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Chris Saah artist talk

Although Chris' lecture was quite a while ago, I'm still very inspired by the talk he gave. His images are striking and the philosophies behind them compelling. I love photography, but I rarely come across photographers who truly push the boundaries of the genre; Saah is one of those who I think do so with his electro-cinemagraphs. There are many artists who combine multiple photos into their images, but Saah's method creates an incredible effect.

His layering of multiple perspectives was something that I've never seen or thought of before and was incredibly striking to me. I was also really happy to hear about how is work is inspired by music, for instance, the use of counterpoint in Untitled (for Paul Hindemith. In fact, his shooting process is very similar to a musical process in the way that he "samples" an area.

His idea of space as a "psychological enclosure" was also intriguing to me- I'd never thought about space in that way before.

Having shot only black and white for a long period time, Chris was very conscious of his use of color once he began to incporate it into his work. The result is a very careful use of color and temperature as characters of their own, instead of as just a byproduct of his photographs.

There wasn't an image of his that I didn't find extremely interested- I'm really excited to see future work of his. The last piece he showed, Untitled (for August Strindberg) seemed to be moving in an interesting direction- Saah said that "with no reference point, you can enter into the image however you choose."

Saah's work was very motivating and has given me many ideas for new directions to take with my own art.

Christopher Saah

Project 3 Self-Assessment

In this project, called “Inner,” I’m trying to express a sense of what I believe exists inside of not only ourselves, but all things. Although I didn’t have this concept developed when I began, I knew that I wanted to somehow look through an object- an idea I had from project 1. Initially, I planned to print the flooded film images onto stretchy fabric and then have different people pull the fabric over their faces, which I would then photograph in high-contrast lighting. The idea changed to photographing back-lit human silhouettes through the fabric; at this stage in my mental process, I began to entertain the concept of visually representing the emotional states of different people. Eventually, after extensive brainstorming with the guys in the media center ways to communicate this concept as effectively as possible, I decided on a slightly varied version of my final idea, which involves the viewer interacting with and manipulating my projection of an “aura.” My goal was to attempt to simulate the way we interact with one another (and also with our environment)- we all change on our own, but we also change a lot based on our interactions. Another interesting feature of the setup is that after a time, the fabric will be become permanently altered by the interactions with it, much like we become permanently changed by those around us over time. The first and most important visual element of the project is the projected aura, which is a combination of three separate images that I converted into videos. I created the images from some of the abstract photographs that I took in my experiments for project 1. I felt that the photographs had an emotional character to them and also had high potential for manipulation into new images. Transforming them occurred in Photoshop through a process of layering and masking- I had the images in my head of how the final products should look so the manipulation process was not so experimental, although I had never created these kinds of images before. Later, I ran these images through various behaviors in Motion and eventually combined the multiple videos in a single, transforming video. I wasn’t trying to create literal imagery to represent simple emotions (bold red for angry, etc.), but rather more realistic representations of the complex array of indescribable and emotions that we as humans experience. The next visual element that I think viewers would notice is the image printed onto the fabric, which is a combination of three images. The most present image is the series of circles, which acts as a mask for the other two images- one is a combination of blurred faces and the other is a chest x-ray. The circles are meant to draw the viewer into the center of the canvas (the “inner” work). The other images are subtle and aren’t necessarily meant for the viewer to pick up on easily; rather, I added them for my own personal interest. The head, which contains the brain, holds our source of thought and consciousness. The chest contains the heart, which is very often used to represent emotion (I also personally find the lungs to be representative of consciousness). I wanted to layer these two in a subtle, but still visually interesting way. Subtlety in the print was important because I wanted to draw viewers into the projection rather than distract them from it. The fabric itself is very important in that it allows the viewers to manipulate and interact with the projection. The final visual element of this project is the frame and stand, which I wanted to keep simple so as to, again, not distract the viewer from the work. I could have made the frame even more transparent by painting it black (thus making it near-invisible in low lighting) but I felt that keeping the wood completely unfinished (except for sanding-down) strengthened the conceptual idea of seeing what is underneath. Obviously, there is a strong audio element to the piece. There is constant drone which, like the projection, changes on it’s own; the sound also changes when viewers interact with the screen. I wanted the audio to strengthen the impact on the viewer while interacting. Much like with the visuals, I created the sound based on my personal idea of how I imagine a person’s aura might sound. This whole project was further in my experimentation with trying to work with and between many different mediums. In doing so, I’m much more conscious of each decision I’m making since I’m not so familiar with a lot of the techniques that I’m using (as opposed to using photoshop, where I don’t necessarily need to think about what I’m doing). I believe that bringing the project out of the computer into a touchable, malleable creation makes the whole thing much more real and is important for expressing my concept as clearly as possible. I think I achieved a visually and aurally striking project, which is always important to me. However, it’s hard to say whether or not I’m communicating the concept effectively and if it speaks for itself. I believe that after a brief explanation of the concept, the viewers will be able to see how all of the elements work together. If I had more time to work on the project, I would probably look into programming the audio/visual elements to make the thing more interactive- possibly have the projection itself react to being touched and a similar thing with the audio. These reactions could become permanent after a time. I might also be interested in perhaps making a frame in the shape of a human outline- this would make my concept very clear, but I’m not sure I’d want it to be so obvious. I’m starting to explore similar ideas in other work (specifically my SMP), so I can certainly see myself elaborating on this project in the future. There are many more similar ideas that I would like to address. This class has certainly lived up to it’s title; over the course of these three projects I’ve completely reevaluated my processes of both creating and presenting my artwork. My experiments were really rewarding and I’m looking forward using a lot of the techniques I learned for future projects. I think that the first and the third project (experimental input/ experimental output) work very well together. The second project was definitely a departure from the other two, but was still experimental. Overall, I’m very happy with the work I’ve done for this class but I have to say that this last project has definitely been my favorite, although I may just feel this way since it’s the most recent.

