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100 Images continuing

elainebrodie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:56:30 +0000

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Well, last weekend I cropped all the images. I cropped them selecting quite small areas in all the photos, and used a square format, aiming for abstraction and non-representational results. Oddly, even after this, they still, in many cases, had recognizably similar qualities.

This surprised me quite a bit. Not only did they still seem to fall into visual groupings, but the single black and white drawing image, even though I cropped it down to just one tiny fish, still looks completely different than all of the others. It is still a category on it’s own.

I really thought that abstracting the images would allow for less-predictable organizing principles. Now I’m not certain that it has, or where to go from here. They do look quite low-res beautiful though.

October 7, 2008

100 images: the single image, continued

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As Gail mentioned in class last week, I too sometimes dream about things when they are simmering.

I woke up this morning with a lingering images in mind. It was about my first idea for this project, the over-sized, single image with the tiny bordering pictures around it, though I thought that I had already moved past that idea. In my waking haze, I realized that I had been flipping through a beautiful magazine, with interesting articles on a variety of subjects by a mix of famous and more obscure authors.

The professional and engaging layout made the magazine feel lively and inviting. The articles ranged from philosophy and topics of social significance to reviews, a short story and poetry. It reminded me of a magazine I used to do interpretive photographs for, “Gamut International” (sadly no longer in existence).

What was strange though was that every single picture in the magazine, from the cover to the advertising to the editorial columns, was illustrated in varying sizes and crops of this same picture.

“History” in the making – what is pushed out into the world by the selection, promotion and archiving process, and later retained collectively as “truth” or “fact”?

October 5, 2008

100 Images Project – Initial Thoughts

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A disc with 100 images, some interesting, many banal, that are to be structured or organized in some way, almost anyway, and presented. Also a discussion about process, idea development, a summary paper and an artists’ statement. OK. I’ve been stalling on this, trying to think of how I can turn this into something that I can get excited about. Something that feels like art, my art.

It’s not going to be easy!

My first idea was to choose one single image to display, in print, quite large, perhaps very large, and then use the remaining images quite tiny as a border or frame. These could be grouped in a variety of ways such as:

- sorting them by colour transitions, similarities or juxtapositions

- creating a narrative reading or context for the large image
- completely randomized
- repeating them in patterns, for purely aesthetic and decontextualizing purposes

Why this approach? Why subvert the archive approach?

For the sake of finding One image that speaks to me. One echo of connection. One piece of something that feels like my art, not someone else’s.

Then I thought of putting the 99 other images randomly on the back of the main image, thereby using all the images but somehow subverting the obvious categories, the banal pairings, the sense of meaningful multiples, by selecting one image, and more or less hiding the rest, making them secondary or less.

100 Images

elainebrodie — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:40:40 +0000

The Project:

A disc with 100 images, some interesting, many banal, that are to be structured or organized in some way, almost any way, or any form, and presented. Leave none out, or at least account for all of them, and add no others. The project requires an ongoing discussion about the selection and organizing process, idea development, a summary paper and an artists’ statement.

The Goal:

To explore how archives and databases can be used to re-frame the same 100 images into new meanings, forms and contexts. That’s the official version. The personal version is to make a work that creatively inspires me, and that still connects to the course topics in a meaningful way.

OK. I’ve been stalling on this, trying to think of how I can turn this into something that I can get excited about. Something that feels like art. My art.

It’s not going to be easy!

Ideas:

My first idea was to choose one single image to print, quite large, perhaps very large, and then use the remaining images as a tiny border or frame. These could be grouped in a variety of ways such as:

- sorting them by colour – transitions, similarities or juxtapositions
- creating a narrative reading or context for the large image
- completely randomized order
- repeating them as grouped patterns, using purely aesthetic and decontextualizing purposes

Why this approach? Why subvert the archive approach?

For the sake of finding one image that speaks to me. One echo of connection. One piece of something that feels like my art, not someone else’s.

Also, this points to the selection process, and the very personal criteria that might be applied to it. Likewise, it refers back to the discussions about “who writes history”, and what becomes the official version of the past. One very large photo with 99 teensy ones is very much like history – what gets remembered is only one possible truth, or one version of it. Most of what happened in the past is not archived, does not become “History”. Once that one very large image is reproduced elsewhere, such as in a magazine, the tiny photos in the border would all but disappear, or at least become illegible. A perfect metaphor!

I also thought of putting the 99 other images randomly on the back of the main image, thereby using all the images but somehow subverting the obvious categories, the banal pairings, the sense of meaningful multiples, by selecting one image, and more or less hiding the rest, making them secondary and hard to see.

hmmm . . .

Next I thought about how I could crop each of the 100 original images to make new, less literal images. I like this idea. I will experiment with this and see what new ideas come to mind from here.

If I crop each of the images to create new, abstracted ones, can I make more than one version of each image? Or am I limited to 100 in total? If only 100, can they repeat when re-organized by differing criteria?

And what is the connection between these abstracted remnants of the original photos and the idea of archives and databases? Do they still serve or address the intent of the project? I think so, because it will all depend on how I sequence, sort or present them.

Why crop the images?

To divorce their naming and sorting conventions from their visual content, as databases do.

To create something mysterious from something previously easily understood.

To make them somehow my own.

Image Transitions (as Video, Flash or a gif animation):

I am thinking that making a video, or a Flash/gif animation, using very gradual transitions between images, would be interesting. Animating the images like this would create “new” images as they transition into the next one. Adding music, narration, or poetry as audio tracks would further change how the images are viewed, pointing again to the subjectivity of the selection, framing, media and presentation processes and how these change the readings and understandings of images. In the same way, archives and databases are used to deliver, group and re-frame often diverse materials. There is no inherent meaning to an archive or database – it is shaped and created by the user.

