AMP

I’ve been completely obsessed with the Earth’s moon lately. Besides being the only major counterpart to our Sun in the sky (which I’ve pondered for quite some time), I’ve recently been turned on to it’s thrilling history, inspiration, and potential.

This probably all started when my musical companion Ryan and I wrote a song for a concept album about the chaos of peak oil destroying the planet and being forced to colonize the moon, appropriately titled ‘To The Moon‘. It was my first attempt at playing the drums, and nicely mimics the Apollo 13 mission to the moon which was dubbed a ’successful failure’. Still, it’s a fun jam to play–the last time I played it was at a backyard birthday party in which I jumped in the pool upon finishing the song. Forgot to take my phone out of my pocket. Whoops.

Spread from James Nasmyth's 'The Moon Considered As A Planet...'

After replacing my phone I came across a fantastic little reprint of ‘The Moon: Considered As A Planet, A World And A Satellite’. This book was originally published in 1885 and became known for it’s intriguing illustrations of the moon, which are actually photographs of large and highly-detailed models created from many illustrations based on telescopic observation. The results are otherworldly–I would love to see an original copy with the pigment prints if anybody has one. The text is a basic scientific discussion of how the surface of the moon came to be. I’ll be honest and tell you that I haven’t read much of it and usually just look at the pictures.

Michael Collins' book 'Flying to the Moon'

Not too long ago I was given a copy of Michael Collins’ book ‘Flying To The Moon‘, which is an account of Collins’ training as an astronaut and his experience aboard the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 flights (he’s known for being the unsung third astronaut to accompany Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to the moon). The book is aimed at younger readers, but I still found plenty to love. I specifically love Collins’ account of orbiting the far side of the moon, completely cut off from all communication and ties to the rest of the world:

“I suppose one reason I didn’t feel lonely was that I had been flying airplanes by myself for nearly twenty years. This time, however, I had to admit that it was a bit different, especially on the far side of the moon. There, cut off from all communication, I was truly alone, the only person in the solar system who could not even see the planet of his birth. Far from causing fear, this situation gave me a good feeling–one of confidence and satisfaction. Outside my windows I could see stars, and nothing else. I knew where the moon was, but in total darkness, it’s surface was not visible: it was simply that part of my window which had no stars in it. The feeling was less like flying than like being alone in a boat on the ocean at night. Stars above, pure black below.”

Later in the book Collins describes how a trip to Mars might happen (unlike the moon mission, which only took 8 days, a Mars mission would likely take a 18 months), the creation of an orbiting city ‘Libra’, and the great potential for both disaster and advanced civilization we have. Did you know that only 66 years passed between the first Wright brothers flight and the moon landing? That’s just fucking crazy.

Spread from Gagarin's work published by Location Books

Lastly, I just received my copy of Location Books‘ first publication which features collages and ‘moonprints’ by Isa Newby Gagarin. It’s very well produced, in a small edition of 100, and features some visually interesting juxtapositions of found photographs and astrophotography. While the bits and pieces of text praising the benefits of laboratory-made diamonds are a bit confusing, the overall metaphor that Gagarin creates throughout the book is strong and inspiring. For Gagarin the moon is a photograph that develops and fades with the sun’s light. It’s an interesting project and works well in book form.

More moon thoughts to come…

I’ve been hopping into photo booths more frequently than normal as of late, and it got me thinking about why the photo booth market never took off in the United States as it did in other areas of the world. In Japan I’ve heard they’re everywhere, and I remember from my time studying in London that I could find one without looking that hard (was it because they were shaped like phone booths, which were also everywhere?). For some reason though, photo booths in the States have been relegated to the area of pure entertainment, found either in bars or amusement parks. Pretty much all of the photo booths I’ve encountered here have been the traditional chemical black & white ones (whereas in Japan most are digital and/or stickers).

