DIGITALFAUN

[2009-2013] Evo I:Photo Criticism by Alex Sinclair. [2014] Evo II:Media Analysis by Alex Sinclair, Luke Winter, Stephen Hughes, Isobel Taylor, Matthew Flores & Stephen McCabe. [2015-] Evo III:Art is fiction by design.

[digitalfaun]

The Mystery of Stanley Kubrick’s Jacket

Stanley Kubrick was a man obsessed with many things, mostly banal in nature. In his final years, he’d collect stationary, just plain stationary, and compile archives of it at his home north of London. This is chronicled in Jon Ronson’s brilliant documentary Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes. What was left out of that film though was Kubrick’s greyish-blue fur-trimmed jacket. By no means am I an expert on Kubrick but I always considered this jacket his most distinctive material presence. Personal iconography, especially within the world of cinema, is a celebrated tradition. Alfred Hitchcock’s profile, Charlie Chaplin’s moustache, Audrey Hepburn’s little black dress; these are all things that are immediately identifiable as signatures of their respective personas, often emphasised or singled out in attempts at imitation. With Kubrick? Well the majority of people wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up despite being able to tell you he was a very famous director.

I understand the mythology behind Kubrick is already overpopulated with conspiracy theories and crackpot hypotheses so I’ll try my best to avoid adding to it. My only question lies with where the jacket is now. I always wondered what happened to it. Kubrick was a man who never threw anything away, and that’s why Ronson’s documentary was fascinating. It filled in so many minor details about an enigmatic genius, but unfortunately, it left out the one question that I’ve had since I first became slightly more than a casual Kubrick fan. 

From various behind the scenes photos, I worked out that Kubrick wore the same jacket over a minimum 28 year span while shooting on the set of at least five different movies; A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987)and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). it has been present at iconic moments in film. It’s a relic in and of itself. This jacket is a piece of clothing that has lived through cinematic history, and yet, it’s never discussed. Not once in all the documentaries, the soft-profiles, the critical essays, they never mention the jacket. The LACMA exhibition that opened last year had every major piece of Kubrick memorabilia, right down to his glasses, but still had no jacket. 

Whether if there was just one jacket, or he simply purchased several of a certain style is unknown. There’s a lot that remained unexplained about Kubrick and that’s what makes him so captivating. He is a man who died before all questions could be answered. Speculation of hidden codes and secret messages are rife within the culture of his fandom. In Thomas Allen Nelson’s book Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, he quotes the director in saying “There’s something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories." 

If I could ask Stanley Kubrick right now what happened to the jacket, I’m not sure he’d want to give me a straight answer. I think I like that. If I had to guess where it is, I’d say he was probably buried in it; surviving as just one of many secrets he took to the grave.

[digitalfaun]

A couple of years ago, I made a post entitled ‘The Mystery of Stanley Kubrick’s Jacket’, and it has always remained my most popular post of all time, having been picked up by various media outlets. 

The crux of my post was about the large parka that Kubrick was seen wearing on various film sets spanning multiple decades. 

In my inbox this was morning was a note from drscreenplay​ and when I clicked through to his page there was this. An answer regarding how Kubrick’s jacket lasted so long and saw so many iconic moments in cinema history; there were a lot of identical jackets.

“You know the uniform. He always worse these very comfortable military jackets made out of the a kind of ripstop nylon for the summer and cotton for the winter. He had them sent in batches from the United States, then had them dyed navy blue. Stanley said he had twenty-eight of them. He would pat the chest and pockets of his jacket and say to me, ‘This is my office’.”

I have read many books on Kubrick, but I haven’t read the one by Michael Ciment. No other book ever referenced the jacket, so I just presumed there was no answer, that this was just another mythology to add to the Kubrick collection. Today, without even trying, I feel like I know the man a little bit more. 

[digitalfaun]

[digitalfaun]

The Forgotten M.F.A. of Trevor Paglen

You may know the work of Trevor Paglen, or not, depending on his mood. He is best known for creating investigative art that orbits the surveillance state in one way or another. His most recent work shows ███████ and its ability to █████ █████ ████████████ but you may have also seen some of his images as promotional material for Laura Poitras' recent documentary on NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Before he was staking out government bases and exposing secret mission patches, Paglen was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; a college as vast as it is packed full of needless syllables. During his time at SAIC, Paglen was somewhat of a model student. When I contacted the staff to inquire about the artist’s early years, I was met with a chorus of praise.

“Trevor was always such a lovely boy. I remember one day, a fellow student had forgotten their presentation at home and is he listening right now? I’m pretty sure I’m being watched. Yes, a lovely boy. Trevor was good, okay?”

For his graduate thesis, Paglen worked on a project called ‘Whispers from the Windy City’; a series of images that he was allowed take inside government buildings under the condition that his lens cap was never removed. He claims that he focused the camera for hours on documents and screens throughout the buildings in the hope that something (a “whisper” perhaps) may project through the plastic obstruction. 

The end result is a series of static darkness in which the viewer is able to pick up bits of words or letters but rarely anything concrete and viewers often force themselves to see things that may not actually be there. The majority of people just see some grey and white speckles on a black background but Paglen found that a select few people could pick up on something more. One of his lecturers at the time told him these images would put him on a government watch-list, a classmate caught a glimpse of Paglen’s work-prints and left the room crying, and SAIC’s chief lab technician temporarily suspended Paglen’s computer accounts for “inappropriate material”. 

What was intended to be a degree project turned into the catalyst for the artist’s future motivations regarding institutional transparency. Paglen is the kind of man who sleeps with the door open, not because he has nothing to hide, but just so that others can’t. From college, he sprung forth on the world, looking under every secret-listening-device-disguised-as-a-rock for every tidbit of photographic espionage, though his life plays out more like Ian Fleming than James Bond.

So, what is actually contained in these images? Paglen has made it clear in previous interviews that he signed an eight-year confidentiality agreement in order to obtain access to the buildings. That contract voids on June 26th 2015, but I don’t think we will ever find out what lies beneath the static. ‘Whispers from the Windy City’ was successful because of the ambiguity of it all. Why ruin the fun now?

[digitalfaun]

FINAL WORKS: Interpreting Rothko’s 1968-77 Monotone Period

A new exhibition opening soon at the Tate Modern in London aims to bring the 1970′s work of Rothko to the forefront of the medium. In its press release, the gallery promises to finally highlight the artist’s latter works and admits fault for not including them in their flagship Rothko exhibition a few years earlier. 

This caught me by surprise. Not only that an institution would apologise outright for a curatorial decision, but that they would take action to rectify their mistake. But of course, it only took me a few minutes to realise how brilliant this would be as a marketing opportunity. Rothko’s life as a man who rediscovers himself while on the brink of annihilation is just the kind of narrative that may be swept under the rug one minute and exhibited for promotional gain just a few years later. 

In the spring of 1968, Mark Rothko suffered an aortic aneurysm. In the two years that followed, he refused to reconsider his lifestyle choices and maintained a nuclear balance of heavy drinking, chain smoking and poor eating habits which ultimately culminated in a losing battle with depression and an attempt at taking his own life. In February 1970, the artist’s assistant found Rothko on his kitchen floor with self-inflicted razor wounds. 

The work created in the months leading up to his suicide attempt would become the catalyst for a new important era in Rothko's catalogue. The first series consisted of two equal grey and black blocks stretching right across the canvas to create a horizon effect. Multiple thin layers of paint created an extreme depth of tone within each shade. The vastness offered within was akin to both the emptiness and all-encompassing nature of deep space. Rothko produced several iterations of this style, and as the timeline suggests, there is an obvious association between the dark aesthetic and the artist’s state of mind.

Had Rothko’s assistant, Oliver Steindecker, arrived at the studio a moment later, that may be our final impression of the man. A foreboding, unapologetic genius who decided he had suffered enough. The celebrated painter may have perished on a cold tiled floor and failed to create the seminal colourless works that followed his initial oblivion of achromatism. 

In the months that followed, Rothko completed an extensive course of treatment for his depression and vowed to those around him that he would re-embrace life. After experiencing an unconscious near-death state, Rothko was now more awake than ever. 

