gaianautes writings

slow writing on culture, photography, literature and more

[gaianauteswritings]

Jerome Charyn and a shitstorm of singularities

My favourite quote from a Jerome Charyn book, "Montezuma's Man":

"LeComte is clean. He can't get hurt. But he's behind the times. He doesn't understand chaos. He doesn't appreciate nonlinear twists. - Boss, what's a nonlinear twist? - Turbulence, Isaac said. Everything in nature leads to turbulence. It's at the heart of every form. Singularity. Singularities in a field of order. Nine men. Nine positions. A pitched ball. - Boss, Barbarossa said. I can't talk baseball now... Do we go to our masks? What's the plan? - Turbulence, Isaac said. We destabilize LeComte and his cartel. - Yeah, Barbarossa said. With a shitstorm of singularities."

[tokyo-camera-style]

This is the same problem I have with digital photography. The potential is always remarkable. But the medium never settles. Each year there is a better camera to buy and new software to download. The user never has time to become comfortable with the tool. Consequently too much of the work is merely about the technology. The HDR and QTVR fads are good examples. Instead of focusing on the subject, users obsess over RAW conversion, Photoshop plug-ins, and on and on. For good work to develop the technology needs to become as stable and functional as a typewriter.

“Toy Fatigue”, Alec Soth  (via valerian)

Photographer Alec Soth hits the nail smack down. Can't be said any better.

[gaianauteswritings]

On Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities"

What is it?

First published in 1972 the setting of this novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino is in the palace garden of Kublai Khan where Marco Polo entertains the emperor by describing cities that he supposedly has visited on his travels in the great empire of the Khan.

Why is it good and worthwhile reading?

In short lyrical portraits of imaginary cities and their, sometimes very strange and fantastic, traits and inhabitants it seems to describe both visible and invisible conditions, beauty and ugliness, weaknesses and mysteries of man and existence so that a mosaic of life emerges in mythical form. Seen as a whole it could also be a portrait of Venice, Marco Polo's hometown, or of any city.

[gaianauteswritings]

Why photography? #5 - Jem Southam

"My overall artistic intentions are to make work that expresses how our history, our memory and our systems of knowledge combine to influence our response to the places we inhabit, visit, create and dream of... The photographs are the result of a need to make work in the most challenging and enjoyable way possible.”

(Jem Southam)

[gaianauteswritings]

Why photography? #4 - Luigi Ghirri

"I am trying... to be able finally to distinguish the precise identity of man, things, life, from the image of man, things, and life."

(Luigi Ghirri)

[gaianauteswritings]

Why photography? #3 - Mårten Lange

"To me, photography is a set of tools that were designed to satisfy our need to archive and index the world." (Mårten Lange)

[gaianauteswritings]

Why photography? #2 - Peter Fraser

"I am trying to understand what the world around me is made of through the act of photographing it." (Peter Fraser)

[gaianauteswritings]

Linguistic attacks and Jerome Charyn

"My use of language is very particular and it's something that many people can't deal with. To me everything is in the language... My books are linguistic attacks that happen to talk about cops. I'm not interested in catching the crook. They are a shadow land where good and evil just come together and you can't tell the difference."

(Writer Jerome Charyn on Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's blog)

[gaianauteswritings]

On conflict, society and banality

Peaceful conflict is one of the foundations of a healthy democratic society. Conflict between interests, ideologies, old and new, good and bad. Conflicts carry with them the seeds for solutions, ideas, ways forward. However, the ubiquitousness of conflict makes it banal. And I loose interest. What is interesting to me is usually, to borrow someone else's metaphor, what lies not in the middle of the road but what is to be found in the margins, by the wayside, or even in the ditches.

[gaianauteswritings]

Simplicity

According to several internet sources these were Mahatma Gandhi's possessions when he died. If I had to slim down, mine would be a bowl, a toothbrush, a bar of soap, a set of clothes, a pair of shoes, glasses, a book, a pen, a notebook, a multitool and a warm blanket. And if one gadget, a digital compact camera.

What would be yours?

[gaianauteswritings]

Non-originality. In meta-fashion.

"But why should I be original? Why can't I be non-original?"

