Visual-Think

September 24th 2011, I made my way out to the Hatchery – a former airport hanger, a former drug rehabilitation center with a notorious past, a former muslim community center and now a space which approximately 40 artists enlivened for a weekend. The event was curated by: Bill Doherty, Anné M. Klint, Bachrun LoMele, Tom McGlynn.

It was sometimes hard to see the art because the building itself was so facinating – lots of interesting stuff and light for the photographer-geek in me.  Whenever I see rooms like this I always think of Jeff Wall’s 1978 photograph ’The Destroyed Room’ – so reality makes me think of a reconstruction. 

I met Dori Atlantis – so was able to talk to her about her work.  Dori came to the space earlier in the month and collected some of the detritus around the old building and used this as source material for her intervention. She was specifically responding to the use of the building by children and their experiences as part of the building’s dark history. The items she chose were reminiscent of children’s play items or learning tools. She painted these items primary colours and then suspended them using twine and fishing line. Dori was like many of the artists’ whose work was on view, in that she responded directly to the space and its rather unnerving history. There is a history of child-abuse associated with the building during the time the building was used as a drug rehabilitation center.

One of my favourite responses to the building was the work by Bachrun Lomele – he created the illusion of the side of the building using what looked like prints of wood panels. I suspect that his work felt more in tune with the place, because he was able to spend longer at the venue (he was also one of the curators). The individual panels are paper replicas of wood grain; which I am fairly certain are made using some form of printmaking technique. Despite this, each appeared to be unique or not repeated that often, so this was quite a difficult work to produce. Sadly, I only photographed part of the wall.

The video art work by Ron Longsdorf and Rachel Van Pelt also felt connected to the space.  Installed in a small horse trailer and filmed also in that trailor, the video loop depicted a woman drawing red lines on her leg.  These lines initially reminded one of blood, but it was obviously a red-paint-stick of some kind. At times the woman appeared tied up  and interspersed were images of a beetle being observed. Having to peer into the trailor to see the video, we were obviously meant to observe the woman and the observed beetle enhanced that sense. The sound intonations reverberated in the space and kept repeating ‘touch, do not touch’, over and over. The piece was particularly evocative as it was placed in a space where there were known cases of child abuse (during the Synanon, drug rehabilitation years).

 Finally, the sound-pieces were some of the most memorable pieces.  I wish I had remembered the name of the person who created the radio sound-scape on 90.3FM that accompanied us down the driveway to The Hatchery.  The work was very atmospheric and set the tone for the visit. Anna Dempska’s soundscape with a small oak tree was interesting – if a little sad to visually observe.  She wrote a description of this piece for the Fresno Bee “I’m creating a sound installation exploring the possibility of a musical collaboration with a plant. I’ll be using sensors and software to gauge an oak’s response to a soundscape I’m creating for the tree, and these responses, as well as ambient weather and and other environmental elements, will help to decide the shape of the music.”

It was well-worth the trip.  The evening continued with performances – however as I had started the day with a hike and a swim in the lake, we left before the performances began.

I have been working on a curatorial project at Corridor 2122. I am thrilled that we will have an exhibition of local and national artists who have all worked on the theme of air-travel at some point in their careers.

Opening on Thursday, September 1, 2011 from 5pm – 8pm and on view weekends from noon – 4pm throughout the month of September, the exhibition brings together local and internationally-renowned artists whose work probe different responses to air travel: nostalgia and romance, the routine and the mundane, the anxiety-inducing, technology-inspired, surveillance and freedom.

Aaron Koblin is an artist specializing in data and digital technologies. His data-visualization piece ‘flight-patterns’  on view at Corridor 2122 uses data from the U.S. Federal aviation administration to create animations of flight traffic patterns and density. His projects have been shown at international festivals including Ars Electronica, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and TED.

San Francisco based artist duo t.w. five, makes massive hand-cut vinyl art installations and brings to Fresno their large-scale vinyl art version of the baggage carousel depicting the banal tedium of the continuous, quiet and people-less operation of the airport luggage retrieval space. The duo consists of artists Paula Pereira and Pernilla Andersson; a collaboration between a Brazilian and a Swedish artist.

The green hue in Fresno-based artist Stephen Dent’s paintings is illustrative of the green phosphor monitors of night-vision cameras. Dent’s images create tension: inducing anxiety by referencing the green of surveillance imagery and yet depicting airport scenes that are reassuringly routine and common-place. Stephen Dent teaches at Willow International Community College.