I could sort and sequence the cropped stills in the film by using the alpha-numeric sequence of the original file names. Or I could group the originals by the most obvious categories, such as faces, landscapes, people, skaters, aerials, colours, museums, etc. Since many of the images will fall into multiple categories, they could repeat, or I could create multiple cropped versions of the same original image. In this way I’m not technically adding any new images, but re-purposing the originals. Isn’t that the very nature of archives and databases? To find what you are looking for within them by a subjective kind of sorting and organizing? It would be like cutting your grandmother’s portrait out of a class photograph, because that is the only information of interest to you in it.

In this way, the previously literal, fixed and visually linked images would result in a kaleidoscopic effect based on using the naming or grouping conventions as a sequencing device, and at the same time also create new tertiary images in the transitions created by these various groupings.

A Magazine:

Please visit my home page for this quirky re-developement of my first idea.

Eduardo Kac

elainebrodie — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:46:02 +0000

I keep thinking about this work. Kac deals with the once impermeable line between human and machine, the animate and inanimate. In fact, he may end up being largely responsible for changing where that line is. His biological creations, termed bio-art, are conceptually-based pieces that seem like they would more at home in a lab than in a gallery, except for his genetically modified flourescent bunny, which might be more at home in the world, except for the fact it would have nowhere to hide in the dark.

It turns out that Kac himself has nowhere to hide in the dark of his genetically engineered art. I am deeply torn by his work, drawn to it by its quite intriguing conceptual basis, and and repulsed by its utterly irresponsible moral position.

At his recent lecture at Ryerson, I raised the question of responsibility for the life forms he creates and modifies. Kac very disappointingly, side-stepped this entirely. This was rather devastating to me. If these creations were human he would likely be in jail. When tampering with genetic code and creating new life forms, there is no way to know where the line of consciousness is. Kac readily admits this, but then stops his innovative thinking right there.

Kac has gone way beyond art. Like a child, he wants us to applaud his creations and not mention, or even notice, that there may be one hell of mess that needs to be cleaned up afterwards.

I Heart New York!

elainebrodie — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:32:24 +0000

Yes, corny, but oh-so-true!
I feel so inspired and energized. (photos coming soon!)

The MOMA, as ever, was one of the stars, displaying fabulous classics from the collection, including about 15 of their 300 Rauschenbergs, Merit Oppenheim’s “Object”, which is a fur-covered and fur-lined tea cup and spoon, and too many more to mention. (The surrealists are always a thrill for me.) They also have a new expanded design area, which now includes 3 Urban Vinyl “art toys” prized by collectors of lowbrow, or nobrow art. Lowbrow moves up in the world!

Also at MOMA, Olafur Eliasson’s “Take Your Time” show used lights, colours, mirrors, strobes and smoke to create different immersive environments. Take the online tour here. Dara Birnbaum’s “Wonder Woman” that Ed Slopek assisted on was also there, filling a large wall at the foot of the escalator (hey – guess what? It’s not the first time Ed’s had work at the MOMA!), and there were several other very interesting video pieces, especially those by Sigalit Landau, some of which included sculptural installations. (Check out the still image of her bare torso doing an endless hula hoop with a large circle of barbed wire, if you dare.) Lynda Bengli’s layered video images of herself mouthing her own mouth and tongue was captivating, as part of the “Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now“ exhibition. Bernd and Hilla Becher had a large exhibition “Landscape/Typology”, which reminded me of Tory’s archive project for Blake’s class. Actually, I like Tory’s project more than their originals – thanks Tory!

Dinner at the magical wonderland that is Panna 2 restaurant after the MOMA was great, and seems to be becoming a tradition, thanks to Ed.

Another highlight was playing David Byrne’s sound installation in the fabulous, if a bit run-down, Battery Maritime Building, on the waterfront. An old pump organ in the middle of a vast, skylit room, had numerous tubes and wires running from it to various parts of the building. In playing the organ, you were effectively playing the building. I will post a video of it shortly and provide a link in this post. As the light streamed in diagonal lines through the huge, grand-decaying-dame of industrial space, the quircky, random sounds were sublime.

Of course the Staten Island Ferry, free and serving cold beer, was a must to cool off afterwards, since it was about 40 degrees that day. The Statue of Liberty says “hi”.

Fabulous beyond words was an experimental dance and theatrical performance in the Ontological Theatre in an old church, owned by avante-garde playwright Richard Forman. The performance, called “Vicious Dogs on Premises” by the group Witness Relocation, who were the recipients of the 2007 NY Innovative Theater Awards for best choreographer, best sound design, and best production, was hysterical, intense, incredibly energetic and constantly innovative and surprising.

Sadly, the Whitney Biennial (see a video clip of the show) left me scratching my head, disappointed and confused as to what most of it was about. There were some redeeming pieces, primarily a fabulous video dyptich “The Casting”, by Omer Fast. Fast used video as posed, still shots to illustrate 2 interwoven narratives as he describes an unfortunate incident as a soldier and several disturbing ones within a new relationship.

Jeff Koons giant metallic ballon sculptures on the roof of the Met were a delightful change from seeing his work contained in galleries, and were a suiting companion to the Super Heroes Fashion and fantasy show on at the same time. Of course the Met could take a week in itself, and we only had a few hours, but it was a refreshingly playful take on some aspects of art and pop culture.

Cai Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim was just closing, but we did get to see some of this most heart-stopping show. Beautiful, horrifying and provocative, I had to buy the catalogue to see what else I had missed. They were dismantling the exhibition, carrying hundreds of stuffed wolves out of the museum one-by-one when we were there, which was a show unto itself!