Here's my video for Project 3- instead of three separate images, they now morph into one another.

To be projected onto

Ryoji Ikeda

I first heard of Ryoji Ikeda in a large collection of contemporary music that was given to me by my composition teacher in Italy- he described Ikeda as a "glitch" artist, which is a term that can mean quite a lot of things in regards to music. When I listened, I realized that his music is mostly based on the raw sounds of various waveforms and noise, processed and arranged in a way to highlight the qualities of these sounds at times, and at other times would arrange the noises in a way that created strong, rhythmic pulsations of interference.

I had no idea that Ikeda was also a visual artist until I recently came across some documentation of an incredible installation he did at Park Avenue Armory called "The Transfinite," a piece which immediately reminded me of (and makes use of) his musical work.

Ryoji Ikeda - Transfinite 7347 from watz on Vimeo.

Ikeda's description of the work:

To me, the purest beauty is the world of mathematics. Its perfect assemblage of numbers, magnitudes and forms persist, independent of us. The aesthetic experience of the sublime in mathematics is awe-inspiring. It is similar to the experience we have when we confront the vast magnitude of the universe, which always leaves us open-mouthed. As a composer/artist, I compose music, visuals, materials, physical phenomena and abstract concepts. For this project, the invisible multi-substance of data is the subject of my composition. Three large-scale audiovisual installations are re-orchestrated into a single, symphonic work as the transfinite. This project explores the transfinite (the infinite that is quantitative and ordered) intersection that lies between such polarizations—the beautiful and the sublime; music and mathematics; performance and installation; composer and visual artist; black and white; 0s and 1s.

This philosophy resonates deeply with me- I've always been extremely interested in the world of mathematics, and that often shows in my work either by conscious of unconscious means. In my early stages of photography I would search for the hidden and complex geometry in our everyday world, and in my current work I'm always arranging visual and audio elements into specific numeric systems (albeit non-complex ones) and then augmenting and diminishing these systems. Seeing a piece of work like this shows me how far in our universal language an artist can dive.

Conceptually, I think that a highly mathematical piece like this is the closest an artist can come to transcending the social/cultural/political subtexts that all artists are bound to in their work. Although many artists try to take advantage of the context in which they are creating art, there are also those who try to escape it, including myself from time-to-time, so a work like this gives me hope for that possibility.

Almost all of his installations make use of immersive environments, either by means of sheer scale and/or by surrounding the audience with sounds/visuals. Obviously, this is very relevant to my interests and his work tends to draw a lot of parallels to many of my own ideas which I often have problems realizing. I am very happy to have come across Ikeda's work and will be watching it very closely from now on.

