Here are some videos I found interesting, I like their style!
Mafish Durell / Nicolas BARRIÉ
Omar Khâyyam, cinq variations / DJIAN
Reconstitution / Hélène ABRAM
Building / A. DE CLERQ & J. COOL
Enfantillages / Nicolas BELLONI
Popcorn Liisa LOUNILA
story of lovers on a train_Gad HOLLANDER
BERLIN_die Symphonie der GroBstadt
l'invention de la route - Ricard COLAS
Des gouttes de jalousie / P. VILLEMIN
Monday, December 15, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
For Seminar 10th December[[[ Finding our voices ]]]
Because we have just finished our public space projects and we have shown all our work, I felt a bit stuck as to what I was going to discuss for todays seminar.
However, I'm going to focus on the idea of the new project, finding out where our interests lie. What we are each trying to do is to accumulate the ideas and concepts and theoretical practices that interest us. In the light of all this, I thought the best thing to do was to literally, have a look on the web and see if anything
interests me and to figure out why it does so. It is definitely important to understand why it is we like a work, as in turn it will help us shape our own understanding of what it is we are interested in.
One of the works I found particularly interesting was a piece called Ordinary Show By Vanessa Louzon. Here is an exerpt explaining the work:
Ordinary Show is an ongoing internet-based project that started in 2008 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
A single white page is filled with a long series of extremely short looped video clips, like a deconstructed film stretched over space and fragmented into scenes put one next to the other and played at the same time.
The artist uses the page as her diary. She obsessively records everything around her: the mundane, the small, the insignificant, the repetitive, the beautiful, the ugly, the flashy, the mechanical, as not to miss anything, as if everything was to suddenly stop. A strip-show neon light flashing, a supermarket close circuit TV, a lady bathing in the sea, are thus frozen in time as they loop indefinitely and hypnotically on the screen. As they accumulate on the page day after day, they form an evolving record of each one of the artist's footsteps in the places, seasons, and states of mind she finds herself in. It is a kinetic diary, a visual record of everyday life. Vanessa's interests lie in exploring the persistent repetitions of life, and finding out what emotions the looped clips will trigger as they accumulate day after day.
http://www.ordinaryshow.com/
You may find that on her website there are other interesting projects which she has undergone, I reccommend checking out:
'Interference' there is actual video footage of this work. It is a 4 screen installation showing 4 looped animations of tv patterns (hand-drawn animated test patterns and interferences, with voice-imitated tv sound).
From Poland with Love
Drawings of found passport photographs of young people in 60s Communist Poland, to be made into a mural.
Stereotypes
Mural showing 4 comic strips made out of photos and text found in several stereotypical magazines: teenage girls, housewives, trendy people, businessmen.
All found on her website here >>>> http://www.vanessalouzon.com/
The ordinary show piece is my favourite however, I really like the idea of exploring the ordinary things of the everyday, making the ephemeral permanent somehow in space and time. It is this notion which I would probably like to pursue in my own work. Video and photography would be the main medium I would be using throughout my work. It also gives me a starting point in researching narrative, and time and space in narrative. I remember recently watching Tarkovsky 'Mirror' and being fascinated by his use of narrative, how there seems to be no apparent plot, but yet the story is displayed from all aspects of his life, like we are seeing the story through many "mirrors" at the same time.
Excerpt from Wiki
The Mirror has no apparent plot. Instead it rhythmically combines contemporary scenes with childhood memories and newsreel footage. At various points in the film poems by Tarkovsky's father are recited. The loose flow of visually oneiric images has been compared to the stream of consciousness technique in literature.
Youtube 8 minute video:
I don't know too much about the subject of narrative to give a big 20 minute seminar on it. I guess what I am trying to do is to briefly touch on some of the concepts that I find interesting, so that as I do research them, I will gain some sort of shape to my own artistic 'voice'. For this seminar I wanted to show some pieces which I like, hoping to engage in discussion about the work. I am currently looking into the idea of narrative, and am interested after Christmas in making short video pieces based on the different types of narrative perhaps. I'm still not quite sure, but here is some excerpts I've read regarding the topic.
Debates about how to tell a story go back, no doubt, to the time when some mythical humans sat around some mythical fire in some mythical cave. [1] Most of us today grew up under the premises so aptly described by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland. There the King of Hearts advises, "Begin at the beginning ... and go on till you come to the end; then stop." [2] The King of Hearts implies that stories work in a single linear sequence. In contrast, many representations of stories in classical art juxtapose episodes that did not occur next to each other. While we can follow the classical stories, their parts often seem to be oddly ordered.
Source>>
Time in Space, Narrative in Classical Art
Psychological narrative
Within philosophy of mind, the social sciences and various clinical fields including medicine, narrative can refer to aspects of human psychology.[3] A personal narrative process is involved in a person's sense of personal or cultural identity, and in the creation and construction of memories, and is thought by some to be the fundamental nature of the self.[4][5] The breakdown of a coherent or positive narrative has been implicated in the development of psychosis and mental disorder, and its repair said to play an important role in journeys of recovery.[6] Narrative Therapy is a school of (family) psychotherapy.
Source <<
Here are some interesting quotes regarding Narrative:
All great storytellers have in common the freedom with which they move up and down the rungs of their experience as on a ladder.
