Topic #5: Immediacy

Significance: Once thought to be the most immediate medium, photography has become more about meditation, like Bresson refered to drawing. In contemporary media the viewer is more and more the participant. Photography has the amazing ability to bring unknown places and people to our attention, yet keeps them at a distance. A beautiful winter landscape can hardly reveal the freezing wind. I use photography to find invisible things in the mundane. And? Maybe what is more/equally interesting is the process of delivering these images than the images alone. It is more interesting to realize the distance that media and different processes create in order to deliver an image or a message. What is the distance which contemporary interactive media (and people themselves as participants) create from the reality represented? I really admire Wafaa Bilal's work for his take on that issue.

Quotes:

1) Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers

2) Jennifer and Kevin McCoy are well known for "cinematic sculptures" - miniature film sets with lights and cameras that generate live footage. By exposing the image making apparatus along with the projected results, their work explores both time-based and physical reality.
exhibition catalog


John Tomlinson, The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy
"...in the 21st century 'immediacy', the combination of fast capitalism and the saturation of the everyday by media technologies, has emerged as the core feature of control. This coming of immediacy will inexorably change how we think about and experience media culture, consumption practices, and the core of our cultural and moral values."
review in Amazon

An interesting book to look up which I recently found but haven't read.

Work

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy

TED Lecture by P.W. Singer

Artist review #5: Olafur Eliasson

Significance:
I learned about him long time ago but only with his nature typologies photos. I recently looked him up again and was amazed by how much more he has made. The Notion Motion piece totally blew me out, this is exactly the idea behind my cameraless series. His installation is so photographic yet unrestricted by the idea that the result should be a fixed in the time 2D image. The viewers can see themselves how the image happens and that is more interesting, the transformation of tangible physical object into equally tangible shadows. The tension between the 2 images is that they are equally real, both are the result of their interaction with light, however, only one of them we perceive as real. The phenomena of light and seeing is central to the piece and it is delivered in such a direct way, as personal experience rather than a representation of it.
The only way my Georgigrams can be engaging is making them about something rather than the experiment itself. Or maybe I should stop using photo and try moving image or installation. Can I make something he hasn't done yet?


Biography:
Olafur Eliasson was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark of Icelandic parentage. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995. He has participated in numerous exhibitions worldwide and his work is represented in public and private collections including the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Deste Foundation, Athens and Tate. Recently he has had major solo exhibitions at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe and represented Denmark in the 2003 Venice Biennale. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

Quotes
1) I've walked a lot in the mountains in Iceland. And as you come to a new valley, as you come to a new landscape, you have a certain view. If you stand still, the landscape doesn't necessarily tell you how big it is. It doesn't really tell you what you're looking at. The moment you start to move the mountain starts to move.
TED Lecture
(Personal experience versus representation. His experiments with perceptions of space are aimed at the practical idea of designing and creating spaces to be inhabited, in such a way that the personal and the social are in balance)

2) Eliasson’s transparent application of simple technologies, familiar from previous works, is coupled in Your position surrounded and your surroundings positioned with an indication of our reliance on legible, objective interfaces, measures that stand between a direct sensory experience and the true empirically established, true nature of the object of contemplation.
Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts, 1999: 5-13. exhibition catalog as pdf

Works

Notion Motion 2005

Eine Beschreibung einer Reflexion 1995

The Weather Project 2003

The Large Glacier Surfer 2007

Umschreibung 2004

Review:
Many of Eliasson’s works explore the relationship between the spectator and object. In Your Sun Machine (1997) viewers entered a room which was empty apart from a large circular hole punctured in the roof. Each morning, sunlight streamed into the space through this aperture, at first creating an elliptical, then a circular outline on the walls and floor. The beam of light shifted across the room as the day progressed. The movement of the ‘sun’ across the room was apparently the central focus of the work, but in observing this, the viewer was reminded of his or her own position as an object, located on earth, spinning through space around the real sun.
Tate Modern

