AMP

eating my prints

My studio in Brooklyn was approximately 90 square feet if you counted the ‘hallway’ path that people used to get to the bathroom. It was also humid as hell, had no natural light, and cost $300/month. My studio at MacDowell is an improvement in every imaginable way, save for the less-than-convenient location of being 240 miles away from Brooklyn. I guess that’s why there’s a bed in it. Peep the 360˚ view below:

Also, I seem to have lost all concept of time up here–what is a Friday?

Experimenting with animated GIFs of my rain photograms I made last summer…reminds me of old home movies…

Just bought a globe. This passage was in the manual:

Only at the stroke of midnight on the international date line is a day the same all over the world. A moment later, there are two days going on at the same time. When Tuesday has arrived at the international date line, it is still Monday over the rest of the world. The new day moves westward.
When a day is six hours old, it has traveled one-quarter of the way around the world. Then one-quarter of the world is having Tuesday and the other three-quarters are having Monday. Six hours later, the new day is half way around the world and in another six hours, three-quarters of the way. Finally, it approaches the date line again and another new day, Wednesday, is born.

It makes my head hurt when I think about stuff like this.

New Year's Eve, 2007

Over the holiday break I went back home to my friends and family in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if it was the holiday spirit or what, but man, we went out A LOT. Like every night. The holiday break also coincided with me purchasing my first digital point-and-shoot, which has become pretty important to my photographic process. For years I would just shoot my old Olympus Stylus point-and-shoot on Tri-X or Astia. So suddenly, photography is back into my life–and in a big way. This makes me re-think some of my earlier thoughts on photography and it’s relationship to the way we experience the world. In the past I’ve argued that it can cause quite an interruption, but I’m ready to argue the other side now.

Photography Studio ~ 1890's

Let me explain. I believe that in photography’s early days (mid 1800’s up until the end of the century), the process of photography was the same as the experience. Many people were photographed just for the experience of being photographed. Thus, I would argue that the interruption of experience through photography was minimal–in most cases the interruption was THE experience. (Terrible Contemporary Analogy = Television is our everyday life experience, and commercials are photography. What I’m saying is that upon the invention/discovery of commercials, people wanted to watch to the commercials just to see what they were like–to experience the watching of a commercial. Only after their newness wore off did commercials become an interruption).

Walker Evans, Subway Passengers, 1938

However, as photography became more and more integrated into modern life, it became more and more of an interruptive pause in experience. Hardly can a family have a group outing without the breaks of posing for the snapshot.

However, my experience with a particular cultural subset (call them Generation Y, Hipsters, or anyone born after 1980) leads me to believe that there is a new contemporary experience of photography that does not treat the technology as an interruption, but rather as a supplement to the experience.

Nan Goldin, Rise and Monty on the lounge chair, NYC, 1988

I believe that this cultural and photographic trend can be traced back to a genre of street photography–’shooting from the hip’. Photography is at it’s most disruptive when your vision is physically interrupted by the camera. A foreign object is placed between you and one of your sensory organs. However, when held to the side, or really anywhere other then in front of your eyes, it simply becomes a supplement–not a replacement.

Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1966

At parties and clubs, I now see cameras and phones being punched upward, attempting to capture a scene that the photographer is unable to see with their own eyes. Due to the fast feedback loop of digital cameras, the rising popularity of DIY documentation, and the omnipresence of cameras, this has quickly become a common sight.

Ryan McGinley, Morrissey 3, 2004

This use of the camera also serves as a supplemental documentation to what may otherwise be a foggy recollection. In fact, if one’s brain-memory fails (which happens more than we’d like it to), the camera-memory can actually supplant itself in the brain memory and serve as THE representation of the original experience.

Underwear Party, 2008

I’m still undecided if this is a good or bad trend. I’m not one to propagate the myth of an ‘original experience’, but I’m also hesitant to trust our memories to consumer electronics.

On Saturday, April 25th, Phillps de Pury & Company will most likely set a world record for most skateboards sold in a fine-art auction. Whether this is a last-ditch effort to cash in on the only group who didn’t lose all their money in the stock crash or a ride on the coat-tails of a trend that’s already left town, I’m not sure. I do know that there will be a total of 18 decks up for auction by artists running the gamut from Jeff Koons to Neckface.

Keith Haring ‘Untitled’ 1987, Christopher Wool ‘Untitled’ 2008, Jeff Koons ‘Monkey Train’ 2006

All-in-all I do think this auction will appeal to a younger crowd–artists like Alec Soth, Barry McGee, and Chris Johanson seem to have a strong pull for the under-30 crowd. I believe this also marks the first appearance of a 20×200 print in the secondary market–the Mike & Doug Starn two-piece is estimated at $300 – $400. Not a bad investment for $40.

If anyone wants to get me anything, I wouldn’t mind this. But if you’re not feeling that generous, I’d be just as happy with this.

I knew my friend Michael Leonard was a lot of things; a letterpress operator, a beer brewer, and a future lawyer, but I really didn’t think he was much of a stop-animation guy (especially after our terrible films in college). Lo and behold, he can add that to his resumé, too:

Mike and his family are about to move to Chicago so Mike can attend law school. The thing is, they could really use the money. Mike produced the video above for a contest so he can win some money. But, the only way he can win money is if you vote.

So, please, VOTE for Michael Leonard. Every day. With every single email address you have.

So, I sold my car today. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because it died, and I live in the city and don’t have a place to store a 2,000 lb piece of garbage (we actually don’t have a place to put any of our garbage). I put it up on craigslist (I LOVE craigslist) and within 15 minutes I had 15 people offering me my asking price, some offering more. Within an hour I had exchanged the title and keys for money. Beautiful. Actually, the response was so strong that someone located my car using the pictures I had posted on craigslist and put this note on my window.

Kind of cool, kind of scary. If I hadn’t already have sold the car, they totally would have gotten it. E for effort.

So, I’m a busser and a biker now. My friend Brian mentioned that I should get a motorcycle and I got kind of excited about that. I think I could get into that.

I’m excited because for the first time in my life I’ll be skating somewhat consistently during the winter–what a concept in Minnesota!

My buddy Michael just built a bowl–it’s pretty rad:

The mini-ramp is finally done. Thank god, cuz I was tired of skating in our kitchen instead:

Speaking of finishing things–Tucker finally completed the door to his bedroom (with a lot of help from Jeremy). Hopefully he won’t plow through this one like the friggin Kool-aid Man, ooooooooooh yeah:

So we get lonely in the winter, deal with it.