Idea Blog - Collection

Collection:

1. the act or process of collecting

2. something collected

"The collection's space must move between the public and the private, between display and hiding. Thus the miniature is suitable as an item of collection because it is sized for individual consumption at the same time its surplus of detail connotes infinity and distance. While we can "see" the entire collection, we cannot possibly "see" each of its elements. We thereby also find at work here the play between identity and difference which characterizes the collection organized in accordance with qualities of the objects themselves. To group objects in a series because they are "the same" is to simultaneously signify their difference. In the collection, the more the objects are similar, the more imperative it is that we make gestures to distinguish them."

(Stewart, Susan. "Objects of Desire, Inside and Outside." On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. 155. Print.)

The reason that I have chosen the word "collection" is because my series is like a collection. I have photographed similar things that I have found in the houses and tend to group them together. Also the series itself being a collection of collections. The things that I find in the houses that I go into are collections of the things that are left behind. The objects found tell a story about the people that once lived there. But like Stewart said we cannot see each of the elements. Therefore, we will never know that whole story. Since we will never know the whole story of the people and their objects the collection that I am making of the photographs of the collections people will never know my whole story of the journey.

Bibliography:

Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. Print.

Artist Blog - John Divola

Website:

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~divola/

Interview(s)

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/08/interview-john-divola-on-vandalism.html

Gallery:

http://www.artnet.com/gallery/684/gallery-luisotti.html

Biography:

John Divola (b. 1949, Los Angeles) BA, 1971 California State University, Northridge; MA 1973: MFA 1974, University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1975 he has taught photography and art at numerous institutions including California Institute of the Arts (1978-1988), and since 1988 he has been a Professor of Art at the University of California, Riverside.

Since 1975, Divola's work has been featured in more than sixty solo exhibitions in the United States, Japan, Europe, Mexico, and Australi

("John Divola." Faculty Support Site. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. )

Even though Divola's work goes in another direction than my own I still think that aesthetically there is a connection. The color photographs from his series "Isolated Houses" may be lived in (unknown) however there is a feeling of abandonment to them. Also the bright colors are something that I have started looking for since it became conscious to me that that was what I was drawn to.

The photographs of the lone paintings on the wall from his series "Abandoned Paintings" again show abandonment and the bright colors but also this is another thing that I have been exploring when I photograph abandoned houses. Divola put those paintings up himself but I have always found it odd and disturbing that such things would be so important to hang yet very easily left behind.

The black and white photographs from his series "Vandalism" show a great amount of destruction. The houses that I photograph show destruction from the elements and materials breaking down while Divola's images show human destruction.

Artist Blog - Brian Vanden Brink

Website:

http://www.brianvandenbrink.com/index.html

Gallery:

http://www.junefitzpatrickgallery.com/

Interview:

http://www.brianvandenbrink.com/int_bngmet_april07.html

Quotes:

"Yes. I try not to light things. I think what people consistently respond to is the sense of light in my pictures. I think I learned that in Nebraska. I love the idea that I’m working with God lighting my projects. And if I’d been able to afford strobes early in my career, I would have lost out on all of this. What I thought was a failing, a loss, was a great gift."

"I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re probably right. When I see someone else’s images of a project I’ve shot, I am struck by their choices, the angles, what they even saw as interesting. It is a different story they tell."

(Jakimides., By Annaliese. "| Brian Vanden Brink | Interview from Bangor Metro, April 2007." | Brian Vanden Brink | Architectural Photographer |. Web. 01 Nov. 2010. )

One of the reasons that I am drawn to Brink's photographs is that they are rural. Another reason is that he chooses to take photographs that show a lot of color and the outsides of the houses. I tried taking photographs of just the outsides of the houses that I came across but was unsuccessful in that pursuit. Another thing that I like about his work is that he uses all natural light even in his architectural work which is the way that I want to keep working. There is just something about the way that natural light comes into the houses that you could never get from artificial lighting.