His work throughout the seventies gently receded from the chasm of the early monotone period and slowly began to re-assemble elements of form contained in earlier works. Shapes and builds appeared over those horizons of grey and black, but colour was never restored. It’s this refinement of his craft that takes centre stage at the Tate Modern this year. As only the earliest of the Monotone Period works have seen public display before, so the release of these works from the vault of the artist’s estate is a groundbreaking moment in contemporary art history. We finally get a peak behind the curtain at the last days of a treasured heavyweight.

Towards the end of Rothko’s life, contrast began to fade too. In his final few paintings, black is barely visible at all. A few months before his death, Rita Coates, a journalist and close friend, was assigned to do a profile on the artist for The New York Times Magazine. 

“The attraction of grey is that it shows that darkness is not impenetrable. If you zoom out far enough, a number of individuals burning brilliant white with their daily good deeds can turn an overwhelming blackness into a survivable grey. Do not expect the universe to be different or to change. But greyness ... there is something to that.” 

* * *

ROTHKO: Final Works runs at the Tate Modern from May 16th - August 31st 2015. 

Credits:  Poster by Andy Altmann at Why Not Associates Installation preview by Jonathan Myles-Lea Portrait of Mark Rothko by Paul Fowler for The New York Times Magazine

[digitalfaun]

The House That Boys Built [2016]

Directed by Spike Jonze Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Emma Stone, Ben Mendelsohn.

In a post-9/11 America, is there anything that has beentalked about, explored, and picked apart more than post-9/11 America itself? It has taken on the status of a near-automatic cultural touchstone for all mainstream cinema. Whether it's the eternal struggle against the surveillance state or a summer blockbuster that incorporates faux-found footage of a collapsed building; America is infatuated with looking into the mirror at its own bruised psyche. Years, even decades, are spent picking at scabs yet there still remains a mystery as to why blood keeps appearing.

Spike Jonze's first major picture since his gruesome tennis injury is the latest film to look in that mirror. The House That Boys Built is another bout of self-analysis theatre that takes the viewer down a rabbit-hole of the United States in 2016. Unlike Terrence Malick's ham-fisted approach to last year's Dawn Chorus, Jonze manages to make a full-bodied feature that doesn't dwell on introspective self-pity or take 120 minutes to build to the inevitable and played-out "Is War Justified?" argument. You wait and you wait for something like that to happen, but before you know it, the credits are rolling.

This is down to the sheer-power of the script, which is clearly character-driven and not concept-driven. Plot shouldn't be something that happens to the characters on screen, it should happen because of them. The story here is focused with laser-accuracy on Leo Gilbride (Jake Gyllenhaal), an office drone with a gift for monotonous data-entry. Leo is hired by a consulting agency who lost a section of their private records after their previous offices in the North Tower were destroyed on September 11th. The company (who remain nameless) rely on Leo to generate data estimates for the gaps in their records. When the ensuing work is a lot more consuming than he bargained for, Leo starts to suffer hallucinations in his day-to-day life. Every morning on his way to work, he encounters the Twin Towers standing tall, only to witness the events unfold over and over again throughout the course of the film. This isn't a man stuck in time, this is a man stuck in his own head.

The concept of a movie based around data entry may not sound appealing to many people, but Gyllenhaal's performance is truly something to behold. Leo's character borders on a fine line between genius and autistic compulsion. The alpha male with a flair for a particular craft is a well-worn trope (see any procedural drama) but Gyllenhaal's vulnerability breathes new life into an archetype known for bravado and egotism.

Perhaps another key aspect of this film is the visual scale with which we get to interpret Leo and the surrounding cast. Gyllenhaal clearly puts in his performance of a lifetime but he's aided by several skilled veterans of the industry. Ben Mendelsohn's portrayal of Leo's therapist, Dr.Lupinsky, is award worthy but isn't even the best supporting character in this film. That honour is reserved for Emma Stone as Molly, a headstrong records clerk assigned to help Leo locate patterns for data generation. Most of the Gyllenhaal-Stone screentime comes in the form of questioning about what makes Leo so good at his job and it's in these banalities that this film flourishes. Trade talk in films is generally jargon-filled Sorkin-babble. This isn't that. Instead, this is a relatable portrait of everyday people who try their best despite personal circumstances. "Talent is never as important as effort" says Leo during a coffee-break as he watches concrete and iron crash around them.

Where many narratives, whether it's literature or film, deploy the events of 9/11 as a sort of O. Henry-esque pitfall, this film uses that day to wear down the viewer. The end goal here appears to be the lesson that repeat viewings do not take the shock out of traumatic events. Jonze treats the audience to a sort of exposure therapy that understands the limitations of such as a collective exercise. Exposure therapy on a mass-scale is called "collective hysteria" and it's what we've all been falling victim to in the time since those attacks. 

Since 9/11, our media has evolved into a flood of destructive imagery. Jonze's previous films touch on the pitfalls of tech-culture directly, but this film shows personal development and approaches the subject side-on, using Leo's hallucinations as a stand-in for the all-encompassing 24-hour news cycle. By sneaking up on his target concept, the director is able to create a much clearer picture that slowly focuses itself over the course of the film. Leo doesn't have a choice whether to see those visions every day, but for the most part, we do. Through Gyllenhaal's performance, we are taken on a journey not to process what happened on 9/11, but to understand what we have experienced every day since then.

[digitalfaun]

Public and Private Perceptions of Meaning

DIGITALFAUN 2009-2014

By Alex Sinclair

* * *

Lately, I've been busy. I may actually be in one of the most promising and fruitful periods of my short professional career to date. I have been chipping away at a lot of projects and avenues for months in the hopes that they lead to something bigger, something concrete. And during those months, the perception of those around me may have been that I was doing nothing with my life. I've been trying. I really have. And it's really difficult to deal with a current social standard where being jobless is the default position for someone my age yet, it's also something looked down upon. I have been trying. I swear. 

I've been applying to jobs. Even jobs I don't want. Mostly jobs I do want though. None of these are great big jobs where I cost a company lots of money in exchange for little work. Instead they're modest, entry level positions at places where I think it might not totally suck to work at. And I've definitely been trying.

The problem with this process of beginning post-collegiate life is that it takes time. I say beginning despite having graduated over a year ago. College takes some time to get over before you get back on the horse. College is an ex-girlfriend that you pine over even though you didn't really enjoy your time together. Some days, this process of beginning can take absolutely all of your time yet leave you with nothing to show for it. But, I guess that's the punishment for being so naive as to think a degree in the creative arts might net you a career. I think it should be mandatory at this stage in life for your first year of college to introduce you to the key concepts of managing one's expectation and hope. Although, I guess you don't need a whole year to learn that you shouldn't have any.

I'm sure it's some consolidation to my unemployed friends stateside that US employers have squashed unemployment to a six-year low of 5.9%. But I don't live in America. And even then, that doesn't mean you don't have to try. Trying is important. If for nothing else, it proves to yourself that even though it doesn't look like you're doing anything useful with your life, you're attempting to improve the situation. This might be the one time in your existence that your parents laud you for your unhappiness. It's good that you're distressed. It means that you might do something to fix it. Unhappiness means you're not apathetic. Good.

And then there are times when you have to acknowledge that this constant application to vacant positions sometimes involves a 3 hour break in the middle of the day to watch Jodi Foster in 'FlightPlan'. Somewhere between the morning spent applying for jobs and the evening spent doing trial work for potential employers, there's a designated block of free time for Ms. Foster shouting "You're all crazy" at a plane full of complete strangers and a long overdue first extraordinary viewing of 'The Wire'. "Carcetti for Mayor", and then it's tomorrow again and you sift through more job ads.

Sometimes something crazy happens. Sometimes an employer actually likes you. Or maybe two of them do. And you get a trial for a dream job at a third. It's all comes together rather quickly. You don't look like a bum anymore. The trying becomes doing. That happened to me this past month.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on Twitter at the same time as ProFootballFocus, an American football advanced analytics firm, posted a message advertising a rare open position. I speedily replied to the ad, filled in the necessary details and was blown away when I was accepted into the trial programme. This was a company that I had admired for some time. This was an opportunity covering a sport I love in a way I thought it should be covered. This was 'doing' rather than 'trying'.