A ladder extending downwards the interior of the earth and disappearing in the clouds is the image for collective experience ...
Walter Benjamin
Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time (2008) - Yoshi Sodeoka
Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time, 2008 from yoshi sodeoka on Vimeo.
So I guess here are some examples of work that I'm interested in, hopefully now tomorrow it will provide some sort of platform of discussion regarding the topic of 'finding our artistic voices'.
However, I'm going to focus on the idea of the new project, finding out where our interests lie. What we are each trying to do is to accumulate the ideas and concepts and theoretical practices that interest us. In the light of all this, I thought the best thing to do was to literally, have a look on the web and see if anything
interests me and to figure out why it does so. It is definitely important to understand why it is we like a work, as in turn it will help us shape our own understanding of what it is we are interested in.
One of the works I found particularly interesting was a piece called Ordinary Show By Vanessa Louzon. Here is an exerpt explaining the work:
Ordinary Show is an ongoing internet-based project that started in 2008 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
A single white page is filled with a long series of extremely short looped video clips, like a deconstructed film stretched over space and fragmented into scenes put one next to the other and played at the same time.
The artist uses the page as her diary. She obsessively records everything around her: the mundane, the small, the insignificant, the repetitive, the beautiful, the ugly, the flashy, the mechanical, as not to miss anything, as if everything was to suddenly stop. A strip-show neon light flashing, a supermarket close circuit TV, a lady bathing in the sea, are thus frozen in time as they loop indefinitely and hypnotically on the screen. As they accumulate on the page day after day, they form an evolving record of each one of the artist's footsteps in the places, seasons, and states of mind she finds herself in. It is a kinetic diary, a visual record of everyday life. Vanessa's interests lie in exploring the persistent repetitions of life, and finding out what emotions the looped clips will trigger as they accumulate day after day.
http://www.ordinaryshow.com/
You may find that on her website there are other interesting projects which she has undergone, I reccommend checking out:
'Interference' there is actual video footage of this work. It is a 4 screen installation showing 4 looped animations of tv patterns (hand-drawn animated test patterns and interferences, with voice-imitated tv sound).
From Poland with Love
Drawings of found passport photographs of young people in 60s Communist Poland, to be made into a mural.
Stereotypes
Mural showing 4 comic strips made out of photos and text found in several stereotypical magazines: teenage girls, housewives, trendy people, businessmen.
All found on her website here >>>> http://www.vanessalouzon.com/
The ordinary show piece is my favourite however, I really like the idea of exploring the ordinary things of the everyday, making the ephemeral permanent somehow in space and time. It is this notion which I would probably like to pursue in my own work. Video and photography would be the main medium I would be using throughout my work. It also gives me a starting point in researching narrative, and time and space in narrative. I remember recently watching Tarkovsky 'Mirror' and being fascinated by his use of narrative, how there seems to be no apparent plot, but yet the story is displayed from all aspects of his life, like we are seeing the story through many "mirrors" at the same time.
Excerpt from Wiki
The Mirror has no apparent plot. Instead it rhythmically combines contemporary scenes with childhood memories and newsreel footage. At various points in the film poems by Tarkovsky's father are recited. The loose flow of visually oneiric images has been compared to the stream of consciousness technique in literature.
Youtube 8 minute video:
I don't know too much about the subject of narrative to give a big 20 minute seminar on it. I guess what I am trying to do is to briefly touch on some of the concepts that I find interesting, so that as I do research them, I will gain some sort of shape to my own artistic 'voice'. For this seminar I wanted to show some pieces which I like, hoping to engage in discussion about the work. I am currently looking into the idea of narrative, and am interested after Christmas in making short video pieces based on the different types of narrative perhaps. I'm still not quite sure, but here is some excerpts I've read regarding the topic.
Debates about how to tell a story go back, no doubt, to the time when some mythical humans sat around some mythical fire in some mythical cave. [1] Most of us today grew up under the premises so aptly described by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland. There the King of Hearts advises, "Begin at the beginning ... and go on till you come to the end; then stop." [2] The King of Hearts implies that stories work in a single linear sequence. In contrast, many representations of stories in classical art juxtapose episodes that did not occur next to each other. While we can follow the classical stories, their parts often seem to be oddly ordered.
Source>>
Time in Space, Narrative in Classical Art
Psychological narrative
Within philosophy of mind, the social sciences and various clinical fields including medicine, narrative can refer to aspects of human psychology.[3] A personal narrative process is involved in a person's sense of personal or cultural identity, and in the creation and construction of memories, and is thought by some to be the fundamental nature of the self.[4][5] The breakdown of a coherent or positive narrative has been implicated in the development of psychosis and mental disorder, and its repair said to play an important role in journeys of recovery.[6] Narrative Therapy is a school of (family) psychotherapy.
Source <<
Here are some interesting quotes regarding Narrative:
All great storytellers have in common the freedom with which they move up and down the rungs of their experience as on a ladder.
A ladder extending downwards the interior of the earth and disappearing in the clouds is the image for collective experience ...
Walter Benjamin
Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time (2008) - Yoshi Sodeoka
Let It Bleed (Left) Let It Be (Right), The Stones And The Beatles Getting Tweaked At The Same Time, 2008 from yoshi sodeoka on Vimeo.