Final images for the first stage of project 3. I'm going to choose one image from each row for printing.

Beginning stages of project 3. I'm trying to create some semblance of a person's consciousness/state of being/whatever

Elements.

Levels. (Click to see the full sizes)

Close up images.

Process. (Click to see the full images)

"Alternative Capture" Self-Assessment

For me, this project has had a long development which started with the first experimental shoots assigned to the class. By utilizing the flaws of my camera (poor handling of high ISO in particular) and through the use of my lensbaby lens with the plastic optic, I was able to capture extremely grainy images with heavily distorted colors and perspectives. I liked the outcome, but being an easily-bored photographer interested in abstract aesthetics, I had captured similar kinds of images before, so I wanted to experiment even further. After reading through all the different camera hacking projects, I was inspired to experiment with the actual lens (rather than just using a mass-produced lens in the usual way).

(High ISO / lensbaby shots)

There’s been an old broken film projector in my room with a really cool f/1.6 Bell&Howell lens inside. It’s built for the projector so it can’t be mounted on an SLR without some significant modification- I’d never done anything with it until I remembered reading a while back about reverse lens macro photography, in which one shoots through a normal lens that has been turned backwards. There are all sorts of mods that have been done to mount lenses backwards, but it’s also easy enough to do by just by holding the lens- this is called free-lens shooting. Now, if you’re trying to get high-quality, professional-grade macro photos, then free-lens macro shooting probably isn’t the right choice since it’s extremely hard to get a crisp, stable image without shooting at extremely high ISO. However, this is a project about experimenting and I like the lo-fi look anyways, so this was a perfect project. It took a while to get used to, especially since to focus the lens, you need to actually move yourself closer or farther from the object, rather than just turning a focus ring (remember, this isn’t an SLR lens). Eventually, I was able to get some really interesting shots.

(DIY macro shots)

After these experiments in capturing images, I starting looking into new ways to re-capture and process images. When scanning the film that was destroyed in the flood, I remembered a time once when I was very bored and had free reign over a scanner, which led to scanning various random objects and then rescanning the printed images, but moving the paper as it was scanned, creating, in some cases, slight distortions and, in other cases, huge streaks across the image. I tried this with the flood film and ended up with 10 or 11 different scanned images, each one different from the next. I only ended up using two of the images in the post-processing stage, one being the original scan and the other being a scan that bore no resemblance to the original film- it was basically a multi-layered streak across the page.

(raw scans)

I wouldn’t say that I did anything particularly groundbreaking in the post-processing phase, mainly because I liked the images I captured and didn’t want to go too over-the-top with effects. Still, I managed to experiment with techniques that I had never tried before, simple as they may have been. I ended up working on three different images taken from the original scans and in each, I made duplicate layers and adjusted their levels individually, bringing out different interesting details and colors. I then blended these different layers into images in different ways. In the first image, each layer is presented sequentially (one above the other) so the viewer sees each layer in its entirety. In the second and third images, I used a series of banded layer masks to create distinct vertical bars of color, which I think is more evident in the second image than the third. These images also lack the repetition element that is present in the first. For the third piece, I merely stretched the image along the vertical axis in order to fill the whole frame.

(The flooded film)

With all these experiments done, I had two separate sides of experimental image capture- pre and post-processing. Keeping these sides in mind, I wanted to further explore the ideas I had been developing without just repeating the same processes. One of the first ideas that I had for Project 1 (and one of the ones that happened to stay) was to create a cubism-inspired multiple-exposure panorama in which I would capture multiple angles and perspectives of an object by moving around it as I partially advance the film, thereby creating an overlapping effect. To do this, I planned on either using a Holga or creating my own matchbox pinhole camera. After sketching the idea out, I started to get new ideas for different kinds of pinhole cameras to build, all with multiple pinholes which could be used to capture different perspectives of the same scene. However, as the deadline drew nearer, I realized that I didn’t have enough time to build and test such cameras and then further experiment with process. I still plan on coming back to these designs at some point in the future; Dan from media services seems pretty interested in the designs, so I could see this could turning into a pretty interesting collaboration at some point. Once I was able to get the Holga in my hands, I looked into some ways to shoot 35 mm film through it- it’s a camera meant for 120 film. After some quick research, I found that the film just needs to be centered inside that camera and that any way to do this is fine as long as the roll is relatively stable. I cut up some thick pieces of cardboard and put them in to center the film; I figured that it might move around a little bit in the camera, but I’ve been welcome to mistakes all throughout this project so I was fairly unconcerned.