Hasan Elahi is an internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary artist whose work examines issues of surveillance, simulated time, transport systems, borders and frontiers. For Corridor 2122, his two-channel video piece is part of his ongoing project “tracking transience” (http://trackingtransience.net/); an artwork initiated from a time when the FBI mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list.

Currently based in North Carolina itinerant-artist Jonathan Brilliant shares a selection of his drawings of airline meals, which he sketched when travelling across the country from art venue to art venue. From May 2009-December 2010 he conducted his “Have Sticks Will Travel World Tour”. The tour was a marathon series of site-specific art installations that took place in thirteen galleries in three countries.

Fresno based painter Leslie Batty takes a nostalgic perspective reflecting upon a time when air-travel was an exciting and thrilling adventure. Her paintings of 1950’s/60’s air-stewardess uniforms refer to a time when air-travel was rare and glamorous. Leslie Batty is a recent graduate of Fresno State’s Masters in Art program.

Photographer Stephen Chalmers’ series of photographs depict airplanes in mid-flight presumably taken from the window of another passenger jet. The images are simultaneously seductive, through their depiction of clouds and sky, and unnerving because of the depiction of airplanes.  The work of Stephen Chalmers is in several collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago).

The exhibition, Air Travel was assembled by Fresno artist and educator Julia Bradshaw. She does not like flying. Her artist-book ‘Flying’, on view at Corridor 2122, is in the Getty Research Institute collection.

Every now and then I look at the search terms used by people who land on my website.

These search terms have been giving me a quiet chuckle for a while now, so I thought I would share them:

 I’m just glad library classifications got in there somewhere….

I have a long-standing interest in the photo-book. I believe that a photo-book is a natural venue to show and describe a coherent series of photographs. Like many photographers I am interested in image sequencing and developing the series as a coherent whole.

 I follow a number of blogs that both display and talk about the photographic book 5B4 is a blog devoted to photographic books – mainly commercially printed, but occassionally the author covers small press books as well.  A new blog “The independent Photo Book” promotes  small-press photographic books. It was created by Hester Keijser and Jörg Colberg. The Blog “Self Publish, Be Happy” is an organisation founded by Bruno Ceschel in 2010 and promotes self-published photobooks.  All these blogs are worth following. 

The article from the Guardian “Self-publish or be Damned” describes some of the approaches photographers are using in publishing their own photographic books.

As I type this, I am currently in the middle of creating an artists book of my ‘cut-pieces’ images. This was a project crying out for the book form – a book about destroyed and vandalised book-pages. This will be a unique book – at present I do not intend making more than one.  As I am making this book using entirely original images (which with digital imagery is still far easier than making a book using only silver-gelatin prints, as I did with the Constraints Series) this book will have a high production value. I intend incorporating in the book design some of the elements from the imagery and I will bind it in a very traditional book-looking style. It will look weighty. Preparing the book-block (the pages of the book without the cover) requires time, patience and good craft skills. So far I have ruined one print, and will need to re-print that page.  But that is part of the process. I am hopeful that I will complete the book block tomorrow and prepare the covers next week.

Last night I attended an interesting lecture by the photojournalist Josh Meltzer who is currently teaching a class at CSU Fresno Summer Arts organised by Mark Larson from Humboldt State.  Josh Meltzer creates multi-media short visual stories mixing audio with still images and some video.  His website http://www.joshmeltzer.com/ contains many of these short story news and audio reports. The image left is a screen-grab from his audio slide-show page.  I recommend checking them out.  Now to get myself some audio gear…

I’m a big fan of video’s that are made up of many, many still images.  I am not writing about stop-motion animation or the creation of a gloryfied slide show here. I am interested in people who use the still camera in interesting ways. Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetee is the impetus for this interest. Chis Marker’s film, made up almost entirely of still images with music and narration,is a ground-breaking science fiction movie. 

So I don’t lose them, this posting is a listing of the videos – as and when I find them online – that I feel excel in the use of the single-image video or use the single-image video device in an unusual or achievable  way. I’m always happy to add to this list, just send me a link in the comments section.

Lucas Oleniuk took 20,000 photographs for his video Airsick  in Ontario, Canada to illustrate a global problem of climate change.  From the initial view of a flower breathing, I was captivated. I found the visuals stunning, and the text irritating – I think I would have got his point without the text. But that is the artist in me and he is a photo-journalist.  The video is stunning, watch it.