So I guess here are some examples of work that I'm interested in, hopefully now tomorrow it will provide some sort of platform of discussion regarding the topic of 'finding our artistic voices'.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Questionnaire Revisioned!
Well last Friday I went around town and I approached a couple of different people about my questionaires and I was talkin to them for a while. I began to think that the questions that I proposed where not exactly getting across what it is I want to say....or ....they just don't seem to be going in the right direction, it's like the answers I was getting are leading me onto another path as such. I definitely think I need o be recording these conversations I have with the people tho. It's just not the same writing their answers down, it also seems like the conversations I'm striking up with people is a big part of the work, and I really like being able to approach people and talk about certain issues, everyone has been really receptive to it so far. I think however I need to revise a few of the questions, go out and ask more people, look at the feedback, and decide where to go from there!!
I feel like I can never fully grasp the concept of what it is I want to do, it's like, I'm not sure what it is that I'm doing. I have this initial idea and then it doesn't work out at all the way I had planned or envisaged, and it makes me think if my ideas were solid enough in the first place. Maybe I'm not dealing with the concept in the best way I could? How am I approaching it? How DO I approach it?? Like my initial idea and what I wanted to do is turning out to be completely different, however, I shall have to think about it alot more, as well as do more of the practical stuff!!
I feel like I can never fully grasp the concept of what it is I want to do, it's like, I'm not sure what it is that I'm doing. I have this initial idea and then it doesn't work out at all the way I had planned or envisaged, and it makes me think if my ideas were solid enough in the first place. Maybe I'm not dealing with the concept in the best way I could? How am I approaching it? How DO I approach it?? Like my initial idea and what I wanted to do is turning out to be completely different, however, I shall have to think about it alot more, as well as do more of the practical stuff!!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Plan of Action
Type up questions for questionaire.
Post thread up on a forum (for any experiences dealing with loneliness)
Go to a Dublin meet up.
Take photographs
Derive
I want to collect as much information as possible, I have done alot of thinking for this project and I just need to get out there and start collecting info now.
Some other ideas which could connect in with the idea of loneliness is the idea of emmigration and exclusion, which is a big issue these days in the public. So I am going to go to a 'New to Dublin' meet up to talk to people who are new here and about their experiences of what it is like to be new in a place and have they come across any form of social exclusion etc etc!!
Questions for my Questionaire
Are you on your own today?
Why is it that you're on your own?
What kind of thoughts go through your mind when you're on your own/alone in public space?
What does loneliness mean to you?
What does aloneness mean to you?
Do you think there are alot of lonely people out there?
Have you had any experiences regarding loneliness?
What do you consider a public space to be? What are it's functons in relation to social interaction?
I also want to ask them more personal questions like what they do for a living, do they go to college, how did they find that experience? etc
I think you can learn alot more about the loneliness in people by asking about their own situation rather then generic questions about loneliness.
For the people I am meeting in the New to Dublin group I want to ask them questions such as:
How are they coping with emerging into Dublin society?
Have they got jobs? was it easy/hard?
Have they come accross any kind/form of exclusion?
What interests do they have?
Do they think that Dublin is a friendly place?
How did they find their first few weeks here?
Are they more likely to become lonely?
Is there a major culture shock?
What's so different about the people here to where they come from?
Development of Project Ideas
I really want to focus on the idea of alone-ness or loneliness in public space. I want to take pictures (carefully compositioned) of people who are on their own in public space. I think that in general alot of people associate public space as a place where there is a multitude of social activities, where one is always going somewhere or doing something, it is seen as a place where people gather and meet and come together, socialise. I guess I just want to highlight the people that are on their own, that there are people who don't use public space as a place to meet, but as a place to either be alone, or because they simply do not have anyone to meet with.
I want my work to become relational aswell as just photography. I want to approach these people who are on their own and ask them a set of questions (perhaps do a survey!?) about alone-ness and loneli-ness in public space, and what that means. I want to investigate the quieter, more over-looked part of public space, creating interaction and conversation with those who are alone in public space.
With the images and texts that I aquire I want to project these onto the facade of a building. This I would say is the tricky part at the moment I think. I need to think of the context I want these photos and text to be in, what is the question or critique I am making of that space? What is it that I am trying to say EXACTLY?
So what I really need to be thinking about is the questions for the survey, what information do I need? Once I know I will be able to craft my questions accordingly to get the inforation I want.
I also need to be thinking about the contexts and where I can display the works, on what buildings and why?
(QUESTIONS AND CONTEXT)
I want my work to become relational aswell as just photography. I want to approach these people who are on their own and ask them a set of questions (perhaps do a survey!?) about alone-ness and loneli-ness in public space, and what that means. I want to investigate the quieter, more over-looked part of public space, creating interaction and conversation with those who are alone in public space.
With the images and texts that I aquire I want to project these onto the facade of a building. This I would say is the tricky part at the moment I think. I need to think of the context I want these photos and text to be in, what is the question or critique I am making of that space? What is it that I am trying to say EXACTLY?
So what I really need to be thinking about is the questions for the survey, what information do I need? Once I know I will be able to craft my questions accordingly to get the inforation I want.
I also need to be thinking about the contexts and where I can display the works, on what buildings and why?