I completed the first trial with a few hiccups but was decent enough to make it through to the second round where I vastly improved my accuracy score and made it through again. And again. And eventually, I woke up to an email one Saturday morning saying I was one of the chosen few they'd like to interview. I was never nervous about the interview. I just knew it was important. The most important. In the space of a month, I had gone from unemployed shmuck to a lucky S.O.B. with an interview for a job I didn't realise I could ever have.

During this month of trials, I put my other creative projects on the backburner. The brand new NFL site and podcast I started with my friend Joe Roche, all the work I do for DigitalFaun, any personal writing projects; everything went on hiatus. And so for a month, I was in a limbo phase where I had nothing privately to show for my time and nothing publicly. I hated that feeling.

There is a public perception of meaning in our generation that dictates something must not be important or worth doing if it is not documented on the internet. Art, accomplishments, family, your boring latte jazzed up with an Instagram filter; none of this is deemed worthy of experience unless you can share it with those you barely know.

A part of me feels like an old crony giving out to kids about their reliance on social media, but it's not that. I'm as culpable at taking part in this as anyone. But this month, I've found myself, or at least some of my values. During the trials for PFF, I was doing work for the sake of work. The beauty of statistics is that you want to hide behind the results, not stand in front of them waiting for someone to place a blue ribbon on you. In statistics and analysis, if the viewer can see the person behind the work, you're doing it wrong. By virtue of it all, the ego needs to be removed. It's the antithesis of the social norms regarding contemporary art scenes. And I love it. They offered me the job 9 minutes into the interview.

Everything I've done to date with this site has been out of passion. I've run into dry patches before and manufactured solutions around it. I've changed approaches, adopted new methodologies, hired new writers, chopped up the layout, but nothing has felt as good as of late as knowing that fulfilling work doesn't need to be done publicly. As a child of a barren arts programme such as DIT Photography, that's not something learned easily.

I cannot say this is the end of DigitalFaun, but it is the last thing you'll see for a while. I might flame out horribly as a football analyst. I might even make it and you never hear from me again. The important thing is that I need to be doing work for the sake of good work. This community has been an incredible asset to me and I thank everyone for their support over the years, but this space for my creative work has become cramped, pressurised, claustrophobic. This is a zoo enclosure and I'm the monkey who feels guilty if I don't put something worthy on display.

A few weeks ago, I read a pair of tweets by former La Pura Vida editor Bryan Formhals that stuck with me longer than the refresh button allowed.

 If you're going to start a fine art photography magazine, find a specific theme or topic. Basing it purely on your taste is problematic. [O]ne of the reasons I killed @lpvmagazine was because it lacked focus & a theme. It was just about what I liked. Not good enough.

Mr. Formhals could not be more on the money. And I hated him for it, but then it registered with me that this was my tool for rebirth. I am going to go away and work on statistics. I am going to spend more time with the combination of Microsoft Excel and football than anyone thought possible. But if you see me come back to DigitalFaun, it's because I have found a response to two tweets that set my brain back further than expected.

Thank you for everything.

Alex Sinclair Former Editor at DigitalFaun.com Budding Analyst at ProFootballFocus.com

[digitalfaun]

Flashers at the National

By Luke Winter

* * *

"We're not supposed to talk about it. But the policy was changed three weeks back and don't see how they'd be able to reverse it now."

"And has it got louder?" I ask.

"Har har", his eyes flash, "Oh most definitely. What with their clicking of shutters, louder. And who wants to see that red beam all over the painting that you're looking at? And they look less at the paintings now that they're allowed cameras, as if by taking a photo they've conquered the painting, but they've not looked at it, whereas before they'd stand and try and claim some little victory of comprehension, even if it was just reading the information plaque. But the vast majority don't really know how to use their cameras and so you get a lot of flashers."

He grins, "No flashing in The National".

[I'm thinking of The Dreamers as they thought of Bande à Part and running round the Louerve hand-in-hand.]

"Have you ever had flashers?" I ask. "Like, were there ever flashers in The National?"

"Well about once every five years" he laughs, "It's a public space. So you get all sorts in here don't you."

Assenting might seem too eager. I stay a-thousand-mile-stare, and after a pause, nod.

"But I mean it saves us getting into trouble all the time with visitors, telling them that they can't be taking photos, and of course they say, 'Well where does it say that?'. And you can't very well say to them, that the management, some of the management, without much intelligence decided that they were against signs of any kind. And oh yes, you're staring at one of my favourites. Truly remarkable isn't it. Beats any of the other paintings in this room. I'd put it above the Monet's."

September, The National Gallery, London

[digitalfaun]

There Are Stages

By Alex Sinclair

* * *

When a celebrity dies, society goes through several phases. There are initial remarks of grief. 

"Gone too soon."  "Oh no." "I loved him/her!"

Then come the tributes. Images of the deceased are immediately manipulated to show their best side. Quotes are arranged. Some longer, more poignant, tributes are written by those who may have met the deceased in their lifetime. Most of these are by people who had brief encounters with the person they looked up to. Rarely are they by those truly close to the individual.

After that comes the third wave. This is mostly analysis and secondary writing about how society deals with grief, or how we deal with celebrity-grief differently to our own. I guess, some would push this article into that box but read on first. Not that I'm above or looking down upon anyone going through the above steps. I've been there too. My childhood saw several personal heroes die, and I was not without the clichéd, yet heartfelt, responses to death. 

When Robin Williams died, I thought it was sad. People find death sad. There's nothing interesting or new or shocking about that. But what I found more affecting was the public reaction. Clearly, this is a man which many felt a personal connection to. Something way more than Facebook statuses with Amy Winehouse YouTube embeds or pictures of a spry Heath Ledger at his most youthful. People felt affected not only by the death of Robin Williams, but the means of the death. I saw several of my friends talk about the man as if he was a loved one, a cherished Uncle or wise step-Dad. Nobody really talks of dead celebrities as two-dimensional representations on a screen. That's a bit crude and undignified, a bit unfair. 

Yet, here I am, annoyed with an interior helplessness based upon the fact that I cannot soothe the pain felt by these people whom I do know, whom I do love and interact with, not just observe on a screen. I don't know how to deal with the sadness that people in my life are dealing with because of someone they only feel like they knew. 

Personally, I find tributes and eulogies repressive. I cannot think of a greater disservice to a man than to attempt to sum him up in a few words. By all means, share quotes, share memories, but trying to encapsulate a person into a handful of superlatives is an insult to the great and original work that anyone worth eulogising has probably done in this world.

Then I remember that tributes aren't meant to comfort the dead, they're for the living. I suppose they're somewhat therapeutic in the right setting. 

"Let's all raise a glass to him. We witnessed greatness. Us. The mere mortals."

I don't have any advice. I'm scared that someday I'll be forced into the role of comforting loved ones dealing with death and mostly, I'm scared of my ineptitude at that specific activity. Dealing with death is easy. There are stages. Don't make me deal with the bereaved. 

[digitalfaun]

WESTWARD BOUND

ISSUES WITH ROADTRIP PHOTOGRAPHY

By Matthew Flores

* * *

A dusty stretch of road, cleaving its way through far-off, majestic spines of snowcapped mountains. An open vista of turbulent ocean, battering against rugged cliffs and foreboding boulders. A heroically battered vehicle, practically bursting at the seams with tents, surfboards, sleeping bags, and clear-eyed young adults (always the coolest kids you know) sporting a perfectly positioned cigarette and a pair of gleaming Ray Bans. Few things are as synonymous with summertime as the road trip, and, likewise, few photographic genres resonate as clearly with the season as the road trip series. 

Because of its visual allure and popularity, road trip photography has become almost ubiquitous in contemporary visual culture. While certainly not a new development, this genre of photography has recently delved into occasionally troubling thematic waters. If it can be taken seriously, these issues need to be addressed and considered when analyzing a body of work identified with the road trip.

First, and crucially, it’s important to demarcate or at least work toward a set of criteria that defines “road trip” photography. The primary organizing principle of this type of photographic series can vary from project to project, but a few important themes and concepts emerge regularly.

