Artist as not artist

It seems that to be an artist these days means you have to be a better networker, socialite, drinker, proposal writer, image resizer, blogger, tweeter, and grant writer than an artist.

Sometimes I wonder if it all isn't just a placebo. A carrot dangling in front of the donkey. Who's holding that carrot? I'm not sure. The rich? Those that believe art is important to culture? Art supply manufacturers and stores?

Time to get back to my applications and proposals....

Models of seeing.

Sometime ago it dawned on me that the photos I looked at were not exactly snapshots of reality. They were models of looking based on the eye. They were mnemonics for memory of that moment. It was a reference point that could be easily filed and retrieved to jog the memory and senses but the image the instant it is made is a second hand account. It is an interpretation of that instant. Clearly this is not that different from memory itself as it too is very maleable, but subconsciously I had always considered it to be "real" and a true rendering of a scene and memory. I have been reminded of this feeling and had it amplified more so with Facebook and people's endless image postings of themselves and others at countless events and non-events. Footnotes in a timeline of life.

We have always tried to capture what we see. First it was a series of signs and symbols as paintings and drawings, which eventually evolved into a more skilled and realistic representation. Then came the camera. The photograph was a slice of time, a quantifiable version of reality that had a one-to-one relationship to its subject, which was a model of seeing very close to our own eyes. But upon reflection the photograph is subject to a reinterpretation of that camera's interpretation of that moment. There is a chasm between what we saw then and what the document of that instant is.

Photographs are one model of seeing based on the how the eye sees, but obviously not an exact replica. For example, an eye dynamically focuses on the object directly in the middle of it but the rendering of objects surrounding (even those at the same distance) are not in focus. A close up photograph or one with a short depth of field renders all the background in a soft blur, but the eye does not, nor can the eye render images like a camera with a short depth of field. These days the prevalence of digital cameras (cell and otherwise) have, by in part to its omnipresence, created a shared and agreeable model of reality, a reinterpretation of that reality, as well as a mnemonic for memory.

Clifford Ross' R1 has taken that model to the next closest thing to actually being there. In my mind, this is a huge shift in how we represent seeing. He himself wanted to create a camera that was the closest thing to being there short of actually being there via photography. In his landscape photos you are able to look at an object in the foreground to an object in the middle ground to an mountain in the distance and have them all in focus. The resolution of his modified analog camera is so high that blades of grass are as sharp and distinguishable as mountains in the distance. Combine this resolution with the huge prints (some measuring 71 x 130") and you encounter something profoundly different. It is as close to being there in the first person as possible with a two dimensional image.

The R1 camera.

A digital version that further extends this is the gigabyte camera. This is a nearly omniscient view of an image from a single viewpoint at that exact moment. It allows the viewer to zoom into the photo to see minutiae ranging from door knobs to street signs in the image at very high levels of clarity. In a photo of the Obama inauguration I could see the security in the buildings on the rooftops of buildings in the distance, the cameras on the dome of the capital building (or was that the white house?), to the faces of people in the press box. This goes far beyond how we see as humans could see with our own eyes. It is a whole new and different model.

Gigapixel Camera.

The camera has always had the limitation of statically rendering only what was directly in front of it. Then out-of-camera/post production tools like Photoshop allowed a manipulation of these "real" images to occur on a massive scale. The important distinction with the gigabyte camera is that it is all done in-camera in that instant (or perhaps in rapid succession instants which for argument's sake is an instant). In that instant it creates and transforms our vision of reality with no human intervention/manipulation needed whatsoever. Essentially, we hand over control to the rendering of our scene/reality to mechanics which we accept as a document true to form/true to reality because we have not handled it. It becomes a reference taken at face value as singular original document with no earlier non-manipulated versions or any other references. Through this action it creates a new instant seamless version of reality that we as viewers pan and zoom through.

As a side note another interesting invention in the world of digital photography is HDR (High dynamic range imaging). HDR, in a nutshell, is an in-camera feature that will measure the light, photograph, and (for lack of a better term) stitch together different areas of the scene photographed in order to make a hybrid image where all the colors are vivid and all the areas of the photo are properly exposed. Photographs have often had this done but this has been done manually and deliberately by the photographer and not mechanized. Again, this is another example of when the real scene is made more real (either as we imagine or as we see it in-person) or in some cases surreal.

HDR image, and images with various spot metering.

Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth

A few months ago I bought Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware for my nephew. I always wanted to get it for myself but like many things it gets put on a to buy/to do/to read/to see to do list... which at some point becomes hammered through "Do I need it?" check list. But I did finally buy it and read it and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Sitting at the pool doing laps one day I looked out the glass doors and saw a light snow flurry. The pool of this gym is situated in a condo/office park/middle income/elderly housing development. Looking through the rectangular glass doors, white specks drifted diagonnally across a flat brick grid on a cloudy flat grey day. It was a page out of the book. I could see it as Chris drew it. It tinted everything else with a strange resonance. Seeing the world as another sees it very rare, but as an artist it reminds me of one of the great intentions of art which is to create a potential to share a way of seeing.

kanye west and kid cudi and art

This is the first time perhaps in a long time that I have been grabbed visually: annoyed, confused, but enthralled. It seems amazing that the suits above would allow this video. Obviously it obscures the mugs of the stars of the video, but you get lost in what's going on. It is a visual irritant in both visuals and comprehension. It makes you think something is broken and I subconsciously wanted to fix it. It has decidedly opted to NOT be aesthetically harmonious (aka pretty) and I can appreciate that. This is what art (pure art (for lack of a better term)) has always been the one to do this and push this. It's so rare if ever that I find something that is annoying and makes me want to "tune." It taps into something. It does "it" wrong. It capitalizes or recreates the wrong way, the broken way. It's hard to digest and I like that. I like it a lot. Who makes things to annoy you anymore especially at this level of visibility and accessibility.

And perhaps it works because it is the opposition of popular culture/music mashed with ideals of art that makes it work. If this was just an "Art video" I might have just turned it off/close the window/walked away. I know how bad that sounds as an "artist."

My guess is that this was created after have seen  Takeshi Murata's work.. Though I have never seen all his work (and never in a gallery) it tends to be more abstract and atmospheric. You can find it on youtube too. I suppose this is often the role of art as art and not say art in service of something else... to create something new and interesting but in some sense without application or narrative. What Murata had made was a tool or a pillar from which Kanye used to metaphorically build a house (or pick whatever object you like). Which is not to say one is better than the other, but instead just an observation for a blog.

But this "borrowing" of course has never been new and it goes both ways. Nissan or Toyota did it with Fischli and Weiss and my guess is that they took it someplace else and consequently took it someplace else.

words i have learned

German words I have learned

shizer - shit

wasser - water

bitte - please

mit - with

wurst - sausage

nein - no

dankschoen - thanks

das - yes

please use any combination of these to make mind blowing sentences or just enjoy the one I just made.

as for french. i have become good enough to reply with simple sentences which fools people into thinking I understand. So they just jabber away and I attempt to read inflection, body language, and guess about the natural flow of conversation. But basically I don't know if you are talking to me unless you are looking at me. It's kinda like I'm deaf. 

And if you switch topics... well then the train just derailed.

grain of sand

i am amazed that i am able to find my way around. i dont sepak the langauge. ive never been to the city and yet i get around and find my way back. it seems so absurd.

the wurst berlin shizer

ahoy sailors where ever you all are

i am in berlin now and leaving tomorrow for prague. i took a sidetrip to hamburg the other day on a whim. i had the most amazing meal at a restaurant across from the hostel. everything was homemade including the bread. half the restaurant was a kitchen. the other half was a large L shaped table where everyone had to sit together. nothing was over 5 euro. she had homemade desserts too but i was too full. it seems that the happiest and most memorable moments on this trip was food. the seafood in barcelona (at the market off the ramblas). the steak in madrid (where u cut it and cooked it red interior on the plate). the food in hamburg. i wish i had a camera for the taste of food. and for smells like the smells on the mountain in bilboa after a rain.


speaking of food the toilets here in berlin are terrible. they all have this shit shelf in the bowl and the drain/hole with water is in the front. so when you take you a dump you can not only check if you have made the hershey kiss on top but you also get to smell it. and i am here to tell you it smells like complete and total shizer. i feel like a dog when i use these toilets. this is one side of my humanity that I do not like experiencing. why woudl the germans want to do this to themselves and the rest of us? if you think it smells bad after your friend takes a deuce in your bathroom try and imagine this.


who would have ever thought I would be in hamburg or anywhere that i have been. talk about feeling like a grain of sand.