(QUESTIONS AND CONTEXT)
Mirror -Tarkovsky
We watched Mirror by Tarovsky in our Visual Culture lecture yesterday. Needless to say I think about 99% of us were completely bewildered and didn't even know where to start to try and de-code it. However one cannot deny the fact that it is an absolutely brilliantly filmed movie. I really want to watch it a good few times and do alot of reading about it. I think the jist of the story (not that it has a definite linear storyline to it) but I think it is about this notion of space and time and it is disjointed, and we are looking at a period of time from many different sides of a diamond, as one would say, the main characters in the movie vary from different ages all the time, like the film is showing various parts of their lives, but it is not in proper succession, this is where the notion of space and time comes in. This is something I will have to research more about, anyway, the film is amazing. Reading about it must be done (and I'd say research before watching the film for the first time would be a bit more necessary to understand it a bit better, espesh for the first time...).
Notes on a Scandal
One Woman's Mistake Is Another's Opportunity...
Loneliness can turn one into a monster.
One woman's secret is another woman's power. One woman's fear is another woman's weapon. One woman's life is in another woman's hands....
Now that I think about it, this actually relates to my project. I'm basing my project on alone-ness and lonelyness in public space. but I am really interested in the psychological effects that lonelyness can play on our minds, our mental states. So this is a great example of lonelyness which has gotten to the stage of complete emotional and psychotic breakdown.
Notes on a Scandal is a 2006 British film adapted from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoe Heller. The screenplay was written by Patrick Marber and the film was directed by Richard Eyre.
Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) teaches history at a comprehensive school in London. A lonely old spinster, Barbara's only "intimate relationship" is with herself by means of a diary. When a new, younger teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) starts at the school she feels drawn to her and believes that she "may be the one". Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a student, Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson), and confronts her. When Sheba asks her to not tell the school administration until Christmas so she can be with her family, Barbara explains she has no intention of telling, as long as she ends the relationship. However, she doesn't and Barbara warns her once more. But when Barbara's cat dies and Sheba can not be there to comfort her, Barbara seeks revenge by telling a fellow teacher who comes to her asking her if Sheba is interested in him. The fellow teacher spreads the "playground rumour" to Steven's mother. Ms. Connolly then comes to Sheba's home and hits Sheba. The next day the media, as well as the school administration, are alarmed and Sheba's life is turned upside down. She ends up moving into Barbara's house, with the idea that Steven broke down to his mother, but soon finds Barbara's diary and learns of the rather sexual attraction Barbara may have with her. (Earlier, when the school's headmaster asks Barbara if she knew of the relationship, he confronts her on receiving a restraining order with another fellow teacher whom she previously befriended).
Sheba is sentenced to 10 months, and the last scene is Barbara meeting another younger woman whom she seems to befriend.
Wiki entry
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Ideas for Project
Street Photography
- Taking photographs of people who are alone
- Photographs of the city at night and day as a comparison
- Taking photos of the inside of windows (Inside Windows series)
Psychogeography and Relational documentary work
- The idea of a space and how this effects people's emotional behaviour
I want to film/document an interview with people around certain areas. I want to accompany the documented work with either film or text (or whatever it may be) and display it on the facade of a building/the area in which they live, by projection.
- I want to have a relational aspect to this project.I want to come into contact with people and get some responces either by emails, letters, interviews surveys etc. I will have a set of questions about their area and what they think of it, what they would like to see happening, how they feel about certain things, their history/background/why they are living there etc. (Think of appropriate questions basically!)
- By displaying the images and/or texts on the facades of the buildings, it is exposing what is on the inside.What those individuals think of their area/situation. It is their voices publicly being heard. It's making the emotional behaviour of the person that lives inside be seen. It is about how they see their environment and act to it and it provokes people to think about theirs.
Being silent is not to exist
-Another idea I have is to create a seperate environment from the busy atmosphere of everyday life, people rushing to and from work, becoming so familiar with it that they do not stop to observe their surroundings. There is so much noise, that when everything is silent, it seems like we do not exist. I want to create a place for silence, reflection, thinking. I want the noise of the world to be excluded so that the person can think for themselves. Finding autonomy through silence and not noise. But how do I go about this?????
- Taking photographs of people who are alone
- Photographs of the city at night and day as a comparison
- Taking photos of the inside of windows (Inside Windows series)
Psychogeography and Relational documentary work
- The idea of a space and how this effects people's emotional behaviour
I want to film/document an interview with people around certain areas. I want to accompany the documented work with either film or text (or whatever it may be) and display it on the facade of a building/the area in which they live, by projection.
- I want to have a relational aspect to this project.I want to come into contact with people and get some responces either by emails, letters, interviews surveys etc. I will have a set of questions about their area and what they think of it, what they would like to see happening, how they feel about certain things, their history/background/why they are living there etc. (Think of appropriate questions basically!)
- By displaying the images and/or texts on the facades of the buildings, it is exposing what is on the inside.What those individuals think of their area/situation. It is their voices publicly being heard. It's making the emotional behaviour of the person that lives inside be seen. It is about how they see their environment and act to it and it provokes people to think about theirs.