Artist Blog - Rob Dobi

Interview:

http://blog.bluetideproductions.com/2009/11/03/rob-dobi-photographer-interview/

http://thefamiliarstrangers.com/rob-dobi-interview/

http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=90487

Website:

http://robdobi.4ormat.com/5698-information-home

http://www.dobi.nu/

Quotes:

"I have just always found them fascinating, It isn’t about the haunting or creepy aspect at all. It is the thrill and sheer overwhelming feeling when you walk into a wide open factory that used to employ thousands, or a theater that could seat just as many, and now they just sit there with dust covering everything completely frozen in time. No signs of life in decades, no sound whatsoever, just you and your footprints. It has a post apocalyptic feel at times, like you are the only one left on earth. To me I almost feel at home in this situation, I am a fairly introverted person so just me and the click of my camera is a calming feeling."

(Reed, Zach. "Blue Tide Productions Blog » Rob Dobi Photographer Interview." Blue Tide Productions Blog. 3 Nov. 2009. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. .)

"Usually just everyday mundane subject matter, but shot in a style that shows how empty / decayed things have become. I think it is the stuff people are most familiar with that resonates the most, there is a sense of understanding when it is something people can associate with."

(Reed, Zach. "Blue Tide Productions Blog » Rob Dobi Photographer Interview." Blue Tide Productions Blog. 3 Nov. 2009. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. .)

Biography:

Rob Dobi is a 2003 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His photographic work has been featured in Preservation Magazine, the Connecticut Post, Mcgraw-Hill textbooks.

(Dobi, Rob. "New England Ruins - About." New England Ruins - Home. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. .)

The reason I chose Rob Dobi as my artist this week is because he is not a "photographer" per se. Dobi is an illustrator by trade and got into photographing abandoned buildings when he and his friends in college went driving around. Even though most of the buildings that Dobi photographs are industrial buildings they have the same feel as the houses that I photograph.

Artist Blog - Dalia Khamissy

Interview:

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/a_conversation_with_dalia_khamissy/

Website:

http://www.lightstalkers.org/dalia_khamissy

Gallery:

http://www.al-liquindoi.com/gallery-dalia2.html

Biography:

Dalia Khamissy was born in Beirut. She graduated with a degree in Photography from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Saint-Esprit de Kaslik, Lebanon. Since the beginning she has shown interest in the social and socio-political issues in the Middle East. Her first story in 1998 shows a single mother living in the Lebanese society. In 2002, she traveled to Iraq as a photographer for a humanitarian mission. She returned to the region in 2004 and lived on the border of Jordan-Iraq where she documented the Palestinian and Iranian Kurd refugees stranded in two camps after fleeing the war in Iraq. She has also photographed refugees in Lebanon, mostly Sudanese and Iraqis. In June 2005, Dalia took a job as photo editor for Associated Press in Beirut. After editing the summer 2006 war and its aftermath, she left AP and started working on her own photography focusing on the aftermath of the war and the Lebanese society. Dalia’s work has been exhibited and published internationally.

(Murray, Jörg, and G. Höhr. "Al-liquindoi: Lebanon Gallery - Dalia Khamissy." Al-liquindoi Photography Workshops. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.)

Quotes:

"I studied Photography at a Fine Arts faculty, so the aesthetic was very important in our work. We spent our years studying the work of masters of photography and those surely became “masters” because their photographs were aesthetically different than others… We studied also history of art, drawing etc. So one’s eye gets used to seeing in a different way I guess. "

(Colberg, Jörg M. "Conscientious Extended | A Conversation with Dalia Khamissy." Jörg M Colberg. 18 May 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.)

"In this series I was struck by the peaceful and sad spaces I found when I entered the houses and mosques; the furniture left behind witnessed of the stories of people who once lived there… I felt I knew those people; I knew their taste in furniture, colours, fabric, clothes that covered the ground etc. You imagine stories of how they lived, how they used to gather at night all together, how they laughed, argued etc… How they hid from the bombs and how they fled the war, if they ever managed to flee the war… Their spaces and lives were completely violated and I related to that, I wanted to document that. The war had turned their private spaces into public in few seconds and it was very disturbing. In a way I put myself in their shoes and I was furious."