Apparently the photo booth first appeared in America, so why didn’t they succeed here? While all of Apple’s computers now come with the Photo Booth application, it’s a distant cousin to the original as it lacks the limitation of a certain # of photos, the cost-per-photo limitation, and the end result of a printed strip of photographs (in these respects, Polaroids are actually more similar).

For now, it looks photo booths will remain a novelty, occasionally used by artists, but mostly for drunken entertainment. While no longer the efficient portrait-generators they used to be, I still hope they stick around, keeping company with typewriters and phonographs. In the meantime, if you’re hunting for a photo booth, I’d recommend using Photobooth.net–and if you know of any that aren’t listed, please contribute!

Here’s my thesis: The sneeze is the closest bodily function we have to the process of photography–or rather, the sneeze is the closest thing we have similar to photographic time in nature. It reflexively slices time up, obscures vision, and for nearly 1/3 of the population, can be triggered by light. I see the act of photography as split-second of momentary blindness–a reactionary interruption that obstructs our seeing. However, while we photograph to preserve, we sneeze to expel, to rid our body of foreign particles, usually dust or other small particulate matter. By expelling the dust, we are preserving our body, our health, and our well-being.

I’ve always found this sequence by Edison to be an interesting documentation of a sneeze:

Even more so interesting knowing that he photographed with a contraption like this:

I made my own interpretation, albeit these are stills from a video camera:

Still, my favorite sneeze photographs are the ones where the sneezer expels a universe of stars into a boogery atmosphere:

A couple weeks ago Thomas Seely from Breakthru Radio visited my studio in Williamsburg to chat about art, music, and the creative process. It was a great conversation, and luckily he recorded it! It’s featured on the program ‘Art Uncovered’, and features the interview, some original compositions, and some choice songs to make for an excellent hour of listening. Listen to the podcast here.

Stayed home sick today and watched a bunch of skate videos vis-a-vis Netflix. I felt like was living in the future. Between watching all these classics and trying to recall if I still have my VHS copies of certain films, my Nyquil-induced haze led me to draw parallels between the construction of a great skateboarding movie and an equally great photobook. Work with me here: skateboarders are photographers, the tricks/lines are their photographs, and then they get placed into a sequential order. I started wondering if skateboarders made maquettes for their video parts, or if they just wrote down the order of their parts as they see fit. At the moment I’m trying to match up the photobook counterpart for the following videos: Animal Chin, Hocus Pocus, Video Days, Welcome to Hell, Yeah Right…or the skate movie equivalent to The Americans, Ballad of Sexual Dependency, American Prospects, Shimmer of Possibility…you get the idea. I’m tempted to match up Lakai’s ‘Fully Flared’ with Crewdson’s Twilight or maybe a Jeff Wall book. Video Days is the closest I can compare to Frank’s ‘The Americans’ sensibility. Welcome to Hell would fit right in with Goldberg’s ‘Raised by Wolves’…I could do this forever. I love sick days.

In the fall of 2006, I was given a residency to write and record a rock-opera/concept album about photography and the Midwest. I recorded around 30 songs to 4-track and felt drained as soon as I finished them. I’m finally feeling able to put lyrics to them, so I dug out the old master tapes and got to work on finishing what I started. Here’s the first one–I intend to make a video for each song. Right now I’m calling the album ‘Lake’, but that’s completely subject to change…

Join me this coming Saturday, April 17th, at 2PM at Michael Mazzeo Gallery for a panel discussion with the artists in the current show ‘Burning Desire’. The discussion will be moderated by P. Elaine Sharpe, and will include Marina Berio, Doug Beube, Davide Cantoni, Stan Gaz, Chris McCaw, and Amanda Means along with myself. This is a great opportunity to find out more about the huge variety of approaches in form and content this group of unique artists use in the creation of their art. Space is limited, so you should RSVP with the gallery.