If nothing else, the ostensible theme is simply the photographer’s journey from point A to point B. The structural skeleton underneath this theme has manifested itself in any number of ways, from the deadpan documentary of Stephen Shore (American Surfaces, Uncommon Places), to the historical conceptualism of Joel Sternfeld (On this Site: Landscape in Memoriam), to the cultural illustration of Sam Fentress (Bible Road).

More recent series, however, are organized along arguably broader and certainly more nebulous themes: freedom, the American West, capital-Y Youth Culture. Aesthetically, the mountain ranges and crashing waves lose their sublimity when viewed in list of photographs tagged #roadtrip. Where we expect fresh air, the images are stale. 

Where Shore set out to document, more contemporary photographers seek to mythologize the ordinary, to place a grand metaphor before the content itself. Christy Lange describes American Surfaces as falling “somewhere between a ‘visual diary’ and a social document - a record of ‘what the age we were living in looked like.’ It is both about the culture that [Shore] encountered and his encounter with that culture.” Blogosphere and Instagram road trip photography more often than not swings to the far end of that divide, choosing to exhibit a modern youth culture without engaging critically with it. 

This is not to say that the works are worthless - even the average series under this umbrella can be visually well-polished (or intentionally rough, but either way intent is present) and at some times deeply compelling, activating visceral emotion through engagement with the sublime. 

In essence, once some of the thematic elements are boiled down or stripped away, much of what is labeled road trip photography can also be classified as landscape photography.  Skill, much less technical ability, is secondary in this argument. Yes, there is often an obvious element of artistry, but in a completely different vein than the solemn permanence of Ansel Adams or even the more radical environmental tone adopted by Ed Burtynsky. This is not a prima facie problem — landscape photography is of course its own well-established and aesthetically robust genre. But is the blurred distinction between the two problematic when a series of images is presented as cultural documentary?

Generally this type of image making and sharing is harmless, simply a byproduct of a culture that creates, exchanges and digests visual information constantly. At best, photographs in this paradigm can become a rallying point, something each viewer can participate in and bring an individual experience to (fundamentally, a trait that photography in general accomplishes). At worst, they become merely visual noise.

The problem arises when basic travel photography of this sort dons the guise of cultural documentary in an attempt to express more than simply the photographer was present at a certain location for one-two hundredth of a second.

Two common (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) manifestations of this problem are the celebration of a wild youth culture and a fascination with lower levels of class stratification. Both (the former more subtly than the latter) demonstrate the photographer’s occupation of a privileged perch from which square-cropped and heavily filtered images descend. Here the two currents converge into a central difficulty of this work if these are the contemporary representations of youth culture, why are they so narrow?

The celebration of adventurous youths reclaiming the wilderness is one that is heavily and arguably inherently commercialized. A central example is Ryan McGinley’s “Go Forth” print campaign for Levi’s. Take away the logos and there is not much distinguishing the campaign from any number of roadtrip photography series. It’s hard to claim a sense of non-institutionalized detachment and freedom when the images are being used to sell blue jeans.

Unlike Shore, who encapsulated the aesthetic and the character of the 1970s in his work, engagement with something other than mountains or the ocean in contemporary road trip photography takes an awkward and gawking stance to anything culturally different. Faded locations of the south and Rust Belt take on a special allure, but only in their ruin and warning. Even if treated objectively, photographing individuals of other classes and races can be a serious stumbling block. It’s all too easy to stray into cultural tourism and issues of representational politics on the road trip.

Does any of this matter? Does a photographer have an ethical obligation to trim any representational or moral issues from his work? The question is much more complex and applies to a much larger scope than discussed here, and expands beyond art into communication in general. It is certainly worth engaging with - if nothing else acknowledging the problematic nature of your photographs gives a deeper and more informed presence to the work.

In the volume Photographs Not Taken, edited by Will Steacy, Alec Soth describes a trip to Colombia with his wife in order to adopt their daughter. “I usually have to travel in order to find my eyes,” Soth writes, “But I was unable to take serious pictures of my baby and wife and the new bond forming among us. I needed to know all the streets in order to make pictures. But even though I photographed street dogs and strangers, every picture was an attempt to see my child.”

Maybe, on a fundamental level, road trip photography is nothing more than a widely-shared and widely-utilized method of visual organization. Ignoring conceptual frameworks, aesthetic attitudes or problematic issues, this genre of image making allows the photographer to make sense of the immense, to bring order to variable chaos. Instead of life forming an organizing principle for photographs, in this way photographs become an organizing principle for life. 

[digitalfaun]

A N   I N T E R V I E W   W I T H   J O H N N Y   D E   G U Z M A N

By Alex Sinclair

DISCLAIMER: I've been to Chicago twice in my life. Both times I never set foot outside of airport property. I say “property” rather than “terminal” because while I was there during a layover on my way home from a New Orleans wedding, I was really sick and regularly alternated between navigating the ice rain outside and the bleach-blonde tiles of the bathroom.

* * *

I met him at the corner of Walton and Michigan. He wore a plain black t-shirt, narrow jeans and his shoes look black too, but matte black, like charcoal. He had just finished work and we were meeting up to talk about David.

This was my first time meeting Johnny, and I'd never met David, the subject of his latest photo-series, À Tout Le Monde. I only had a couple of hours in town before I had to run back to O'Hare and catch a flight to see my cousins in Louisiana. We didn't have long but I think that may have helped the matter. With complicated issues such as these, it's almost better to be forced into confronting them. Address the subject. Get the answers. Understand things a little better.

“With David,” he's scraping an errand piece of green gum from the bottom of one of the charcoal shoes, “photography will always be connected to him.”

We walk east, I don't know how far, or where we're going exactly but it's east. I don't know the area but Johnny is walking as though he does so I follow his lead. This is his city. I'm nearly 6,000 km from mine and I could feel every step of it.

“At the moment, most of À Tout Le Monde is referent to the past. This has been the first year of the project and I suppose I let myself slip into a heavy dose of nostalgia.”

I'm curious about why he says “at the moment” and I wonder how/if the project will grow to become something else. The sun is awkwardly low and it keeps cutting in and out of the gaps left by smaller buildings as we walk. There is a scratch on the left lens of my sunglasses because the TSA guy wanted to double check there weren't any explosives in them. Explosives. In my sunglasses. Between the sun strobes and the scratch, it's just easier to remove them and resort to squinting.

We stop at a corner store and I'm briefly relieved of the sun's annoyance but the security guard decided we were of significant threat to the overpriced food stock so there's a new annoyance and his name-tag reads “Terrence”. Johnny buys a Fiji Water. He says he doesn't drink pop. I find it both weird that he calls it "pop" and that he doesn't drink it. I settle on some crazy Mountain Dew derivitave because it's not available in Ireland and I'm always keen to try new fizzy drinks but it's immediately clear I made a poor choice. I didn't know you could actually make something Aspartame flavoured. Johnny offers me some of his drink after he sees me very quickly dump my bottle in the nearest bin.

“It's perhaps because I've not really encompassed myself with this much consideration of everything since 2005 and 2006.”

He pauses and screws back the cap on his water.

“... which was the immediate time of David's death. In one way or another, everything in the project is inherently referent to a point in our adolescence. I can be making a photograph that involves subject or object matter that is very much so present of the now.”

The David in question is David Mess, a childhood friend of Johnny who passed away at 16 from a suspected heroin overdose. In the project statement that Johnny wrote, the word “unintentional” prefixes this. I read his 178 words repeatedly on the flight over. 178 words. I counted them. I thought memorising it might help pass the time too. It didn't. I don't ask if he has any doubts regarding the intention, or unintention, of his friend. It wasn't that I didn't want to upset him, it's because I knew the answer. I'm sure he does doubt, or at least at one point did, because that's how humans work. We doubt.

Johnny recently graduated from Columbia College here in Chicago and he points at it down a busy side-street, asking if I wanted to see it. I politely decline. I'd spent enough time already in airports this week and there's always a similar vibe between most big buildings. So instead, we settle on just talking about it. He sits on a curb and he wipes his brow with the hem of his shirt.

“Now that I've been out of school, although only for a few months now, I can definitely see myself prone to making more risks and playing loosely with the aesthetics, assessing my own aspirations and presenting several options.”