Representation:
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery NYC

Web site: http://www.olafureliasson.net

Topic 4: Excess

Quotes:

1) Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life -- its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness -- conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation, 1966

2) All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler, Notebooks 1912

Significance:
All of my work inspired by the US is informed by excess which has been a great part of my life in Maryland. The state is one of the richest in the country as many of the people there work in the nations capital, yet Baltimore where I lived is one of the poorest in America. Excess is only realized when contrasted to scarcity and it is subjective. Excess corrupts and motivates. The school I attended seemed to play a big role in realizing the term as it contains huge contrasts within itself. It is one of the expensive schools in the US and although small it attracts students from outside the city and the state. There is the polished facade to be seen by parents, the dirty yet artsy inner environment for the students and behind the scene realm with staff native to the city. Work was not overwhelming but I was a student and a worker in the same time thus played two different roles and having to understand each of them. The first was usually taken by suburban young adults (often called mica kids) and the other was often taken by people who moved from their parents before turning 18, as well as some whose parents left during their early teens. These are two completely different attitudes, often incompatible. Where do I belong in between these 2 categories?

Robert Marantz Henig, What is it about 20 - something?, The New York Times, 8/18/2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html
This article looks into psychology of people, I think the phenomenon described is a result of the 2000's easy lending policy before the recession. The world becomes more and more unreal, the way of life is changing because of lavish promises and more or less vague assumptions of the future.

Images:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Surrounded Islands, Miami, Florida 1980-83

Oil booms, Gulf of Mexico, 2010, photo Mark Ralston

Dubai, photo Thomas Meyer



The 5 Obstructions, Directed by Jorgen Let and Lars Von Trier

One Word: Environmental

1) Mark Klett


"Trained as a geologist, Mark Klett established his artistic perspective on the Western American landscape as the chief photographer for the Rephotographic Survey Project (1977-79), which rephotographed scenes visited by the first photographic surveys of the West in the 1860s and 1870s. " http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/klett_mark.php

2) Chris Jordan


I couldn't believe these images based on his previous work. Jordan's constructs are good but I don't like them as much as his straight images - they are more striking with the fact that they are unaltered.

"These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September, 2009, on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent. " http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#about

3) Jason DeCaires Taylor



Art is kept in dark, dehumidified and cool areas to be preserved for the generations. Of course it is worth considering that art can be left to be reclaimed by nature. This interaction becomes a very powerful element: instead of meant to represent a point the pieces demonstrate that point. Jason Taylor's work is a good example.

Jason de Caires Taylor’s underwater sculptures create a unique, absorbing and expansive visual seascape. Highlighting natural ecological processes Taylor’s interventions explore the intricate relationships that exist between art and environment. Grace Reef is a series of sixteen figures each cast from the body of a Grenadian woman. Located across an expansive underwater area the work draws marine life to an area that has suffered substantial decimation through sustained storm damage. The work reflects the continuing evolution of the island and its people, revealing itself in dramatic and dynamic ways. The direction and strengths of currents mean that entire sections of the work become covered, hidden and lost. At other times figures emerge and are fully visible. http://www.underwatersculpture.com/pages/artist/about.htm

4) Robert Adams



His work was important within the art history context of the early 1970's and the New Topographics exhibition. This was a shift in people's idea about photography and environment, breaking away from the Ansel Adams' landscapes praising nature. Showing what one does not like became acceptable in art galleries. However, showing the unpleasant and boring soon becomes boring itself. I appreciate his work but cannot really like it.

