IMAGING CULTURE SS2013

IDEAS, REFERENCES and INSPIRATION

[razorshapes]

Ami Sioux - Paris 48°49N 2°29E

"Ami asked 50 parisians to hand-draw a map to a place of their choosing, a place that is significant or important to them personally, for any reason. She then used the maps to navigate to each location and take a photograph to represent each location. The pictures and maps portray a side of each city as interpreted by those who live and work in it every day. Its not a “guide” to the new café or club, but rather, a unique way of discovering different parts of the city."

[imagingculturess2013]

Eisfabrik berlin

Shared with Dropbox

In order to open the VTour you have to download all the files provided by the link.

[imagingculturess2013]

[imagingculturess2013]

More installation views from today. Thanks to everyone! And if the multi-media folk would like to post links to their projects, that would be great! Have a good summer!

[mseasmith-blog]

Imaging Culture at BTKFH Berlin» Partial Installation Views from July 10th, 2013.

[imagingculturess2013]

Tobias Zielony Exhibition

The opening last night for the Zielony exhibition at the Berlinerische Galerie was really excellent. His work proposes an intersection between contemporary photography and social documentary. Zielony's commitment to his protagonists drives a very different aesthetic and discourse. It is ABOUT the people in the images, about larger political and social shifts on a global level, and it also blurs what is real and what is fiction, what happens naturally and what the subjects direct themselves. I highly recommend going to have a look at it!

http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/thema/2150302/

[imagingculturess2013]

July 25-29 Exhibition at BTK Rundgang

Christian Mahler has asked if our course would like to have a room to present final works during the BTK-FH Rundgang from the 25th to the 29th of July.We have access to some technical support and would be a good opportunity to show final projects over a longer span of time.

I have reserved a room in the second floor, BUT I will be out of town. The only way for this to happen is if you guys take the reigns and make it happen. I can help from afar, organize technical needs with Reinhart and write text about the project to post, but the set-up and breakdown would be your responsibility. It is risky. If it is not 'good' [meaning there is enough work that reflects a certain standard and is well installed], the room might just get locked. What do you guys think? Who is interested? Send me an email » easdesign[at]hotmail.com

[imagingculturess2013]

Another cool event for next Saturday, documentary films from Greenland at Babylon

» OPEN (Dänemark, 2012, R: Ivalo Frank, 60 min, Dänisch / Grönländisch mit englU)

» ECHOES - Vorfilm (Experimenteller Musik-Dokumentarfilm, R: Ivalo Frank, Grönland/Deutschland, 2010, 24 min., Englisch mit dt. UT)

[imagingculturess2013]

Photos of Isolated, Stark Lithuanian Village Discos

I came across this and just HAD TO share. 

Call it a disco, nightclub, or lounge, but they all serve the same purposes: drinking, dancing, and meeting people. Over a ten-year period, photographer Andrew Miksys ventured to village discos in Lithuania — many rundown, backroad, Soviet-era community centers where the decor is questionable, and the people are often looking to f*ck or fight.

[imagingculturess2013]

What's your safe haven?

  We all have some ups and some downs, and we all have our own "safe haven" that help us to put our thought in order, to renew our energies for those bad days we wish we havent gone out of the bad... a decision you have to make, a work you need to finish, a job you don´t enjoy to work but you keep doing it because you need money, family troubles, stressful day, missing someone, a moment we just want to run away, to escape.. Who (who do you call first) ?, what do you do free your mind? or where do you turn to when you are feeling down? how do you recompose your energie ? a favorite place, a favorite food, a favorite music, reading, writing, What's your safe haven? 

  “She liked to sit on the front porch in the afternoons and read books she'd checked out from the library. Aside from coffee, reading was her only indulgence.”

― Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven

  Idea:

Through researches with different kind of people, close people or not, interviews, or maybe by “look around” try to catch those “ times of peace”, the safe of haven, from each one, by recording sounds, short video, or pictures.

[imagingculturess2013]

Irish artist Morrisey investigates the family album as an intriguing glimpse into private worlds and realities. She might reenact her own family snapshots, years later.

Or she inserts herself performatively in other peoples family albums, or collects audio recording of family and friends talking about family snapshots.

[imagingculturess2013]

Jay Dorfman's Silk Mill series "The silk mill in Lonaconing, MD was in operation from 1907-1957. Initially, silk was imported from Japan  and China and the factory produced silk thread, and during WW II rayon. IN the 1920s the payroll included over 300 people, but in later years fewer than 200 worked there. and by the 50s antiquated machines in a small mill made compettion with larger facilities impossible. In 1957 the mill closed for good. The silk mill still stands in Lonaconing, as it did 50 years ago."