Being silent is not to exist
-Another idea I have is to create a seperate environment from the busy atmosphere of everyday life, people rushing to and from work, becoming so familiar with it that they do not stop to observe their surroundings. There is so much noise, that when everything is silent, it seems like we do not exist. I want to create a place for silence, reflection, thinking. I want the noise of the world to be excluded so that the person can think for themselves. Finding autonomy through silence and not noise. But how do I go about this?????
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Psychogeography
Here is a website with more material about psychogeography, it even has 'excersises' to do to understand what psychogeography is.
LINK
LINK
Les Fetes Lumieres
Here are some photos I found particularly interesting, they are from the festival of light in Lyon. I particularly like projecting images onto buildings and also the light casts silhouettes of what is going on inside the building.
Art in the Public Realm
SOURCEPAGE
Quotations and viewpoints on the role of artists in the public domain.
Quotable quotes
*
* The contribution of art and artists is more than merely placing a piece of public art in front of a building, or staging a performance in a public space. This is narrow thinking.
Charles Landry
*
Art isn't necessary anymore as a field, a profession; art is no longer a noun, it [has] become a verb. Art is nothing but a general attitude of thickening the plot.
Vito Acconci
*
Art is language and public art is public speech.
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
* Bring artists in as creative thinkers, not just as makers of objects.
* Prescriptive briefs and hesitant clients produce dull work.
*
Public art can be static, moving, part of the infrastructure or a projection of light and sound. It can last for a minute, a day, a year or a lifetime.
*
If you want change you must be prepared to think differently.
*
There is no such thing as a ‘public artist’, just artists who work in a variety of contexts.
*
Quality of work should always be an issue.
*
Public art can put the emotion back into the built environment.
*
There can be no public art without collaboration.
*
Public art can be static, moving, part of the infrastructure or a projection of light and sound. It can last for a minute, a day, a year or a lifetime.
PASW
* Artists are not miracle workers – they’re just another alternative.
Mary Jane Jacobs
*
Artists bring meaning to forgotten elements.
Jim Buckley, artist
*
Making time for Design is the first rule of good design involving artists.
Chris Smith, ex Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
*
The function of public art is to de-design.
Vito Acconci
*
Artists are not miracle workers – they’re just another alternative.
Mary Jane Jacobs
*
Artists, designers, planners and architects alike must face the challenge of defining public space, as an opportunity to create or improve the sense of community among those who will determine the use, or abandonment of a place.
Ethan Kane, from Ars Poetica, 2004
*
Modern society undoubtedly needs creativity and vision more than it needs works of art... It needs artists with their ways of doing things more than it needs the things they make. It needs them for what they ‘are’ rather than for what they ‘do’.
Pavel Buchler
*
Art is an activating agent.
Mel Gooding
*
Public art, in all its diversity, can mediate all spaces as Places.
John Newling
*
The new public art demands and invites communication and the engagement of others.
Mary Jane Jacob
*
Abstract space becomes particular place.
Jeff Kelley
*
Just as an individual person dreams fantastic happenings to release the inner forces which cannot be encompassed by ordinary events, so too a city needs its dreams.
Christopher Alexander
Quotations and viewpoints on the role of artists in the public domain.
Quotable quotes
*
* The contribution of art and artists is more than merely placing a piece of public art in front of a building, or staging a performance in a public space. This is narrow thinking.
Charles Landry
*
Art isn't necessary anymore as a field, a profession; art is no longer a noun, it [has] become a verb. Art is nothing but a general attitude of thickening the plot.
Vito Acconci
*
Art is language and public art is public speech.
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
* Bring artists in as creative thinkers, not just as makers of objects.
* Prescriptive briefs and hesitant clients produce dull work.
*
Public art can be static, moving, part of the infrastructure or a projection of light and sound. It can last for a minute, a day, a year or a lifetime.
*
If you want change you must be prepared to think differently.
*
There is no such thing as a ‘public artist’, just artists who work in a variety of contexts.
*
Quality of work should always be an issue.
*
Public art can put the emotion back into the built environment.
*
There can be no public art without collaboration.
*
Public art can be static, moving, part of the infrastructure or a projection of light and sound. It can last for a minute, a day, a year or a lifetime.
PASW
* Artists are not miracle workers – they’re just another alternative.
Mary Jane Jacobs
*
Artists bring meaning to forgotten elements.
Jim Buckley, artist
*
Making time for Design is the first rule of good design involving artists.
Chris Smith, ex Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
*
The function of public art is to de-design.
Vito Acconci
*
Artists are not miracle workers – they’re just another alternative.
Mary Jane Jacobs
*
Artists, designers, planners and architects alike must face the challenge of defining public space, as an opportunity to create or improve the sense of community among those who will determine the use, or abandonment of a place.
Ethan Kane, from Ars Poetica, 2004
*
Modern society undoubtedly needs creativity and vision more than it needs works of art... It needs artists with their ways of doing things more than it needs the things they make. It needs them for what they ‘are’ rather than for what they ‘do’.
Pavel Buchler
*
Art is an activating agent.
Mel Gooding
*
Public art, in all its diversity, can mediate all spaces as Places.
John Newling
*
The new public art demands and invites communication and the engagement of others.
Mary Jane Jacob
*
Abstract space becomes particular place.
Jeff Kelley
*
Just as an individual person dreams fantastic happenings to release the inner forces which cannot be encompassed by ordinary events, so too a city needs its dreams.