(Colberg, Jörg M. "Conscientious Extended | A Conversation with Dalia Khamissy." Jörg M Colberg. 18 May 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.)

Here recently the photographers that I have chosen to show on my blog are becoming redundant. Most of the photographers that I have been looking at recently have photographed homes of destruction, whether it be from a natural disaster or war. I find it interesting though that Khamissy has decided to concentrate more on the furniture. She said that by doing so she felt that she somehow knows the people who lived there by looking at their belongings. I also have felt somewhat like this when I am photographing abandoned houses. I don't necessarily feel like I know that people that once lived there but questions are raised about them personally. I like what Khamissy said about how "one's eye gets used to seeing in a different way". This quote has really reaffirmed that my photographs are different from others who have photographed similar places.

Idea Blog - Souvenir

"The antique as souvenir always bears the burden of nostalgia for experience impossibly distant in time: the experience of the family, the village, the firsthand community. One can better understand the antique's stake in the creation of an intimate distance if the antique is contrasted to the physical relic, the souvenir of the dead which is the mere material remains of what had possessed human significance. Because they are souvenirs of death, the relic, the hunting trophy, and the scalp are at the same time the most intensely potential souvenirs and the most potent antisouvenirs. They mark the horrible transformation of meaning into materially more than they mark, as other souvenirs do, the transformation of materiality into meaning. If the function of the souvenir proper is to create a continuous and personal function of the souvenir proper is to create a continuous and personal narrative of the past, the function of such souvenirs of death is to disrupt and disclaim that continuity. Souvenirs of the mortal body are not so much a nostalgic celebration of the past as they are an erasure of the significance of history. Consider the function of such souvenirs in the contagious and malevolent magic of voodoo. Or consider the enormous display of hunting trophies staged as "The International Competitive Show" by Hermann Goring in 1937 as a premonition of the death camps and their attempted negation of meaning. In contrast to the restoration offered by such gestures as the return of saints' relics, these souvenirs mark the end of sacred narrative and the interjection of the curse. Ironically, such phenomena themselves can later be reframed in an ensuing metonymic displacement such as the punk and kitsch appropriations of fascist material culture."

Stewart, Susan. "Chapter 5, Part 1." On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. 140. Print.

I have only posted one quotation because it is such a long one and says so much. The only issue I have with this quote is that I am not sure what the last sentence is saying exactly. I am going to start with the "souvenir of the dead". The reason that I am starting with the dead souvenir is because I have come across a lot of carcasses in the houses that I am photographing. These carcasses are mostly of birds of which I assume had found their way into the houses but could not get back out and for lack of food died in the house. I have also seen deer, cat, and dog remnants. One thing that Stewart has said about these souvenirs if that they are here to stop the story of the past. In a way the houses themselves could be looked at as dead and also the items that are decaying inside. This really hit home for me since all I really wanted to do was find the history of the houses and the people that lived there. Maybe this is a way of something telling me that that past has been interrupted and have "erased the significance of history". This in another way could be my opportunity to bring back the "significance of the history" of these houses.

Bibliography:

Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. Print.

Artist Blog - Hannah Collins

Website:

http://www.hannahcollins.net/home.html

Gallery:

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21268&roomid=4700

"Space and scale are important considerations in Collins’s work - the space created by the piece, the space it occupies physically and how it relates to the space in which it hangs. The human figure is deliberately absent in much of her work. “The human figure would fix the overall scale of the image and would fix your relationship with the image. I want one to be able to move into the image.”"

(New Works by Hannah Collins at the Irish Museum of Modern Art." Welcome to IMMA | Irish Museum of Modern Art. Press Office. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. .)

"The enterprise Hannah Collins has undertaken is ethical - in that she is dealing with our present - and modest at the same time, since the language she develops is in no way closed in on itself but rather an open infinity of virtualities."