(Andy Warhol)

[gaianauteswritings]

On Robert Adams and Ume Kayo: truth and sensuality

I like Robert Adams, the great photographer of the North American West, very much. His faithfulness to his vision, his consistency and tenacity, his lack of gimmicks and all his seriousness but, I feel, without posed pretension. In his book of essays ”Why People Photograph" he writes that D.H. Lawrence ”observed that the profoundest of all sensualities is the sense of truth”. I think this observation applies to Robert Adams as well. His images convey a great sense of truth, thus making them simultaneously sensual. Over the years of looking at photographers’ images and seeking visual and intellectual inspiration, I notice that I am moving away from the more obviously well made work and concentrating on those that have, to my eyes and mind, a genuineness and simplicity, communicating truth and/or sensuality. This is of course highly subjective and what serves as an example of this may not stand out to you and vice versa. There is no general formula and it is all very personal.

Completely different from Adams is Ume Kayo, one of the many great young Japanese photographers. To her, fun and speed is everything. She is like a reincarnation of Henri Cartier-Bresson in a different time and space where the camera, as HCB advocated it should be, seems to be the extension of herself, always with her and not many centimeters away from her fingers. While her images may not be technically excellent in the traditional sense, which is not by the way a good criterion for interesting photos, they are extremely true to what she saw, wanted to communicate and save for memory. Snapshot photography in overdrive with a photographer’s eye resulting in truth, no gimmicks.

As different from each other as they are, Robert Adams and Ume Kayo are if not unique (there are others that have produced similar work), then very, very faithful to their vision, where photography seems to be not only the extension of their physical selves but more importantly an extension of their connection to reality, life and the world in which we live. Have a look at this video of Ume Kayo working and then read the translation (if you don’t understand Japanese) afterwards, on the blog PhotoStudious.

[gaianauteswritings]

Borges and Proust. And Murnane.

I need Borges and Proust. Proust and Borges. Memory and infinity. The precise and the mystical. The human experience as both very concrete and full of flavors, scents and visual impressions, and at the same time sublime, universal and earth shattering. And I suspect that Gerald Murnane's novel "The Plains" is possibly and actually a kind of representation of Borges' Aleph where all time and space exists in one small spot, in this case a settlement on the Australian plains. So I need Murnane too.

[gaianauteswritings]

On the tactile experience of using a good fountain pen

I never gave my writing much thought until a few years ago. Long before that I sometimes wrote down ideas, thoughts, dreams, wishes and other things in a notebook. Mostly using any writing utensil available.

Then, in late 2007, I discovered the fountain pen, probably from browsing the web and getting my curiousity piqued. I also happened to have a pen in a drawer gifted to me many years before that but seldom used. There is no turning back now. I use fountain pens daily. Notice the plural. One pen quickly became many, now more than thirty.

Using a good fountain pen is but one way of reaching a heightened sense of presence, curious as it may seem. Good fountain pens can be cheap or expensive. Above a certain price level, which is lower than you might believe, price is dictated more by design and marketing than quality. After all it is a fairly simple product.

The essence of the fountain pen is the nib. The right nib gives you a very comfortable writing experience and helps you to a personal writing style. The right nib gives you a tactile experience of writing that is one of a kind. While a nib with good ink flow lets you write more quickly if you wish, the pure tactileness encourages you to slow down and enjoy the feeling of putting your thoughts and pen to paper. Much like walking by foot slows you down to a tempo in line with your physical self, and placing your mental self in the same spot, a fountain pen can support you to thoughtful writing. If the nib is made of gold the softness of the metal adapts the nib over time to your style of writing, depending on how and how much you press the pen (a fountain pen, however, should be used with a light hand) and at what angle, thus becoming more personalized and thereby enabling you to express your personality even more through writing. Try it. It may change your writing life or simply just improve it.

[gaianauteswritings]

Why photography? #1 - Robert Mapplethorpe

"I'm looking for perfection in form... I'm trying to capture what could be sculpture."

(Robert Mapplethorpe)

[gaianauteswritings]

On the importance of culture and the arts

My view is that culture is important because it is our way of, through the arts and the artistic expression, have a continuous and living discussion with our selves and others about who we are, what we experience, what we dream about and wish, for the inspiration, understanding and knowledge both of our selves and others. I feel this should be obvious but sometimes it needs to be stated.

[gaianauteswritings]

Words but no language

Sitting at an international conference that is dragging out for too long where many opinions and positions are repeated in similar words I get tired of the language. Or rather, in Tomas Tranströmer's expression, "words but no language".

I had an immediate longing for poetry, a paradoxical need for "language but no words" (TT).