Christopher Alexander
In-Public.com
Manifesto
Our aim is to promote Street Photography and to continue to explore its possibilities. All the photographers featured here have been invited to show their work because they have the ability to see the unusual in the everyday and to capture the moment. The pictures remind us that, if we let it, over-familiarity can make us blind to what’s really going on in the world around us.
In-Public.com is a website dedicated to the promotion of street photography. Here is the picture of the month for November 2008. I like the fact they mention in their manifesto that we can become blind to what is around us by becoming over-familiar with our surroundings.
Our aim is to promote Street Photography and to continue to explore its possibilities. All the photographers featured here have been invited to show their work because they have the ability to see the unusual in the everyday and to capture the moment. The pictures remind us that, if we let it, over-familiarity can make us blind to what’s really going on in the world around us.
In-Public.com is a website dedicated to the promotion of street photography. Here is the picture of the month for November 2008. I like the fact they mention in their manifesto that we can become blind to what is around us by becoming over-familiar with our surroundings.
Martin Parr
Quote: "With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist."
I like the picture of the lonely person in the fast food restaurant, or well, at least the person that was alone... it struck a chord in me, I actually wouldn't mind trying to capture photos of people who appear to be alone.....
I like the picture of the lonely person in the fast food restaurant, or well, at least the person that was alone... it struck a chord in me, I actually wouldn't mind trying to capture photos of people who appear to be alone.....
Bruno Barbey
Over four decades, Bruno Barbey has journeyed across five continents and numerous world conflicts, though he does not consider himself a war photographer, he nevertheless covered the civil war in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ireland, Iraq and Kuwait.
Carl de Keyzer
Carl De Keyzer
Belgian, b. 1958
Carl De Keyzer started his career as a freelance photo-grapher in 1982, while supporting himself as a photography instructor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. At the same time, his interest in the work of other photographers led him to co-found and co-direct the XYZ-Photography Gallery. A Magnum nominee in 1990, he became a full member in 1994.
De Keyzer, who has exhibited his work regularly in European galleries, is the recipient of a large number of awards including the Book Award from the Arles Festival, the W. Eugene Smith Award (1990) and the Kodak Award (1992).
De Keyzer likes to tackle large-scale projects and general themes. A basic premise in much of his work is that, in overpopulated communities everywhere, disaster has already struck and infrastructures are on the verge of collapse. His style is not dependent on isolated images; instead, he prefers an accumulation of images which interact with text (often taken from his own travel diaries). In a series of large tableaux, he has covered India, the collapse of the Soviet Union and - more recently - modern-day power and politics.
On his website you can see numurous publications he released in the form of photogrpahy books which all have set themes such as religion, prison, power and politics.
Belgian, b. 1958
Carl De Keyzer started his career as a freelance photo-grapher in 1982, while supporting himself as a photography instructor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. At the same time, his interest in the work of other photographers led him to co-found and co-direct the XYZ-Photography Gallery. A Magnum nominee in 1990, he became a full member in 1994.
De Keyzer, who has exhibited his work regularly in European galleries, is the recipient of a large number of awards including the Book Award from the Arles Festival, the W. Eugene Smith Award (1990) and the Kodak Award (1992).
De Keyzer likes to tackle large-scale projects and general themes. A basic premise in much of his work is that, in overpopulated communities everywhere, disaster has already struck and infrastructures are on the verge of collapse. His style is not dependent on isolated images; instead, he prefers an accumulation of images which interact with text (often taken from his own travel diaries). In a series of large tableaux, he has covered India, the collapse of the Soviet Union and - more recently - modern-day power and politics.
On his website you can see numurous publications he released in the form of photogrpahy books which all have set themes such as religion, prison, power and politics.
Thomas Dworzak
Quote: "I like the fact that I am not in control, that the photographs are what happens, rather than the result only of the decision I make. You could say that’s the downside of photography, but it’s also why it is magic."
Thomas Dworzak
German, b. 1972
Thomas Dworzak was born in Kötzting, Germany, in 1972 and grew up in the small town of Cham in the Bavarian Forest. Towards the end of his high school studies, he began to travel and photograph in Europe and the Middle East, living in Avila, Prague and Moscow, and studying Spanish, Czech and Russian. After photographing the war in former Yugoslavia, he lived in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 1993 until 1998. He documented the conflicts in Chechnya, Karabakh and Abkhazia as well as working on a larger-scale project about the Caucasus region and its people.
Based in Paris from 1999, he covered the Kosovo crisis, mostly for US News and World Report, and he returned to Chechnya the same year. After the fall of Grozny in early 2000, he began a project on the impact of the war in Chechnya on the neighboring North Caucasus. He also photographed events in Israel, the war in Macedonia, and the refugee crisis in Pakistan.
After 9/11, Dworzak spent several months in Afghanistan on an assignment for the New Yorker. He returned to Chechnya in 2002. Since then he has photographed in Iraq, Iran and Haiti, and covered the revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Based mainly in New York since 2004, Dworzak has been photographing the world of American politics and the impact of the war in Iraq. He is currently working on the projects M*A*S*H IRAQ, and Valiassr, an essay on Tehran's main avenue.
