Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Blog Prompt #20
“We therefore consume images fleetingly and randomly. It takes very special pictures to grasp and hold our attention. We need to be seduced by images that outdo reality through excessiveness—as in advertising and movies” (Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler). What do you think about this quote? How do you think that our lives are changing as the speed of our interaction with photographic images grows?
“But the term ‘Infotainment’ also implies this: with the gradual fictionalization of even the news, the old categorical oppositions of ‘documenting’ and ‘staging’, appearance and reality gradually dissolve. They are being replaced by a variety of hybrid forms for which it will be impossible, in fact pointless, to attempt to distinguish between fact and fiction. Even the accusation that ‘Infotainment’ is guilty of continuous ‘lying’ is therefore unjustified, for it is neither ‘true’ nor ‘false’. Like advertising, movies and all other genres that adhere to the laws of fiction, it works at a level beyond these oppositions—the level of ‘hyper-reality’, where reality is ‘simulated’.” (Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler). What are your thoughts on “Infotainment” and how it affects our lives? How does it affect the way we see and understand “reality”? How does it affect photography in general?
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Blog Prompt #19
Can you think of anything that:
1) should not be photographed? Why?
2) cannot be photographed? Why?
and
3) you do not want to photograph? Why?
1) should not be photographed? Why?
2) cannot be photographed? Why?
and
3) you do not want to photograph? Why?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Blog Prompts #16, #17, & #18
Please respond to three of the following quotes.
“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold Newman
“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals
“I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” Duane Michals
“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer—and often the supreme disappointment.” ~Ansel Adams
“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold Newman
“Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” Berenice Abbott
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Concatenation Show
http://lacda.com/exhibits/concatenation.html
concatenation
n
1. a series of interconnected events, concepts, etc.
2. the act of linking together or the state of being joined
3. (Philosophy / Logic) Logic a function that forms a single string of symbols from two given strings by placing the second after the first
L.A. is a cacophonous shimmering silicon wafer, a vast crust of technologically generated business, transportation and imagistic exchange. It rushes at high velocity through an endless grid of infrastructure that has become a hub for the global. This is a seemingly infinite source of material that runs by the senses--garish and uncontrolled. Most of it I rather like, but of course, so much is toxic and destructive. We need changes. Art that concatenates itself in an oblique complicity with the momentum of technologically produced chatter can be like a hammer that breaks the wafer or makes a crack. Such a breach constitutes a humorous and pleasurable possibility of "re-routing" for change without dictating to others what that change should be.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Blog Entries 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.
#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?
#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.” http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx
In addition, at the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape. Many of these works now only exist as video recordings and photographic documents.
Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Write these down. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.
#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?
#15____Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe two photographs that you might take that could be collaged together to tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)