"Adams explored new housing tracts that were being built along the Colorado Front Range in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The developments filled with people who had migrated west in search of a new Eden, only to discover themselves isolated in an artificial landscape. "People had moved [to Denver] to enjoy nature, but found that nature was mostly inaccessible except on weekends," Adams wrote." http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/adams/

5) Gaston Bachelard

6) Yao Lu


Generally speaking, my works use the form of traditional Chinese painting to express the face of China. Today China is developing dramatically and many things are under constant construction. Meanwhile many things have disappeared and continue to disappear. The rubbish dumps covered with the 'shield', a green netting, are a ubiquitous phenomenon in China. http://www.prixpictet.com/2009/view/533

7) Minoru Yamasaki

8) Michael Wesely



With up to two-year long exposures Michael Wesely documented the construction being done at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin between 1997 and 1999. The project was commissioned by DaimlerChrysler. The images were taken from five different camera positions and transform the chronological sequences of the construction activity into one simultaneous action, whereby an infinite number of individual moments overlap until they form a complex structure of fragments of reality. Before and after fuse together in that the previously, undeveloped horizon is still visible through the newly constructed buildings. http://www.wesely.org/wesely/gruppe.php?var=potsdamerplatz

9) Georgi Danelya



He is director and co-writer of Kin Dza Dza (1986), a sci-fi movie about a desert planet with totalitarian government inspired by the very real vanishing of the Aral sea in the USSR. Kin Dza Dza is an extremely distorted mirror in which Soviet society and environmental disasters are reflected. It is very sarcastic though only those who experienced the regime personally can fully understand it. I also see the movie as a collection of ready made sculptures and junk art.

Georgi Daneliya: 'After my film 'Tears Were Falling', I felt like making something punkish. And I've got an idea - take Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' and place it in outer space: instead of a ship and an island, a rocket and a planet...
Amazon description - http://www.amazon.com/Kin-Dza-Dza-DVDs-Set-LANGUAGE-SUBTITLES/dp/B002NE0EGG

10) Christo and Jean-Claude


Art that uses the land, architecture and resources to create spatial sensations. It is pushed really far with its scale and I truly admire the work. However, is this art politically challenging or more of tourist attraction to generate income? There are people who oppose their work:

"An ambitious plan that artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude pursued in Colorado for more than a decade — to cover a six-mile stretch of the Arkansas River with shimmering fabric — has come up against a wellspring of opposition, putting in question a project that local art organizations have hoped will bring the state prestige and millions in tourism dollars. This month the Bureau of Land Management, which is responsible for vetting the $50 million undertaking (funded entirely by private sources), has opened the floor to the public during four meetings. Hundreds of people attended, most of them arguing against going forward with the piece, titled "Over the River." The couple's previous high-profile project, "The Gates," filled New York's Central Park with 7,500 saffron-colored gates, attracting about 4 million visitors to the city and creating a $254 million economic boon. "
Lucie Alig - http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/35543/opposition-mounts-for-christo-and-jeanne-claude-river-project/

Studio visit: Wafaa Bilal

It was a great opportunity to see him talk about his work and creative process. Art and visual culture in general is not a goal but means for achieving something. The artist does not work with materials but people - their perceptions, values and ideas of the world around them. I do think that way, photos on the wall are just means for challenging people rather than end product. However, Bilal's idea that a concept comes first and then medium is determined by it is a good challenge for me. Can I do that too? I also agree strongly on his point that art is always political even if the maker tries to avoid it. It was interesting that he did not talk about his older work with the interactive painting pieces.
The studio visit went well. I showed my documentary work from Bulgaria, the waste facilities in Maryland and the studio experiments with still life. Because this work is different from his I was nervous that no serious dialogue would arise. Although conservative in its medium my work actually relates to his. It aims to engage the viewer (in Bilal's work the viewer is also participant!) in social and political topics, to bring awareness, show different angles of one story and promote change. Bilal responded the most to the studio photos as they are unfinished and need ideas for their further development. By asking these questions he encouraged a broader view of contemporary consumption: where does it come from, how is it made/grown, who works there and what is work like, who control the whole process and what freedom of choice each side has. Do I want to use photos only and what else?
I wish the visit was longer but never the less it inspired me more than anything else for the past months.
As a summary, Bilal's visit encouraged me to try something new but also to continue my documentary work because I realize it complements a more creative/fictional approach on political issues. For instance, Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) (trailer) is a really powerful documentary without which I couldn't have appreciated fully Bilal's water boarding performance.