Dorfman's project is not outstanding, but it brings up the idea of using photography to document abandoned spaces to talk about past/present/future. Usually, and interestingly, the current state of such buildings also tell larger stories. Buildings symbolically, and literally, hold stories/people/dreams/art/the past. In the case of Thomas' project, it is interesting to think about the architecture as narrative that asks: what did the building used to be? what is it now? what is it's future? See also Nathan Kensiger's  ABANDONED BROOKLYN a curated, multi-media project that looks at the use, history and future of such spaces. Much of his work covers these themes.

[imagingculturess2013]

We became interested in the daily white lies everyone is telling.

How often do you tell anyone that he or she is looking relaxed, just to make him or her feel better about the last sleepless night? When was the last time you canceled an appointment, because your bed was so unbelievably comfortable? Who was the last one you talked to while being in the elevator, although you didn't like the person at all?

Imagine how far you could come at your job just by telling your boss that you like his idea, although you don't.

When do we use little lies, what situations do we find ourselves in while telling them? How often do we use them and how do we feel afterwards?  Do we even notice them?

We want to look at this cultural phenomenon from different aspects and then develop something throughout the process. Maybe we'll end up with two completely different projects covering the issue (due to the fact that we see it as two different designers - one as a communication designer and one as a photographer) which we than have to combine, or we'll find a way to bring all our ideas together into one big project. here's a link to some funny graphic design posters about truth and lies in our daily lives: http://artpicsdesign.blogspot.de/2013/03/truth-and-lies-amazing-posters.html

the picture on the top is by artist Jung Lee - Tell Me The Truth

Nathalie & Martina

[imagingculturess2013]

May 29th Class

Just to avoid confusion. Class will be this Wednesday, just giving you guys an extra week to prepare your field reports and ideas. There was some confusion. This Wednesday, we will look at several projects that might help you with your ideas. If you already have a report, we can look at it early. See you then. Emily

[imagingculturess2013]

Abandoned and Beloved

The City Berlin is shaped and formed by the division of East/West Germany  and the war over the last 100years.Part of this history can be found in abandoned factories and houses.

Those building are abandoned but still in use. Homeless people,Refugees and Street artists, aswell as ordinary people go there and create a new Subculture in our society.

The Idea

My Idea is to give a sense of the place itself and how it got shaped after it was abandoned.

I want to capture the essence of one of those buildings by photographing the building as a whole in a Virtual Tour and in Stills.

I am going to try to participate with the people living there but they neither speak german nor english.

[imagingculturess2013]

A FIELD REPORT

[you have an additional week!] FOR June 5th » prepare a short visual presentation of your ‘field’, topic or concept, including a small selection of [audio]visual images/sketches that help communicate your idea. Aim for 5 minutes, please.

To help get you started: BEGIN this means » talking to, visiting, trying out, watching, walking around, observing. WRITE some of the initial keywords or phrase that help define it/narrow it. WRITE about why your topic is interesting to you, why did you choose it?

While the focus will become more specific, your choice of 'field' [person, place, relationship or question] should remain. If you stumble, get up and climb over the obstacle. Sometimes barriers are gifts.

This is a report, not a design piece. It begins your investigation and sets the foundation for the coming weeks, a very important step. Without engaging in the space or with the people/idea, you cannot know it, you cannot document it. All you will be doing is rearranging your assumptions.

I would recommend not knowing yet what your final project will be/look like... you may have ideas, but stay fluid. The solution for this project should come out of the investigation [process-oriented] not before.

Finally, STAY SIMPLE.

[imagingculturess2013]

The Modern Living Space - Your Desktop

No computer is like the other as we start using it, we customise -  folder sizes, programs, background pictures, arrangements, applications, screen savers, brightness, icons, etc.

The computer can be a workspace where we develop projects or a playground to just have fun with silly applications, it can be a cafe where we meet up to chat with friends and it can be our living room where we feel at home when we are far away from it. The computer has taken over so many aspects of our lives that it becomes a part of us, a part of our identity.

So the idea is to document the modern living space -

THE DESKTOP 

by asking a group of people to take SCREEN SHOTS of their desktop and share them with me. 

I will be collecting the screen shots from people of different backgrounds, age, countries and find an interesting way to present them.

///This is a sketch of my project so far!//

///Anete Kestere///