That answer sounds rehearsed or contrived but it's emblematic of anyone's time in a creative education scheme. While Columbia may be different to my college back home in terms of funding and facilities, I'm sure the ethos behind it all is similar. The sentiment he just expressed certainly hit me a little weird, a little like how déjà vu feels.

Johnny's phone vibrates and he opens an app I don't recognise. I feel awkward for a minute because I catch myself looking at his phone and it's clear he's reading a message from his girlfriend, Alyson. That's the girl he calls his muse. She's in a lot of his less-structured work, the stuff he posts on Facebook or Instagram. Some of that stuff is so mind-blowingly awesome that I find it difficult to do similar things myself. It's negative inspiration. Not that my own girlfriend, Lauren, is in any way lacking. It's more that photography plays a different role in Johnny's relationship with Alyson than it does in my relationship with Lauren. That's our thing though. Lauren was a classmate of mine at college, so we're both photographers by trade, and photographers hate having their photo taken. I guess I'm a little envious of Johnny's ability to document a relationship so easily.

“First and foremost, it was a common interest where we both built upon a friendship that became a romantic relationship. When our relationship blossomed into said romantic relationship, I became a sap and couldn't stop making photographs of her.”

I push him on what he sees in the photos compared to what he sees in her but he's hesitant, lacks confidence.

“How I see it is this, if I am incredibly infatuated with this moment that I could stare at forever, then anyone would have to give it a glance. And somewhere within those glances there'll be someone that will empathize with our moment. These answers probably need a bit of editing.”

There's a small park with some benches and we both naturally gravitate to it in search of shade. We sit on a bench under a sycamore and wait for Alyson to arrive because she's bringing a copy of his prints from À Tout Le Monde. It'll be easier to talk about the series when we're actually looking at the photos. Worried about damaging the prints, I suggest relocating to a café or something but the idea is quickly dismissed. Apparently, they're only work prints or duplicates or something. I'll admit that I don't really remember. There was a young couple, white as the sun is hot, sitting on a bench across from us. It was distracting. I think the guy forgot to do something, or attend something. I couldn't really make out what but I quickly realised I was prying again. Don't stare at Johnny's phone. Don't attempt to decipher why the white woman seems irrationally mad at the white man. Etiquette. Please.

Thankfully, Alyson appears at the park gate distracts me before I get too mentally lost in the notion that maybe I'm too nosey (or too solipsistic). I've barely ever seen these two as a couple in real life but there's an odd sense of familiarity because of the intimate photos they share online. It's not quite like thinking you're friends with Hugh Jackman because you've seen all his movies, but it's close.

After the introductions and handshakes, Johnny spreads the photos out in a constellation form on the pavement in front of us. It's not like looking at them online. These aren't exhibition grade prints at all. There are dogeared corners. There are colour correction issues. They're imperfect and real. As such, they're perfectly suited to the reconnected memories Johnny is trying to compose. Seeing the various iterations that didn't make the cut or had technical issues, this is suddenly becoming clear how important they are to him. These are the ones that went wrong, the collection of almosts. I hunker down. I want to admire every blemish and misprint. Alyson takes Johnny's hand in her own. I pick up a dark print showing TV static.

“I still think there's a long way to go within the work, though, I would say that I've learned more about him than I did while he was still alive and I'm at a loss as to if that makes me feel like I'm closer to him or more distant.”

***********************

Johnny De Guzman currently resides in Chicago, IL and can be found online at the following: Main Site | Tumblr | Instagram

[digitalfaun]

THE SECOND DANCE

By Luke Winter

--

[Article compares the compulsion to shoot, and ecstasy of shooting, with the alternate faculty of editing. Article begins with the anecdote of a photographer expressing their wish to die and an editor to subsequently arrange and publish their work without them, before examining what is narrow in that point of view.]

--

Half thought he saw. His other half’s scared. Know he won’t check, is still walking (The Writing Editor doesn't like this phrase. He calls it clumsy). You're past him now, have flipped your camera to the front of your hand. You got it. Another two steps, you're lined up perfectly and *BLATZ*, nailed the angle on that bin. Feet ahead swivelling to the side past two idlers and the way that pavement will intersect that lamp-post in half a step’s time and *BLATZ*. Got it again. Feet forward. Momentum. Shot after shot and *BLATZ*. You’re surging.

[in the street]

(Henri) Cartier-Bresson danced in the streets, and since his nobel lead there’s been a grand conga-line of photographers doing their own kid-kodak jives (watch Mark Cohen’s style of getting double fist freaky). Each to their own beat.

Being on a run of perfect rhythm shooting is ecstatic. Camera shutter singing to your perceptions. Hunting, archery, dancing; pick your own metaphor.

--

[Scanning in shots, loading them up. A darkened room, alone.]

And there, laid flat and bare, tepid and lifeless, are your shots. Devoid of the elegance, poise and precision that surged through you as you shot them. Palpably pathetic results when held against the ecstasy in which they were created.

Cruel truths: the picture from that time that was excellent is not excellent. The image is not nuanced with the fullness of your feelings, nor emblematic of all crevices of your memory.

An image is an image is a thing only of its own. Your experience is saved but thinly by these simple frames. If you need save that experience you must explore a deeper route.

“There must be a fuller way, we who know beauty must be able to communicate it"

You feel the opposite of this art that you love that is two halves, constructed backwards. Where the ecstasy and performance comes first, in the street, surging. But second comes that slow, forlorn composition: a solitary brooding in a room picking over the images and acknowledging that time and time again you failed. And that you need try again, again. And for such slim results.

--

C O P I N G - S T R A T E G I E S

1) Delay: (Gary) Winogrand shot so much that he couldn’t keep ontop of his archive. He’d leave his rolls a year before processing and editing. The delay gave him time to forget himself and experience of shooting, and focus on the shots. Proof.

2) Shoot Less: William Eggleston takes a single shot of each intrigue, to limit, he says,  shivering between near identical shots  when editing. Shooting less allows him to focus on the more important tasks in the edit than swivelling all energy picking between near duplicates.

3) Shame Yourself: Show pictures that you’re not sure about to a good photographer in person. Watch their face. Be burnt by shame. Scales fall from your eyes.Their derision creates your decisions. You’ll be able to pick your images with keener focus. And they may identify gems that to you meant nothing.

--

P U R P O S E

(The Writing Editor tells me something. "You talk a lot about editing here. You should discuss how editing photographs is different from any other medium. With writing, it's fluid. With painting or sculpture, it's almost non-existent because publishing isn't the main focus. Photography has its own set of cruel limitations imposed by the source material and the inability to correct a moment.”)

If photography can help us dissect the world, observe it, interact with it and stir it up, editing helps us dissect ourselves: what clues of our subconscious fascinations are hidden in these endless captures? Where have we succeeded? How have we fallen short? Editing is sorting through the tea leaves to divinate a future direction. what have you been exploring that works? What sets of circumstances should you chase in future to build on that work and more explore that future?

Photography leads us through chaos, we tend to little sections of life. We discover. We cultivate. We feed on motifs that work, emotions that we can capture. Beyond simple ecstasy, beauteous youth and picturesque landscapes, we peer into peevish gutters and create new perspectives. But only if we engage with shedding the self from our images. Only if we acknowledge that painful fallacy of photographs, and focus on creating good images, not preserving our own lives. That, is learning to edit.

Editing, compared with the shooting, is a solitary, sometimes lonely, often frustrating and tedious waltz. But it is a dance that photographers must master as sharply as the dance of  the taking of photographs. It is the other half of the feedback loop that informs our perceptions for shooting, understanding what angles and parametres and ways of moving the camera can yield a good image when applied to particular situation.

Editing is where we make images, compose the stories that we might be able, if we’re very clever, to present to others that they might enjoy. That can hint at the ecstasies and mysteries that daily entice us to leave our rooms to go back into the street, the fields, the chaos flow of space, light, humans and the earth in time, to again dance with the camera and pluck photographs from the peculiar beauties of life.

--

[Article ends with that photographer who wished that someone might edit their photos into work for them, dead.

Editor arrives to find in that archive the beginnings of paths. Scattered throughout tens of thousands of frames are peppered the starts of motifs, but explored only in small ways. Unaware of what it was they were shooting and what worked, the photographer has not elaborated on the visions that they had begun to pull from the world.]

