The twenty-first century has brought great changes in technology, and in a flash, photography has been revolutionized by the advent of mobile and digital.
Frenzied in a race towards the new, we have all been urged to quit films, processing, instant analogue art, tossing out years of studies, efforts, and specializations in analogue and throwing ourselves headlong into millions of pixels, touch screens, and miniaturization.
This race hasn’t been as bad as it may sound, of course, and we certainly have learned a lot: the new freedom of action and expression of mobile digitization has been powerful and impactful unlike anything before.
Suddenly we realized that we do not need to be part of some rich élite to express one’s own unique abilities and vision.
For the first time in human history, going beyond technical limitations, technological knowledge and financial availability, the tools for artistic digital expression are accessible to almost everyone. Overnight we have found ways to let out the open - minded, little rule-breaking, visionary demon dormant in each of us - or at least, to give it a try.
Some amongst us realize that letting old means of photographic expression wither away is a shame: the death of Polaroid and the fall of Kodak - due to this technological transitioning - marks an abyss in the history of cultural human evolution.
Imagine if the production of materials for painting ceases overnight: brushes, colours, canvases and all the rest - gone.
Wouldn’t this be a terrible loss. Wouldn’t it be worth it to weave our canvas”s in our living rooms, tear hairs from wild boars in the woods, grind pigments by the river, in order to keep the art of painting alive for ever?
Our bodies, physical contact with media and hands on manipulation are an important tool in the creation of expression. Even with a stylus this component gets lost in the digital realm.
The increasingly dizzying technological race, the continuous upgrades, and the unabated rise in costs are now creating the appearance of a new sort of elitist gap, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the pace and pursue a vision.
**All this leads some of us to reconsider photographic media too quickly declared obsolete, and to re-empower the potential, strength and charm of less frantic and hurried paths to our art making. **
Rethinking and practicing film shooting and instant photography by no means implies nostalgia. On the contrary, we mean to persevere in ways, methods, hues and aesthetics that are not otherwise present in the realm of the digital.
All this can and should coexist and weave together in the present: what was (and still is) struggling to remain alive along with what is thriving now, firmly gazing at the future.
If there is a lesson we have learned, it is that everything is a source of opportunity, a possibility be embraced, free of preconceptions and without hesitation. Nothing should be left behind, because everything is useful to our expression.
Every means has its own peculiarities and its limitations. Only by using everything at our disposal can we find new ways of expression, creating melting points, intersections, junctions and bridges.
• We want dialogue, exchange, cooperation, contamination; • we want the best of all worlds, a creative flow free of restrictions and prejudices; • we want to establish a virtuous circle in the exclusive interest of creation, individual expression, and the uniqueness that every human being carries with and within.
Traveling from analog to digital and back again weaving them together into something new is our new (pro)vocation.
NEMALOGUE - the analog in a digital world is here. New Era Museum
Andrea Bigiarini, Ale Di Gangi, Gianluca Ricoveri, Dilshad Corleone, Cat Morris, Gina Costa, Brett Chenoweth, Catherine Restivo, Jennifer Bracewell, Aldo Pacheco, Alex Visage, Sacha Dohmen, Tracy J.Thomas, Mery Walker, Michelle Robinson, Mark Daniels, David Scott Leibowitz,