Source
Thomas Dworzak
German, b. 1972
Thomas Dworzak was born in Kötzting, Germany, in 1972 and grew up in the small town of Cham in the Bavarian Forest. Towards the end of his high school studies, he began to travel and photograph in Europe and the Middle East, living in Avila, Prague and Moscow, and studying Spanish, Czech and Russian. After photographing the war in former Yugoslavia, he lived in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 1993 until 1998. He documented the conflicts in Chechnya, Karabakh and Abkhazia as well as working on a larger-scale project about the Caucasus region and its people.
Based in Paris from 1999, he covered the Kosovo crisis, mostly for US News and World Report, and he returned to Chechnya the same year. After the fall of Grozny in early 2000, he began a project on the impact of the war in Chechnya on the neighboring North Caucasus. He also photographed events in Israel, the war in Macedonia, and the refugee crisis in Pakistan.
After 9/11, Dworzak spent several months in Afghanistan on an assignment for the New Yorker. He returned to Chechnya in 2002. Since then he has photographed in Iraq, Iran and Haiti, and covered the revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Based mainly in New York since 2004, Dworzak has been photographing the world of American politics and the impact of the war in Iraq. He is currently working on the projects M*A*S*H IRAQ, and Valiassr, an essay on Tehran's main avenue.
Source
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Lilja 4-Ever
Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's third full length film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together, a comedy set in the 1970s. Lilya 4-Ever is an unremittingly brutal and realistic story of the downward spiral of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a girl in the former Soviet Union, whose mother abandons her to move to the United States. The story is based on the life of Dangoule Rasalaite and examines the issue of trafficking in human beings and sexual slavery.
Documentary Photo Project
Moving Walls 7
A Group Photography Exhibition
Thomas Dworzak | Eric Gottesman | Brenda Ann Kenneally | Pedro Linger-Gasiglia | Jon Lowenstein | Jonathan Moller | Ivan Sigal
Introduction
The seventh Moving Walls exhibit revisits some themes that lie at the core of our mission. Seven photographers document social struggles—from Ethiopia to New York City—and their work reflects OSI's commitment to human rights and justice around the world.
SOURCE
In 2003, the Open Society Institute launched the Documentary Photography Project. Through exhibits, workshops, grantmaking, and public programs, the project explores how photography can shape public perception and effect social change. The Documentary Photography Project supports photographers whose work addresses social justice and human rights issues that coincide with OSI’s mission.
The most prominent activity of the Documentary Photography Project is the Moving Walls exhibition series, an artistic interpretation of obstacles such as political oppression, economic instability, and racism—and the struggles to tear those barriers down. Launched in 1998, this group photography exhibition is shown at OSI offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., cultural and educational institutions in Baltimore, Maryland, and other locations.
In 2006, OSI began an international tour of seven past Moving Walls photographers in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus in partnership with OSI’s Middle East & North Africa Initiative and Arts and Culture Program. At each tour location, the Documentary Photography Project works with local partners to organize a concurrent exhibition by a local photographer and provides a free training workshop for local photojournalists. OSI’s Network Debate Program offers youth media workshops to high school students in each exhibition location, using Moving Walls for the curriculum.
Apart from Moving Walls, the Documentary Photography Project awards distribution grants to individual photographers who—in partnership with an NGO, advocacy organization, or other entity—propose creative ways to distribute completed bodies of work and use photography as an advocacy tool. Since 2005, 19 distribution grants have been awarded through an annual competition.
The Documentary Photography Project’s other grantmaking activity includes production grants to organizations, as well as small discretionary grants awarded on a case-by-case basis to projects with broad impact in the photographic community.
Through the "Photography As Advocacy" public-forum series, the project explores how photography can be used to shape policy and perception, and to advocate for social change.
Alex Webb
Quote: "I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner."
Alex Webb
American, b. 1952
Alex Webb became interested in photography during his high school years and attended the Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York, in 1972. He majored in history and literature at Harvard University, at the same time studying photography at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. In 1974 he began working as a professional photojournalist and he joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976.
During the mid-1970s Webb photographed in the American south, documenting small-town life in black and white. He also began working in the Caribbean and Mexico. In 1978 he started to photograph in color, as he has continued to do. He has published seven photography books, including Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds: Photographs from the Tropics, Under A Grudging Sun, Crossings, the limited edition artist book Dislocations and Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names.
Webb received a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant in 1986, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1990, a Hasselblad Foundation Grant in 1998 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. He won the Leopold Godowsky Color Photography Award in 1988, the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000 and the David Octavius Hill Award in 2002. His photographs have been the subject of articles in Art in America and Modern Photography. He has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, in museums including the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the International Center of Photography, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Source\
Alex Webb
American, b. 1952
Alex Webb became interested in photography during his high school years and attended the Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York, in 1972. He majored in history and literature at Harvard University, at the same time studying photography at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. In 1974 he began working as a professional photojournalist and he joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976.
During the mid-1970s Webb photographed in the American south, documenting small-town life in black and white. He also began working in the Caribbean and Mexico. In 1978 he started to photograph in color, as he has continued to do. He has published seven photography books, including Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds: Photographs from the Tropics, Under A Grudging Sun, Crossings, the limited edition artist book Dislocations and Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names.