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” - Jack Kerouac

[The archive of photos is confused, and without the photographer having tackled that confusion to discern meaningful routes that might yield work of interest to others, no meaningful subjects have been explored.

A little book is made. Despite good editing the book is convoluted, shallow, ignored. Lost to our world is another victim who sucummbed to a confusion that they never tackled. Who might have made but never stood in the full glare of their failures and battled back against their confusion to hew out a golden path of meaning to communicate the beautiful confusions of an existence.]

--

[a pigeon in the gutter, threaded grey by red worms]

(The Writing Editor suggests a more hopeful final image but after considering the abyss of online media, lets it remain.)

"Then one day it will be complete enough to believe it is finished. Made. Existing. Done. And in its own way: a contribution, and all that effort and frustration and time and money will fall away. It was worth it, because it is something real, that didn't exist before you made it exist: a sentient work of art and power and sensitivity, that speaks of this world and your fellow human beings place within it. Isn’t that beautiful?" - Paul Graham

[digitalfaun]

LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVES: PROJECTING PHOTOGRAPHY'S FAVOURITE GENRE

By Isobel Taylor

Once considered a secondary subject in painting, landscape imagery now dominates our visual media as a vista of its own. Often the word ‘landscape’ is interchanged for words such as nature, place or space. Each concept is duplicitous and makes engaging with landscapes on a critical level all the more challenging. Landscapes in photography are mostly considered to be factual and therefore ideas about realism must be considered too. 

'Nature’, as a concept, has now become alien to us and even our understanding of the landscape genres (romanticism, picturesque imagery, etc) has become a managed and manicured version of nature. Representations of the landscape have changed throughout history and are now influenced not just by art movements but the way we have changed our external world through urbanisation and virtual reality. 

In particular European landscape photography, which in the shadow of American landscape photography, is often overlooked. The legacy of colonialism is present in both the European depiction and understanding of landscapes as a whole. Practitioners of the genre in Europe today are often pigeonholed as those who explore identity, for example in ‘Sense of Place: European Landscape Photography’, an exhibition curated by Liz Wells at Bozar. Photography is used to understand the external world, to control it and also to place ourselves within it. By taking a photograph we provide a solid viewpoint from which we can take information. This approach is also used to handle the devastating loss of the natural world. 

As previously mentioned romanticism, picturesque and nostalgia are unfashionable in postmodernist landscape photography so taking a critical and balanced view of environmental problems is popular. Instead the sublime, a concept that is constantly developing is often used in contemporary practice.

An untraditional use of the sublime is seen in the work of Mishka Henner ['Coronado Feeders, Dalhart, Texas', pictured top]. He uses Google Maps to reveal the not so hidden corners of the world through appropriation. Areas that are meant to be secret or classified may not be accessible physically but aerial images of it are often readily available. This is a uniquely flat form of landscape photography. It still holds true to traditional ideas that demonstrate our dominion over nature but the structure of the image has changed. 

European power has left its remnants not just over nature but people too in Corinne Silva’s ‘Imported Landscapes’ [pictured bottom left] and this demonstrates the similarity of fauna and flora on both sides of the Mediterranean; Spain and Morocco. Our expectations of these countries are contrasted to create multi-platform conversations on how to deal with attitudes, in particular, to migration.

These three artists approach landscapes differently not only in the content of their images but also the way they work. At a time where we are constantly overloaded with images, to be able to distinguish themes and make sense of it all is crucial. To make a coherent and meaningful exhibition can be more challenging with the amount of artists and images available. Wells work with ‘Sense of Place’ is a pinnacle exhibition, cementing this as a topic within landscape photography, allowing for critical debate and the continued wave of artist focusing on these ideas. 

Much like Henner and Silva, Wells too can create political conflict within the image. She mentioned in a talk that she had chosen a photographer from Latvia, Alexander Gronsky ['The Edge', pictured bottom right], that was actually considered an immigrant as part of Russian influence and she was confronted by a Latvian student who felt offended that Wells suggested this man could represent her country. Wells acknowledged this but also said this conflict was part of the debate she wanted to create with this exhibition. 

It is said in photography that by being specific, taking a very personal or unique situation is often a key to helping a wider audience empathize or connect with the image. Landscape photography does this very well, Gronsky’s work being one example. However, the landscape also causes us to think about ourselves not just about our personal lives but about ourselves as a species. The future of landscape photography may not just be to acknowledge that nature constantly threatens our existence and present to the world but explore solutions to our rapid growth in both technology and population that causes us to doubt identity, nature and our humanity.

[digitalfaun]

ASSEMBLING MATTERS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By Stephen Hughes

These are stills from an RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland’s public state-owned public broadcaster) news report on the 13th of April 2014 on climate change, in response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released the same day. This was the report that showed how global emissions of greenhouse gasses grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades. The scientific consensus on this issue is that climate patterns of temperature and precipitation are evolving alongside a slow rise in sea levels, and that humans are very likely responsible for it – primarily through the emission of greenhouse gases and transformations of the Earth’s land surface. This is the reality of the situation. As a public-service broadcaster, RTÉ is tasked with conveying this reality to its citizens. A problem arises however, when we confront the fact that the reality of climate change is not identical with representations of the reality of climate change.

The reality of climate change is constructed in labs through the assemblage of geological samples, air particles, greenhouse gas measurements, theoretical studies of climate processes, modelling tools, simulation programs, and lots and lots of data. This is the reality of climate change; not some transcendental realm outside of it that these theories and observations point to – the assemblage of these measurements, simulations and empirical observations are what we understand as climate change. There is no external observer that can see climate change abstracted from these particulars. The combination of these scientific activities with our networks of communication are what define climate change. It is here that we learn of the dangers facing civilization and of our destructive relationship with the environment. And yet these articulations of climate change are not identical with the articulations of climate change we see represented elsewhere, like in the first RTÉ image above.

This is not science, but news-media; a very different representation of climate change. Gone are the complex reams of data, endless samples, and modelling tools; instead we are given a succession of images to indicate climate change. Rather than referring to an abstract concept of climate change that exists somewhere out there, these images formulate a specific articulation of it.This is also climate change, but what is it?

The first image above is one manifestation of climate change in our news media. There are many others. There are many others within this one news segment. This is climate change. It is the industrial chimneys belching smoke, indexically linking our waste to the problems “up there”. But does this mean that we are in a state of denial? That we are tricking ourselves into thinking that it is only waste that is the matter, and not the other end of production – desire? It does now. Now that this discourse has been assembled it can compete with other apparatuses of interpretation. What of the frame around the image? Is this also to be included in the visual reality of climate change? Certainly. The dangerous smoke from the stacks is cut off and contained by the vibrant and secure electric blues of commerce. The imagery might suggest disaster, but surrounding it – in the real of the RTÉ studio – business, enterprise, professionalism and the everyday are alive and healthy, promising safety and stability. We can relax in the knowledge that we are looking at a screen, an imaginary representation of climate change safely contained within the active reality of the RTÉ studio. That is climate change; an assemblage of image, referent, aesthetic, memory, and scientific knowledge. Not to mention the software I used to isolate this image and present it shorn of its original dimensions of sound and movement.

The second image above is also climate change. No more screens, we are now immersed in the sun-bathed reality of melting ice; somewhere like Greenland, the North Pole or an Antarctic. Does this mean that our previous reading was mistaken? No – it is also climate change. This is a different assemblage of discourses, material objects and social constructions. In this network, climate change is melting countries made of ice. Reporter George Lee leads us through this assemblage, comforting us with the fact that climate change is just another environmental story, ancillary to agriculture, the human practice of controlling the earth for our bodily reproduction. What could be more important than that?

The point here is not to try and provide a definitive visual reading of climate change, nor is it an attempt to relativise truth. Rather, it is an attempt to indicate how vast climate change really is. Each of these images overflows with meaning. They also indicate nothing to those not reading this. They didn’t exist before I assembled them for the purpose of this article, and yet they are still, unquestionably, climate change. The phenomenon of rising earth temperatures resulting from greenhouse gas emissions is constantly in a process of construction and reconstruction. This post, the images contained within it, and the original news stories from where they came are all a part of this phenomenon. The extent to which they are acknowledged, reproduced, contextualised and reassembled have direct impact on the reality of climate change. Following Bruno Latour, images matter; in fact and in concern.