(Collins, Hannah, and Hannah Collins. In the Course of times ; A Worldwide Case of Homesickness : Sala Parpalló, Centre Cultural La Beneficència. Valéncia: Diputació De València, 1997. Print.)

I am not really sure what I think of Collins' work since I have not been able to find much online about her work. I really like that her photographs are black and white and think that they add to the feeling of "old world", the past, and devastation that I think she is trying to portray. I have found what I think is a book entitled "Conversations with Photographers: John Baldessari, Hannah Collins, Axel Hutte, Gonzalo Puch, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jeff Wall" and as soon as I can get my hands on the book I will be adding to this blog.

Idea Blog - Nostalgia

Nostalgia - homesickness, longing for something far away or long ago

"But nostalgic longing for a past is always also a longing for another place. Nostalgia can be a utopia in reverse."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 7. Print.

"...historian Charles Maier's pithy pronouncement that nostalgia is to memory like kitsch is to art."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 8. Print.

"In the case of ruins that which is allegedly present and transparent whenever authenticity is claimed is present only as an absence; it is the imagined present of a past that can now only be grasped in its decay. This makes the ruin subject to nostalgia."

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 12. Print.

Bibliography:

Huyssen, Andreas. "Nostalgia For Ruins." Grey Room 23 (2006): 6-21. Print.

Nostalgia was brought to my attention, it was not a word that I considered myself to describe my work. I would not consider myself a history buff but love to hear stories from people that lived in the time. I would love to be able to hear the stories of the people that lived in the houses that I photograph but have been unable to get anywhere when contacting them. So I guess in a way "nostalgia" is the perfect word to describe the way that I feel when photographing the houses.

Lecture - Julika Rudelius

Rudelius was trained in a publishing house and went into art because she didn't want to be in an office. She works with video because there she can manipulate the truth.

Her subjects come from anger and discomfort. As she got older they became more layered and less angry.

Her work entitled "Train" is of three young men of which you can only see their mouths between the headrest and seat on a train. The men are talking about women that they have had sex with. The things that the men were saying was very vulgar and crude. Rudelius wants us to wonder whether they are really on a train, are they really saying that? She also said that the mouths become and "erotic object".

"Highest Point" Rudelius wanted the women that she interviewed to explain how they reached and orgasm. They would keep their clothes on but explain with words and movements. She referred to this work as slapstick. She wanted this to be somewhat funny.

"Tagged" was about young Morrocans in Holland. These young men always seemed to be dressed really well. They wore designer clothes. In the film they talk about how the clothes make them feel and how they feel about what others are saying about them. In Holland the Dutch dress badly, therefore having these young Morrocans dress really well makes them outsiders. This film was brought on by Rudelius being mugged in Holland by a couple of Morrocans. She wants to bring up the questions of did they steal the clothes? Did they rob someone to get the clothes?

"Your Blood is as Red as Mine" is a film about prejudices and how they are not true. Rudelius interviewed several black men in Holland and asked them questions like: Why are black men attracted to lighter skinned women? The response she got was completely different with the black men she interviewed in Holland than she would have gotten from a black man in America.

"Economic Primacy" was a film about capitalism and money. Here she interviewed several wealthy men. She said that she came across a checklist for psychopaths and said all the things on the list were the same things that you needed to be successful. She said that trying to get the interviews became a sport. The rich don't care at all what others think about them, they are oblivious.

Rudelius said that in most of the films she was directing some of the people on what to say. This is where I can see the manipulation of truths that she speaks about. However, she has directs some of the people on what she thinks about the subjects. This is a manipulation of her truth not truths.

In one of the interviews she was talking to what I assume was a black preacher. He asked her what she wanted from her work after she dies. And she said that she wanted to people to take it places. This confused me because in the end she said that the reason there are only loops of her films on her website was because people were downloading them and she wanted to be in control of how her films were showed. How is she going to be in control when she dies?

The other questions that came to mind after the lecture was why should we care about how she views the truth? Not everyone sees the subjects that she films the same way she does. Why not film the subjects based on someone else's truth?