Webb received a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant in 1986, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1990, a Hasselblad Foundation Grant in 1998 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. He won the Leopold Godowsky Color Photography Award in 1988, the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000 and the David Octavius Hill Award in 2002. His photographs have been the subject of articles in Art in America and Modern Photography. He has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, in museums including the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the International Center of Photography, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Source\
Andrew Stark
Andrew Stark (born 1964-) has photographed on the streets and thoroughfares of his native Sydney since the early 1980s using a wholly candid style and a battered second hand SLR. A reclusive figure, he has captured the everyday comings and goings of the cities inhabitants with poetic candor and selfless consideration. The year 2003 saw the publishing of his first book "Snaps from Sydney", and was followed in late 2006 by a major exhibition "Starkers" at the Museum of Sydney.[1] Throughout 2007 Stark documented the Sutherland Shire district, infamous for the 2005 Cronulla race riots and the resultant body of work "Down South", was shown at the Hazelhurst Gallery during late 2008.
Wandering the streets, hunting, searching, willing the moment to be poetic. Always working within a non interference discipline where absolutely anything goes so long as you remain within the 'candid' framework. The historical or truth dimension to the work has always been vitally important.
Stark explains, "I genuinely believe photography to be at it's most potent when underscored by truth. To contrive is to control and frankly I'm more interested in observation than direction. Riding the ebb and flow of Sydney's streets, approaching the next corner afresh, never quite knowing what may present itself in the adjoining street. That's the random beauty of street photography. Control has to be a stultifying, creative brake. The magic, emotion charged moments are in my experience invariably captured using an almost sub conscious process, they must never be orchestrated and can rarely be dogmatically collated."
source
Wandering the streets, hunting, searching, willing the moment to be poetic. Always working within a non interference discipline where absolutely anything goes so long as you remain within the 'candid' framework. The historical or truth dimension to the work has always been vitally important.
Stark explains, "I genuinely believe photography to be at it's most potent when underscored by truth. To contrive is to control and frankly I'm more interested in observation than direction. Riding the ebb and flow of Sydney's streets, approaching the next corner afresh, never quite knowing what may present itself in the adjoining street. That's the random beauty of street photography. Control has to be a stultifying, creative brake. The magic, emotion charged moments are in my experience invariably captured using an almost sub conscious process, they must never be orchestrated and can rarely be dogmatically collated."
source
Bruce Gilden
Bruce Gilden
American, b. 1946
Bruce Gilden's childhood in Brooklyn endowed him with a keen eye for observing urban behaviors and customs. He studied sociology, but his interest in photography grew when he saw Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up, after which he began taking night classes in photography at the New York School of Visual Arts.
Gilden's curiosity about strong characters and individual peculiarities has been present from the beginning of his career. His first major project, which he worked on until 1986, focused on Coney Island, and on the intimacy of the sensual, fat or skinny bodies sprawled across the legendary New York beach. During these early years Gilden also photographed in New Orleans during its famous Mardi Gras festival. Then, in 1984, he began to work in Haiti, following his fascination with voodoo places, rites and beliefs there; his book Haiti was published in 1996.
In June 1998 Gilden joined Magnum. He returned to his roots and tackled a new approach to urban spaces, specifically the streets of New York City, where he had been working since 1981. His work culminated in the publication of Facing New York (1992), and later A Beautiful Catastrophe (2005); getting ever closer to his subject, he established an expressive and theatrical style that presented the world as a vast comedy of manners.
His project After the Off, with text by the Irish writer Dermot Healey, explored rural Ireland and its craze for horseracing. Gilden's next book, Go, was a penetrating look at Japan's dark side. Images of the homeless and of Japan's mafia gangs easily bypassed the conventional visual clichés of Japanese culture.
Gilden, who has travelled and exhibited widely around the world, has received numerous awards, including the European Award for Photography, three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Japan Foundation fellowship. He lives in New York City.
American, b. 1946
Bruce Gilden's childhood in Brooklyn endowed him with a keen eye for observing urban behaviors and customs. He studied sociology, but his interest in photography grew when he saw Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up, after which he began taking night classes in photography at the New York School of Visual Arts.
Gilden's curiosity about strong characters and individual peculiarities has been present from the beginning of his career. His first major project, which he worked on until 1986, focused on Coney Island, and on the intimacy of the sensual, fat or skinny bodies sprawled across the legendary New York beach. During these early years Gilden also photographed in New Orleans during its famous Mardi Gras festival. Then, in 1984, he began to work in Haiti, following his fascination with voodoo places, rites and beliefs there; his book Haiti was published in 1996.
In June 1998 Gilden joined Magnum. He returned to his roots and tackled a new approach to urban spaces, specifically the streets of New York City, where he had been working since 1981. His work culminated in the publication of Facing New York (1992), and later A Beautiful Catastrophe (2005); getting ever closer to his subject, he established an expressive and theatrical style that presented the world as a vast comedy of manners.
His project After the Off, with text by the Irish writer Dermot Healey, explored rural Ireland and its craze for horseracing. Gilden's next book, Go, was a penetrating look at Japan's dark side. Images of the homeless and of Japan's mafia gangs easily bypassed the conventional visual clichés of Japanese culture.
Gilden, who has travelled and exhibited widely around the world, has received numerous awards, including the European Award for Photography, three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Japan Foundation fellowship. He lives in New York City.
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