[digitalfaun]

ACCIDENTAL PHOTOGRAPHIC DEMOCRACY: THE MASS APPROPRIATION OF GOOGLE STREET VIEW By Alex Sinclair In May 2007, Google launched their 'Street View' campaign; an ambitious project documenting the various sights that could be seen when navigating five major US cities (New York, Miami, Denver, Las Vegas and San Francisco).

The aim was to replicate the sensation of exploring these cities yourself. The product at the time was seen as an extreme version of urban mapping and an extension of the popular Google Maps and Google Earth applications. With Maps and Earth, the idea was to give you an aerial view of whatever you wished. The programs comprised of thousands of satelite imagery stitched together and aside from some potential security concerns from government officials regarding secure locations and important buildings, the impact felt on cultural and societal levels was minimal. 

One of the first things we learn about photography is that it's about selecting what is important and framing it appropriately. It's difficult to view Street View as art because of how broad its scope is. There is no defined aesthetic to be seen when you can see everything and make no mistake “everything” is the key word here. Art is selective and surveillance is all-encompassing. To both Google's credit and detriment, Street View lacks the interruption. 

In 1969, photographer Stephen Shore created a simple series of photos entitled 'Circle #1'. This is a sequence of still images in which the camera rotates to the 8 directions on a compass from a single point. In each frame, a man faces the camera. This is typical of Shore's early work in which he aimed to decontextualise the photograph from the photographer's decision making principles. There were no choices regarding framing because the compass dictated where the camera was aimed. The man was not given modelling instructions other than to face the camera in a deadpan manner. The shots, when viewed correctly, are reminiscent of the user interface with Street View. There was nothing exceptional about the location in which Shore created 'Circle #1' and its bland lack of emotion was its intention. Subjective documentation as objectively as possible was the overall goal. 

I'm sure Google had a similar sentiment in mind when they began their project documenting cities. By using semi-automated cameras designed to capture a 360º view every few metres, Street View is easily viewed as Shore's 'Circle #1' on a massive scale. If you cut forward to today, Street View is now available for cities and regions in 48 different countries. Two years ago (when only 39 countries were available), they listed their data usage at 20 petabytes (20,000 terabytes). The project has covered over 5 million miles of road. It is the most ambitious photography project in history yet we rarely talk about it as such because its sheer breadth makes it unexceptional. 

In 1976, William Eggleston (a contemporary of Shore's) coined the term “democratic camera” as a title for his solo show at MoMA. If the term can be used to describe Eggleston's everyday subject matter shot with a commercial affordable camera then we can definitely apply it nearly 40 years later to what is basically open-source tourism. Google have given the user access to a sizable portion of the world from the comfort of their couch, bed, or if you're the toilet-iPhone-browsing type, even your lavatory. 

Society's interest in the importance of experience has declined drastically with the importance of documentation and those who argue otherwise probably haven't attended a live music event in the last five years. Shaky videos of a U2 cover band is something you just *have* to upload to YouTube, and not just one song either, make sure you get the whole set or people will think you went home early like a square. And take a selfie while you're there too but also include a friend because if it's just you in the picture, then you probably don't have friends. The ethics and methodology of visual social-media will always baffle me. 

Although, unlike YouTube, Google have created both the platform and the content. With such a huge volume of images readily available to consume by the general public, it was only a matter of time before the project was exploited by appropriation-happy visual artists. Some searched for the most picturesque views, some for the most interesting, and some even scoured endlessly in the hope of finding the glitches. These are all common tropes that have been unpacked within Street View appropriation as of late. You find your spot, you take a screenshot and for the most part, the onus is on the artist to leave intact the little digital signifiers to show that this was a screenshot and not a photo of their own. Instead of travelling to extraordinary places to create an original work, open-source tourism is available and these artists are sampling the vast library to form a selection or narrative. And that's all right, because the greatest marketing tool Google could ever have is to infiltrate society on a deeper, more aesthetic level. It's already the king of information, could they have also accidentally created the first truly democratic camera?

Instead of all travelling to the same place and taking similar pictures, we're taking identical ones, or close to identical (only hardware irregularities such as platform and screen resolution will differ in what you see). You post your findings on Facebook or Tumblr or even your portfolio site. “Here's a picture of when I went to Brazil on my laptop.” “Yesterday, I was in Honduras on my phone, today it's Helsinki.” “It sure is great to be able to see Roswell, New Mexico while I take my morning crap”.

[digitalfaun]

THE STATE OF CINEMATIC TELEVISION

By Stephen McCabe "Amazing direction happened on TV all the time before cable but almost nobody recognized it as such because we were told that art was an anomalous in television as wildflower in a toxic waste dump" - Matt Zoller Seltz Television as a medium, produces much that could be in direct opposition to ‘having qualities characteristic of motion pictures’. The visual language of television staples like soap operas would not be considered cinematic at all, the same can be said for some of the output of television at the moment. As we progress through the so-called ‘Golden Age of Television’, there has been a shift towards television as a more cinematic medium. With the continued rise of content streaming services such as Netflix or Video On Demand, the lines between cinematic television and cinema itself are becoming considerably blurred. 

The question I am posing is whether a television show being ‘cinematic’ in its style is integral to its success. Much of the presence of cinematic visuals in television has been placed on certain authorship that can be found in show. As Matt Zoller Seltz noted in his New York Magazine article 'How to Direct a TV Drama', this authorship is not only designated to directors, unlike in film where the concept of the ‘auteur’ proposed by Cahiers Du Cinéma has maintained a popular concept where the director is the key authorial voice of a film. The authorial voice of a television show is often attributed to the writer, creator (or showrunner as they have become known) and director are often put in the position to follow already an already in place visual tone and style and in order to adhere to the consistency and continuity that audiences have come to recognise as a significant trope of television dramas. 

If there are fewer distinctions between television and film, what is to be made of shows which take a less cinematic approach? Shows such as HBO’s The Wire or AMC’s Mad Men are two of the most celebrated television shows of all time but often both shows don’t look cinematic. The Wire, as a great depiction of the hierarchies of American society, took to a more plot driven cinéma vérité style of visuals that fit perfectly with the story being told. This still has not stopped critics hailing it as the finest television show ever made. As for Mad Men, it differs greatly from The Wire’s documentary-like approach but often resembles something like an Edward Hopper painting in motion or as Seltz notes ‘A Classic A-picture’. Due to this, when a show like Mad Men uses a technique that would be considered more cinematic, it is often praised more so for it. An example being the musical number that brought the mid-season finale of Mad Men to a close. A song and dance number by a recently deceased character brought a necessary stylistic flourish that not only added to the plot but opened up a treasure trove of possible meanings to be picked apart by audiences in its song choice. 

It could be argued that much of the cinematic visuals that are coming to television are down to the directing talent that are getting involved with television. Directors like Martin Scorsese (Boardwalk Empire), Rian Johnson (Breaking Bad), Michael Mann (Luck) and David Fincher (House of Cards) have brought their distinctive authorial voices to their respected shows, with Scorsese, Mann and Fincher each laying the visual foundations for the series to move forward with. 

For Fincher, with developing and directing the pilot of House of Cards, he helped establish the visual tone for the series and for those familiar with his work with notice the muted colour palette, stylish but subtle camera work that has been synonymous with his work ever since Se7en. With House of Cards, Fincher has established overtly cinematic visual tones that have continued throughout its two season run. If one were to look at the shows that have brought about this "Golden Age of Television" moniker, some of these shows would be more minimal in their direction and less stylistic, allowing for the story to take precedence. After all, television as a long-form medium caters more towards plot-driven shows than director driven ones. 

With House of Cards being the first television show not to air on television but rather as a Netflix exclusive where every episode is available at once, this has changed how television is consumed. This approach, in turn, is impacting how it is being crafted.Upon their respective releases, many viewers (including myself) simply binge-watched both seasons of House of Cards in one weekend. 