I was lucky enough to catch The Wedding Present in New York on their current tour commemorating the 21st anniversary of their landmark album ‘Bizarro’. For the tour they are playing the album in it’s entirety, which made for an interesting experience. First off, I was impressed that David Gedge (the band’s only remaining founding member, songwriter, singer, and rhythm guitarist) could still manage to play the fast-paced jangly songs he wrote when he was much, much younger–played live, ‘Bizarro’ becomes a testament to perseverance in both emotion and physical forms.
I also noticed that I was definitely one of the younger members in the crowd–it felt like the average age was ~40–most in attendance had probably seen the band in their original formation back in the 80’s.

Video isn’t mine, but is of the Bowery show I was at.

In addition to playing the album ‘Bizarro‘ in it’s entirety, the band also played a few old favorites (including the amazing ‘Corduroy’ and ‘Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft’) as well as a couple of brand new songs. While the music behind the new songs sounded pretty good–comparable to the standout tracks on the recent Wedding Present albums, I’m afraid Mr. Gedge’s lyrics are getting a little to corny/cliché. His strength has always been referencing the specific in a way that it becomes universal, but hearing him use the words ‘iPhone’ and ‘texting’ in his songs just made me cringe a little bit. What with his recent online habit, I was afraid one of the songs was going to be about Twitter (thankfully not). During that song, in addition to the ‘Bang Bang, you’re dead!’ lines of another song, I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of the lyrics instead of appreciating the music behind them.
This isn’t to say that you can’t write a good song and use the word ‘iPhone’ in the lyrics (The Streets have managed to write a song involving not enough bars on one’s phone, I believe)…I just haven’t heard it yet. Maybe it’s simply too contemporary–Gedge did preface the new songs with an apology and a promise that we’d like them in 30 3 years! I guess we should stick to writing songs about the Commodore 64 instead…

Holy Hell, browsing through the Library of Congress’s digitized collection is soooo much more pleasurable now, totally due to their updated website. In case anyone needs a reminder, the Library of Congress is an amazing resource of our nation’s images in the public domain (many available as hi-resolution tiffs). I recently spent a few hours just browsing Muybridge’s images.

Woman pouring basin of water over head

Woman walking in front of Sol Lewitt mural

Total Awesomeness

All images by Eadweard Muybridge, courtesy the Library of Congress.

If you hadn’t heard by now, SFMOMA is hosting a two day symposium on the current state of photography, and framing the whole thing with the ridiculous question: Is photography over? I understand the desire to provoke, but feel the question is a bit more sensational than it needs to be. Regardless, I’m glad SFMOMA is doing this as it’s helpful for every medium to have a ’state-of-the-union’ type address and see where we (the photographic community) are at, and where we want to be headed. I wish I could attend, as the list of speakers/panelists is quite impressive. Alas, I’ll have to participate through the blog-O-sphere instead–see my talking points below.

*Enough with the digital vs. chemical photography debate. It’s boring. Digital has won. Chemical photography will always be around. If painters bickered about acrylic vs. oil as much as photographers do with their mediums, I would hate painting.

*’Manipulation’, willful or not, has been around with photography since it’s inception. It’s presence in a photograph cannot be accurately measured, nor should be used to define whether or not something is/is not a photograph. Deception lies in the photographer’s intent, not in the clone stamp (people deceive people, not Photoshop).

*One of the more interesting aspects of contemporary photography is that it has been essentially freed from its mortal pulp body. Discussion on how this is going to affect everything from the vintage print market to the family photo album is needed. We are becoming more and more dependent on technology and corporations that are far removed from our understanding, yet we trust them to look after our treasured photographs. If your computer crashed and Flickr went down, how many photographs would you have?

*Micro-stock and the struggling photo-journalist. I cannot think of any other occupation that has been completely altered due to budding hobbyists and changing technology. Perhaps newspaper columnists and bloggers, but still–there is no comparable existing structure where a client, rather than paying a professional to generate original and exclusive content, can simply purchase existing content online that was most likely generated from an amateur or hobbyist. What does this say about how the public consumes photographs, since they don’t seem to mind? How many times can we recycle an image until the public craves something new?

More to follow…