I wanted to make sure to photograph something that would really utilize the pan-perspective that I was trying to achieve and I figured there were two routes that I could choose to go by: I could either photograph something totally organic and free or do the opposite and choose something very geometric. After walking around my house and seeing the clothesline tied to the tree in our back yard, I knew that I had to go down the geometric route. While the clothesline itself is not conceptually relevant to this project (unless I wanted to force some meaning upon it), the structure of it is extremely interesting to me.

With five strands of clothesline, each with pins scattered across, it becomes a sort of 2D grid with various nodes along the way- a mathematical system in its own right. The line is then connected to a tree. Trees have always been endlessly fascinating subjects to me; everything from the patterns in the bark to their overarching structure and self-similar/fractalized geometry draws me to them in my photography (I won’t even start to get into how many tree pictures I have) and merely as a point of contemplation. I’d even go so far as to say that trees stand for me as a metaphor for the way the universe is structured, or if not the universe, then at least this project in some senses. Anyways, I shot the roll and just let everything (including my mind) sit for a couple of days. I didn’t know whether to bring the film in to Target/CVS/wherever to get developed, or if I should try and do it myself. Eventually I figured that I might as well give it a shot on my own- this decision seemed much more aligned with the goals of this project than having someone else develop it would. The issue was that I had color film and the school only has black & white darkrooms, which actually isn’t really an issue at all. Cross-processing film is something I’ve always been interested in, but I’ve just never shot film. With Ryan’s help, I developed the film the same way I would the equivalent black & white film, which produced an extremely faint negative. I was partially expecting this; I read that it is good to cross-process like this for longer than normal- however, I assumed the fact that there were a lot of doubled exposures would make up for this. It didn’t, but as long as I had some sort of image (I did), it's nothing photoshop can't fix, easily. Something I learned from the flooded film experiments was that using a flatbed scanner for negatives does do a great job of capturing the images within the film, but rather the image of the film itself. I assumed this would be especially true with my extremely faint images, but I decided to scan it anyways and got some interesting images which became even more interesting in photoshop. Now I usually try to refrain from using filters in post, but the threshold filter turned out to be the perfect tool here. It created these wonderfully organic and wispy shapes from scratches, smudges, and whatever other inconsistencies and artifacts that the film had acquired from my carelessness. I created 18 images with the threshold filter, nine with various settings in a black-on-white color scheme, and nine based on the inverted scheme. There was so much detail in each image, all of which were very long, that it didn’t make sense to keep them as stills. I had a vision in my head of the film scrolling down from top to bottom in a sort of continuous, speeding up and slowing down as if time was winding up and then unravelling.

(The "threshold" edited film)

I spent several long nights in the media center working with Motion and Final Cut X (which I found has a beautiful, super user-friendly interface) to put it all together. A lot of my work was just repetitive dragging and dropping of the scans into a default animation I created in Motion, as well as the eventual sequencing (and occasional blending) of these animations. I then divided the movie into many small segments and changed the speed of each to create the effect of a gradual speed increase and then decrease. When the movie was finished, I had also just happened to have finished a composition to be used in my SMP; I realized that the two would go well together. The composition however, was 15 minutes and I wasn’t ready to make a film of that length yet (although I do plan on incorporating this into a projection for my SMP), so I shortened the music and tried to closely synchronize it with the movie in Logic. There’s a behavior in Motion that lets you set the waveform of an audio track to control parameters of movie clips- brightness, blur, opacity, whatever. I set the amplitude to correspond to the X-axis position, which basically created the jerky, side-to-side motion of the film. I’m definitely satisfied with the current state of the movie, but in future iterations, I'm sure I would make a few changes. Describing the movie to someone who hasn’t seen it would be tricky. For someone who has seen it, I would describe it as a presentation of a narrative of sorts. This narrative at first sets up a mathematical system, the addition and subtraction of the film reels (the fact that it’s film doesn’t necessarily matter). Then there’s the middle section which sticks with one only one “unit,” which I see as a variation on the system, or possibly another level within the “grid.” Within these systems, there are changes that occur- the evolving organic image, and also the music, which is built from basic musical elements that interact and phase in and out with each other. Again, it’s the presentation of a system and the changes that take place within that system. However, the changes that take place are confined to the rules of the system, much like the many “systems” that we are a part of and are confined to (this isn’t so much a political statement, but rather more of a reflection on the way we fit into our universe).

