Reclaimation of Utøya

Last month, I was visiting friends in Norway, and we hiked up to an overlook. The view was spectacular with mountains in the distance surrounding Lake Tyrifjorden. In the lake are several islands one of which is Utøya. On this island a horrible shooting spree took place killing 69 people. Just recently Norwegian youth reclaimed Utoya island four years after the massacre. They came together in remembrance and healing. Just to the left of the frame lies Utøya.

Tillmans at the Astrup Fearnley Museet

It was great to see the work of Wolfgang Tillmans in person. Seeing it full size was such a different experience than seeing his work in books.
Love Story - Works from Erling Kagge's Collection at the Astrup Fearnley Museum

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.

Pushing Farther

The images below represent the bulk of my sustained inquiry refocusing on this series after my last meeting with André. Picking up this body of work and breathing new life and energy into it gives me great enthusiasm. My other work with the time lapse feels more like an intellectual drill, fruitful yes, but as I pursue the series below, I know that it was birthed from solely my own personal experience and history of exploring the medium of photography. The nature of the work is experimental. I am searching for a particular look, feeling and pathos. Of the many tens of thousands of images that I took the ones below get at what I am seeking to express.

I brought these prints 13x19" to my next mentor meeting and we discussed what was working and what visual language I want to speak with the image. André encouraged me to look at the series for diptychs that have a certain continuity between images. He felt that the images that are working the best are the ones that move past being photographic into the realm of transmedia. My hope is to bring some of the past work together with these new images and produce more to complete a solid large format series that I can then exhibit. While I am closing in on a cohesive series, I still want to continue to experiment and open myself up to the new discoveries.

Putting it all together to pull something out

The next specific assignment André gave me was to look and my image archives and find individual images that represent documentary/external and then find images that represent the internalized search and put them together to create new meanings and visual language. I wrote before about the seemingly divided avenues of my work. Looking back on the images that I made over a decade ago before working as a commercial photographer, it felt like I had a much more cohesive vision. I then gathered images, finding ways to combine the disparate intentions into new relationships.
Captain, Ghost Ship, Water's light.

 Lupeni, Romania

 Student's Struggle; Santiago, Chile

Home After Katrina

Boston Marathon, Before the Explosions

Given a Voice, Chile.

It was in this group of images that I pulled together some recent cityscape work.

 André responded to these images more than the collages as a whole. He felt like this was the work that I should engage in a more sustained focused way. It brings together a lot of the issues around exploring the mechanics of photography in new ways. For the rest of the semester, I am going to focus on producing more images for the "City Spirit" series.

Importance of place and context

I decided to take the time-lapse technique that I been using lately to the "People's Climate March" in New York City. I was one of the over 400,000 people marched that day. I have covered many mass demonstrations including student protests in Chile which usually ended with clashes with the police. In the past, with the intent of a photojournalist, I ran around trying to capture all heightened action seeking out the most emotional, colorful and conflictual. This time I was more meditative finding places where I could set up the camera to capture the vast numbers of people. I initially found places that looked down on the crowd and towards the end of the march, I was right in the middle of street as the marchers streamed past and around me.
Fuck Climate Change, Pointing, Silence, Birds, Rising Tide.