The music video for Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance” was created in this manner.

Tony vs. Paul this one was made from 4000 images and took over 4 months to produce. It was produced as a short self-promotion video by Paul Cummings and as an entry into advertising.

Look at the work of Cassandra C. Jones who uses apprpriated images for her still image videos – see this one titled stripes or this nifty reimagination of Muybridge’s galloping horse.  Watch this video of how she describes her process here.

This video by the British street artist Pahnl is a stop motion animation using light stencils and long exposures.  Completely trippy:  Nowhere Near Here  

James Barany created this visual self-portrait of his fight with obesity

Human SkateBoard video – this one just 29 seconds long and was created by PES.

Stop motion video of hands – this one is a commercial for Guinness.

NES Stop Motion by bornforthis43 – a homage to video games with approximately 7000 images.

I have just read that the Tate in London and the San Francisco Museum of Art have collaborated on an exhibition of photography on the topic of voyeurism and photography.  This has been a topic that has interested me for a while. As a beginning photographer, one of the first ethical questions that I considered arose from looking at Walker Evans’ subway pictures and deciding that for me, I was not okay with taking pictures surreptitiously; particularly when the subject was so very recognisable.   So for me the topic is mixed with the current discussions on the rights of street photographers, which I do not think is the intent of the exhibit at the Tate. 

Among my favourite artists who tackle issues of voyeurism, surveillance and photography is Sophie Calle who, among other projects, hired a private detective to follow her.  I also admire Jan Koster’s ‘neighbours observed’ project – surely he had a complicit agreement with his models?  When I visit the show later this year I think I am going to really like seeing Chris Verene’s camera club images – taken of men photographing glamour/swimsuit models. I suspect his impetus was similar to mine in making my project ‘On Photographing Breasts’.   It was also good to be reminded of Kohei Yoshiyuki’s images taken in the park at night of courting couples and their voyeurs. This was a risky project, indeed.

According to the BBC there is a surveillance camera for every 14 members of the British population. The New York Surveillance Camera Project spent some time mapping each camera in the city with the participation of the public. Like many, I am increasingly concerned about the number of photographers who have been asked to stop taking pictures for ‘security reasons’.  The British Journal of Photography has documented the issue here.   I also admire and enjoy Martin Parr’s photographs – as he describes it, taking his pictures would not be possible if he asked for a model release before he pressed his shutter.  Street photographers make us stop and look at the quirkier side of life and it is a shame that photography is now deemed a suspicious activity.

I’m looking forward to seeing the show.

Yesterday, I finished a new project. I have made all the images and I just need to mount and frame them and then they will be ready for my next exhibition.  But today, I handled some of the administrative side of being an artist.  I uploaded a sampling of the new images to my website. I created a ‘one-page’ information sheet about the project, which I will send to a few people who might be interested and I wrote personal letters to all those people. I am only sending information to people/curators I know – I have heard enough stories about the trash pile in gallery offices, that I don’t need to see my work on that pile. It is harder getting the word out about my projects  now I no longer live near a major art city, but I’ll keep trying.  I also posted the link to facebook and twitter and I am beginning to get feedback from some friends – that is the good side of social networking. I then made this blog, which will be another way of getting the word out.  But my primary reason for writing this, is to keep track of the administrative work involved in being an artist.  It’s sometimes a job, like any other. And unless I take care to make sure that people will see my work, it will just stay in the cupboard – and what’s the point of that.

Today I finished a new project – Cut and Torn pieces.  I continue to mine the library for my projects. For On Photographing Breasts I critically look at the misogyny inherent in older photography ‘how-to’ books, for “Cut Pieces” I am looking at the violation of photography and art books by some unthoughtful people at my university.

Despite the seriousness of the project, some of the images amuse me on many levels.  I’ve posted one below, but go to my website to see the extent of the series.

My name is Julia Bradshaw. I’m a photography teacher and artist. I created this blog  because I am always finding and reading interesting articles online and then I can’t find them again.  This is my organisational tool so I can keep track of the themes, artists and ideas I am curious about and want to keep as a resource.  I’ll also post news of my art activities (making, sharing, exhibiting, curating).  This blog is everything to do with the things and thinking that inspire, help, and make me an artist, really.  That’s my statement.