staged narrative; she has dressed my sister, my Father and I, posed us and picked her settings somewhat selectively: Dartmouth College, my Father's alma mater, a sunny day at the beach and Easter Sunday.






*When I got home after first semester, I showed my Mom the project. She had sent me a collection of her own selection of family photos when I began working to describe the persona of my Mother as a homemaker and as her unique self. My big sister agrees with me that the images are heartbreaking, but my Mom seems to not feel that way. When i explained the idea to her, she just nodded and said, 'yea, well, of course' as if to say, 'is it news to you that i do everything?' That's true, it's not. We made space in our bookcase, a display for photos, for them, with other family portraits minus my mom.
Shown above are the photos in the bookcase itself, on the upper left corner.

Here is one image of my sister and cat looking at the mantle:



Some more examples, found in the bookcase of portraits minus my mom:

Lastnightsparty.com: an emulation project

Lastnightsparty.com is a photo blog of parties from L.A., New York, Milan and other European and North American cities. The photos of this blog and other party blogs like the photos of the Misshapes have laid claim to a flash flash, high contrast style. I started visiting this site when thinking about three photographs to describe my generation for our blog assignments.

I began my emulation project emulating Duane Michals. His works describes the schism between conscious behavior and unconscious thought. He tries to photograph what cannot be seen. Conversely, this blog’s body of work is consumed with the surface of things. While gestures changes, they are always the same range of kissy faces, drunken faces, sexy faces, comatose faces.



Barbies are a loaded doll to pull out of the toy chest. While I’m aware there are many other subversive photographic uses of barbies, the experimental film, “Superstar,” by Todd Haynes (a biography of Karen Carpenter with an all-Barbie cast, in which Haynes shaves away at Carpenter’s doll as time lapses and her anorexia worsens) stands out most in my mind. Barbies are the signature of plasticity—and while I certainly see that manifested in this blog, I am drawn more to the emotional distance a Barbie exudes…although the subjects of the blog do not smile like Barbie, their expressions invoke the same apathy towards life.



I have left out busy party crowds from the backdrop to single out figures in the foreground—the lookers who get slapped with flash first. Of course, the crowd asserts the importance of these people in the foreground as standouts—and r the purpose of this sit, especially—how great the party was.



My tendency towards portraiture happened suddenly but intensely in the process of shooting the dolls. This pull has me thinking about how the subjects of the blog attempt to project a self-image in these photos. In terms of technique, the intensity of flash tends to illuminate a single person in the foreground of a photo, so the transition to portraiture feels logical to me. Do thee subjects value individuality, or is individuality just a front for extreme egoism?

Backhouses of Oberlin: a mapping project

The subjects of my map are the backhouses of Oberlin. Coming from the suburbs of New York City, I have never before observed this Mid-Western or perhaps just more-rural phenomenon of self-standing sheds and mini-houses used for storage. Ostensibly, the tradition relates to agriculture. In Oberlin, however, all of these houses appear to go unused –or at least ill cared for. I wanted to capture the eerie quality of their chipping paint, rotting wood and broken windows. Though tucked behind better-kept houses, they look like relics from the Depression era.



Maybe because I locate my own origins as a cartographer removed from the source of this back house tradition, I conceived of the photos as postcards form Ohio. When I researched antique postcards form the Midwest circa the 1930s, I found several landscape images that emphasized architecture integrated into a natural, woodsy landscape. My goal became to reflect and distort that tradition –to find seemingly picturesque scenes and draw out from them their more raw character.



I set my shutter speed toward the lower end to get arrhythmic movement in the tress. Against the backdrop, I hoped to enhance the feeling of stillness of the back houses in both times and space.