Looking back and reworking

I wanted to take a look at how the last body would read with a different treatment. In order to take a step away from issues around the use of color, below are a few image details in black and white:

Residency #3 summary

For my third residency, I brought a series of abstract cityscape photographs created with long shutter speeds and overexposures. My interests were in the forms, colors and feelings evoked by these experiments. Going into the residency, I recognized that the images had both strengths and weaknesses. The reactions and feedback were diverse. Some people suggested I go in a completely different direction while others encouraged me to go deeper into the work. The following are themes and issues that came up across the critiques:

Conceptual:

• People spoke about time, movement, irrationality, imaginary landscapes, digital stuttering, manipulated vision, memory of a place, erosion, and displacement.
• There is an interesting push and pull between the documentation of a place and the experimentation of the process.
• I need to be able to justify every visual decision such as the use of color or dyptics.
• The series is too formal and needs more varied content.
• How does my work relate to issues of postmodern photography? What is my postmodern strategy in the making or displaying of my work?

Viewer/Audience:

• Presentation is extremely important for this kind of work. It needs to be elegant to heighten the viewer’s aesthetic experience.
• I need to have a conscious purpose in my use of color without it becoming too decorative. There is a seduction in what it looks like but the work reads too much like a special effect created with software.
• There is too much white space in the images, however it is interesting to consider what is missing from a picture due to the overexposure.
• The work needs separation from the wall to encourage movement. I need to think about an immersive installation possibly in a circular room or projection.
• I need to look at artists who have non traditional display techniques.

Moving forward:

• What is my strategy and direction?
• In the past my work has included an element of social practice. People encouraged me to bring that back into my work.
• I will continue to use the process from the series in more varied situations with different locations, and interiors. This will hopefully add more visual interest and cognitive intrigue.
• I will look at the contemporary discourses around abstraction in photography.
• I hope to give up more control of the camera and use less technical wizardry.
• I will look at one location (the mass ave bridge for example) and take straight photographs with access to the people. I can document it as straight photography, and also find ways to treat it abstractly.
• I need to solidify the ideas behind the work to move beyond the visual effect and focus on the idea.
• In my artist statement, I need to be concise and draw people in.
• Blend art, photojournalism, social issues and postmodern strategies.
• Engage more in a personal conversation with my work and be aware of what the work in conversation with in context, history and symbolic meaning.
• Make as much work as possible that could be in my thesis show.

Artists/Books to research:

James Welling, Mariah Robertson, Robert Erwin, Mark Rothko, Jack Goldstein, Jeremy Blake, Marilyn Minter, Wade Guyton, Walead Beshty, Eileen Quinlan, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, Randy West, Vera Lutter, Uta Barth, Sze Tsung Leong, Liz Dischenes, Martha Rosler, William Eggleston, Arron Lish (Water Portraits), Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff, Letha WIlson, Bryan Graf, Katherine Opie, Modern Art Notes podcast, Trevor Paglen, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Gilles Peress, The Cruel Radiance by Susie Linfield, Svetlana Boym, Matt Saunders, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gerhard Richter, Book: Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres by Andrew Darley, Photography exhibit at Mass MOCA, Greer Muldowney,Stan Brakhage, Archive Testimony Trace by Michael Newman, Miguel Abreu Gallery artists, Harry Everett Smith.