(Part 1)

The film was the first completed piece of Project 1, finished before I could even use the negative scanner. Once I was able to get proper scans done, I worked quickly in photoshop to edit and arrange the image. I wasn’t sure whether to keep it as one long strip or to cut it into segments, but after actually working with it, I realized it would be impractical to keep it as a single continuous image. The result is an image which, as I had expected, is very geometric. The multiple exposures had the effect of shattering the image in a way, breaking it apart into individual, yet indistinguishable, units. Alone, there might not be a whole to say about the image, but I think in reference to the video, it represents another way in which our physical world fits into the higher mathematical “system” in which it exists. Our constructions (the clothesline) and nature (the tree branches) all have this inherent geometry build into them. Our natural organization systems (the composition as a whole) are also very geometric.

(Part 2)

The third piece of the project (which I currently only have a print of) came about because I had to reprint due to a slight error in the first print. With an extra print in hand, I decided I might as well experiment with it. This decision came about tonight (the night before the project’s due date) so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to work with. I considered enveloping the whole print in some sort of corrosive chemical, but we didn’t have anything on hand in the media center, which is good because I far prefer what we ended up doing- printing another image on top of the existing one. It took a while to pick a relevant image, but Andy and I realized that the project could sort of come full-circle if I used the audio from the video to create an image. We ran the audio file through a spectrograph (which separates a sound wave into a visible frequency spectrum), which I then edited slightly in photoshop. The print turned to have a really interesting layering effect, and while I’m sure it could have been simulated in photoshop, the process is much more interesting when you’re not sure how the end result will turn-out.

(the edited spectrograph)

Overall, this project has been incredibly fun and rewarding for me- I’ve explored many, many foreign areas (pretty much the entire world of film is new to me) and discovered new directions to take for not only future projects in this class, but also personal works and even my SMP. Although I didn’t start the project with too much of an overarching concept, one certainly seemed to emerge based on my own natural interests. I can definitely see myself using some of these experiments for future projects.

Part 1 of Project 1 on "alternative capture."

Panorama shot through a Holga onto 35 mm color film and developed in B&W chemicals.

Part 2 of Project 1 on "alternative capture." The film was scanned on a flatbed scanner, capturing the texture of the film itself, rather than the actual images. The scanned images were manipulated heavily in photoshop and sequenced into this short film.

Flooded Film

Destroyed film from a flooded basement scanned in and edited in photoshop.

Free-lens macro shooting at high ISO

I've got an old non-working Bell Howell "Specialist," a 16mm film projector, which has a really cool f/1.6 lens that is easily removable. I turned it around to use it as a reverse macro ring, but I have yet to build a mount for it. All these shots were at high ISO- between 400 and 1600 (anything above 100 is too much for my camera to handle well).

Overcoming the limits of human vision

The first assignment was to use a camera to capture the world in a way that the human eye cannot, with Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" as the inspiration. Vertov's film, made in 1929, was one of the first to use experimental filming and editing techniques to transcend these limits of human vision.

I used minimal post-processing because I wanted to achieve the goal with the camera itself, rather than by means of heavy editing.

These effects were achieved using several different techniques, including high ISO (which my old DSLR handles terribly), longer shutter speeds, moving the camera mid-shot and focal effects created by a special lens, the Lensbaby Muse, a flexible lens which allows extreme focal shifting and distortion, which also creates pretty intense vignetting and chromatic aberration, especially when using the plastic optic insert.

inspirations: lee jang sub

From the "Complex City" project:

This project is an exploration to find a concealed aesthetic by using the pattern formed by the roads of the city which have been growing and evolving randomly through time, thus composing the complex configuration we experience today. I perceive the city's patterns as living creatures that I recompose to form an urban image.

#complex city #generative art

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