In order to assess the state of the cinematic television show, I believe it best to examine what would be considered the most critically acclaimed television shows of the past year. With such a wide variety of critically adored television airing at the moment, it would impossible to assess the cinematic value of each but to take a selection of shows from a variety of sources, not simply cable or premium networks and assess their cinematic value would create a more accurate, albeit still incredibly broad, answer for whether or not the cinematic quality of a television show attributes to its success as art. 

For shows like FX’s Louie and HBO’s Girls, each are driven by their respected stars and creators, Louis CK and Lena Dunham. Cinematically, they fit within that of American independent American film. Though both differ greatly in content, with Louie’s influences seemingly to be that of Woody Allen with the occasional dick joke and the distinct visuals of an American independent film that can be traced back to Cassavetes. Both it and Girls can be seen to be quite messy in their plotting, tone and continuity but regardless of this chaos, both shows are considered to be part of this crop of important television shows of this "Golden Age", Girls critical praise and the many words written about it seem to come more from its significant representation of the female but this has not stopped the show from having several near-perfect episodes. These two demonstrate that the need for huge budgets to give authorial voice to television is not necessary. 

It would seem that television has begun to showcase its true potential with not only the shows mentioned here but with many others too. Television’s evolving landscape has opened some exciting doors to tell stories and make art in a way that cinema couldn’t allow. This increase in varied cinematic styles found is proving that television time in the toxic waste dump is over.

[digitalfaun]

MEET THE NEW DIGITALFAUN WRITING TEAM!

After five years of working on this myself, I've opened the space up to some new writers. Over the coming weeks, you'll see fresh content from new faces. I purposely selected people who I thought represented the ethos of DigitalFaun but could perhaps bring a new viewpoint to the table. 

During the application process, I asked anyone interested in joining the team several questions including things like "If you could have 5 people, dead or alive, at a dinner party, who would you choose?" and "Pitch one article in less than 75 words" but the question which yielded the most interesting answers was when I asked if the applicant thought that artists should feel obligated to communicate their ideas in a secondary format to their original work (i.e. should photographers have to talk about their images, should painters have to write). Below, as an introduction to each new writer, I have provided their answer to this question.

Alex Sinclair (that's me!) I don't think the writer themselves should have to express their ideas through a secondary medium, however, I feel that they should be open enough in their demeanour to allow others to create a reading of the work through an analysis of the artists' intentions. Artists should be open enough to allow scrutiny, but not so open that there is no room for interpretation. 

Stephen McCabe I would, for the most part, be of the opinion that it is not the artists obligation to communicate what their their ideas in formats that are secondary. Of course, sometimes it is necessary for an artist, in any sort of medium, to have to examine their work. Whether due to a controversial topic being addressed or political, etc. messages the art is trying to portray, sometimes it is quite central for the art to function as intended. This question brings up what exactly it is people expect from art. If one is just looking for beauty or truth in art then it is not necessary for artist to need to explain themselves. Of course, the pop culture sphere that art is now produced in does not make things that simple. With mediums like film and television, it is seems like writers and directors spelling things out for people is a necessary function for their survival as artists.

Stephen Hughes I think that not only is it necessary for artists to communicate outside of their primary media, but it is impossible not to. To think that artists can somehow abstract their work from wider networks of genre, language, representation and materiality makes no sense. Context is the key here, and whether the artist likes it or not, their work will always be situated within a web of signifying contexts. The architecture of the building that hangs a painting; the colour of the walls inside a photo gallery; the name of the gallery, the part of town it’s situated in, the type of people attending an exhibition – these networks of signification are already working overtime to translate the meaning surrounding the representation itself. What grants art its power is not the autonomy of the aesthetic, but the fact that art is simultaneously material and symbolic. The function of a photograph is not its signifying potential alone, nor its reference to an actually existing place or situation, its unique perspective comes from a simultaneous manifestation of representation and reference. Art does not exist in a contextual vacuum – its network of signification ought to be recognised and embraced by the artist.

Isobel Taylor An artist may reject other formats of communication as they find it impossible to use them; hence they resolve this inability to articulate ideas by producing the artwork in question. Explaining work may also be, an albeit petulant, rebellion against having to do so in education. However, in many cases staking claim to a specific intent could make the work reductive and alienate certain audiences, lest we forget the ambiguity of Mona Lisa is its allure. On the other hand, Edward Burtynsky had been quiet about his intent until he began to lose his audience. They believed he favoured the sites he photographed. It lead to Burtynsky conducting more talks, which quelled doubts that he was colluding with ‘the bad guys’. It can be easier to leave work for the critics to decipher and the artist may feel as if their work is already established it does not need their own input. However, more often than not it is an essential tool to guide your work where it needs to be and ensure success. Conducting affiliated work is also a way to support practice financially therefore the most sensible option but not suitable for everyone.  

Matthew Flores I think it’s crucial for artists to have the skills to communicate their ideas in any range of formats, because its precisely those skills that are required in order to create concise, intelligent art with a purpose. If you can’t speak fluently and intelligently about your own art, I think the art itself is flawed. Art is nothing if not expression, and expression naturally should flow through any conduit that is most appropriate. My favorite artists are the ones who can jump from media to media without losing a beat and without the action feeling contrived. 

Luke Winter “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” being one of those too-glad put-downs which fail to grasp the matter at hand: a matter can neither be grasped nor appear at hand. Metaphor is the power of all art. Whilst it might seem cruel to ask an artist who has spent a career trying to describe something with photos, to communicate that truth with words instead, if words can bring a richer meaning to an audience, a kind artist should be eager to engage with that other medium. For meaning matters; feeling matters. Mystery has some part in prompting those, but if the barriers of mystery, through aloofness, through refusing to engage beyond the limited faculties of a visual work, are raised too high, no meaning or feeling will be derived. To add context to a work is a recognition of its limits. But the work is the start of a conversation only. In the words of Valery: “art is never finished only abandoned”. A kind artist should want to initiate an audience into their language. To do that, they should use any means necessary. Of course artists have a choice. But to remember Henry James: “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”

[digitalfaun]

A LITTLE, NOT TOO LATE

The highly acclaimed institution that is the British Journal of Photography decided to opt for a 'Women Only' issue this April. Photography is a boy's club and this seemed like a logical step towards addressing that problem. BJP have decided to tackle their own gender imbalance with an issue dedicated solely to the minority. 

The book is filled with liberating projects detailing what it's like to be a women in today's world. I won't pretend that I can relate to even half of these. It's filled with inspirational stories of courageous females who are undeterred by the probability that they will never be seen as important as their male counterparts. This is capital-A Artworld after all and BJP is a part of it. 

And I'm flicking, and scanning, and reading, and just generally trying to absorb what they're trying to achieve. I stumble across a great line in it by Brett Rogers, director of The Photographers' Gallery in London. "There is a tendency for women to belittle their achievements, but as an institution, it's our job to seek them out".

This is an important moment in my reading. The magazine doesn't dwell on Rogers long, in fact he's only a small part of one article, but this moment carries a lot more weight than some of the more predictable elements that follow. 

Perhaps BJP are hamstrung by their sponsors or afraid to alienate the male side of their audience but I'm left underwhelmed. This could have busted an important issue wide open and knocked us all on our backs gasping for air. But it doesn't. It's idle threats. The opening address by Deputy Editor Diane Smyth is aspirational and ambitious but then it all goes a bit limp. 

There is a lengthy feature on Cass Bird and Susan Meiselas gets an in-depth profile and nothing strikes me as all that groundbreaking. I can't help but dwell on that Rogers quote. What needs to be spoken after it is on the tip of our collective tongue. "It's our job to seek them out ... but we don't". 

I'll never claim to know even half enough about feminism but surely, there could have been smarter ways to tackle gender imbalance without having to be so on-the-nose about it. If the problem is integration then open-label segregation isn't the way forward. I would have liked to have seen this magazine publish this without the 'Women Only' title and see how it was received. Tip the scale the other way until someone notices and adopt a practice that better reflects the ideals set out by Smyth in the opening. Now that's change. This is just reparations. 

This magazine doesn't work as a solution in the same way a once-off women-only meeting in parliament isn't the cure to a lack of women in high ranking government positions. This magazine is treating the symptom not the disease. But it's a start.