Artist Review 4: Aleksander Gronsky

Significance: Not much new in Gronsky's style, though he manages to show an old subject in a new way. The overall image of the vague category Eastern Europe has been pretty consistent in West European and US art and culture. Without the intention of generalizing I feel that this person's work exhibited as art in the west shows how the East is perceived so often. However, if such images were taken somewhere in the west and of western (homeless) people they would be condemned as exploitative and humiliating. Thus culture as general has been acting as a divide rather as a bridge. I am very glad to see works as Simon Roberts' photo essay on Russia and the vision of an insider as Gronsky. They are neither glorifying or demonizing, putting more emphasis on the people and their environments rather than stereotypes.
The sophisticated visual language and engaging topics are what make Gronsky's work good.

Biography: Born in 1980 in Tallinn, Estonia. In 1998 began working as a professional photographer. In 2005 joined Photographer.ru agency. Awards: 2010 Foam Paul Huf Award 2009 Critical Mass Top 50 2009 Aperture Portfolio Prize winner 2009 Linhof Young Photographer Award 1st place 2008 Kandinsky Prize finalist, Moscow 2004 Finalist for the Ian Parry Award, UK 
2003 Participant of the Joop Swart Masterclass, Netherlands
 2000-2003 Press Photo Russia contest, five 1st place awards total

Quotes:
1) Gronsky is at work on a handful of ongoing projects that are connected by esthetic questions he has been exploring in different ways for the past five years. His series of photographs made on the outskirts of Moscow, "The Edge," sprung from an interest in the idea of boundaries both literal and abstract. Conor Risch, PDN http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/esearch/e3i873a43a2fac7042694197925ccef4510

2) Photographing areas of Moscow that are neither entirely urban nor rural, Alexander Gronsky reveals the ambiguous spaces in which city dwellers relax and find solace in nature. These are certainly not idyllic settings; the edge of the city looms in the background with its faint skyline and construction cranes, leaving the viewer ever aware that these natural settings exist within yet a vaster urban context. Both the man-made and wild spaces look quite abstract—not inhospitable, as much as unknowable and vast. http://www.aperture.org/apertureprize/2009-1.php

Works:




Review: http://www.aperture.org/apertureprize/2009-1.php

Representation: http://gallery.photographer.ru/

Web site: http://www.alexandergronsky.com/

Topic 3: "Still-life"

Citations:

1)The height of pleasure that, according to Aristotle the art of knowing and imitating nature offers the observer is associated with the height of meditative melancholy occasioned by the imitation, which proffers itself as vain, training the observer's spirit on the falsehood of senses, the nothingness of all things, the transience of earthly life, and the nullity of sciences and art, first and foremost painting.

2)Vanitas paintings, salvific bitter cups of the soul that are drunk nevertheless to quench the thirst for the deceptive still life delights that they display, concentrate the full power of illusion and all the effects of disillusion in the effective essentially and immediacy of emblems.
Marc Fumaroli, Still-life, Natura Morta, Vanitas and Trompe L'oeil. The modern adventures of ancient mimesis, Art and Illusions. Masterpieces of Trompe L'oeil from Antiquity to the Present Day, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, 2009

Annamaria Giusti et al, Art and Illusions. Masterpieces of Trompe L'oeil from Antiquity to the Present Day, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, 2009
A great source on illusion, realism and the representational in painting through the ages with essays by different scholars. Obviously the conceptual in art date way before conceptual art started. The problem of representation and realism has been as relevant (within different contexts) in the past 3 millenia as it is today.

Significance: This is in relation to my interest in ideas of physical beauty and its transient nature. As the philosophers say, pleasure of the senses does not last long which makes our desire for it insatiable. People have been pondering on that fact for millenia but what makes today different is scale - many more people needing more to live.
I don't know if I will stick to the vanitas idea but feel that I need a reference. It is as a starting point.

Image by Maija Astikainen, 2008