In the Gallery -

I'm still in the process of mulling through my thoughts on this work..look for an "essay" before Thursday's closing reception... But I thought I should provide a preview of what the work looks like installed in the space... A sense of my intent and the scale...The images are all printed on Epson's new back-lit polyester trans film - eight 24"x36" and two 60"x40" prints mounted on plexiglass in handmade (by myself and friends - thanks Kevin, Chris, and Aaron- without your help it would not have gotten done.) whitewashed, 6 inch deep light boxes... 

The decision to build the light boxes is rooted in the origins of the files (see earlier posts) and the fact, that though the print is not necessarily "dying", does not change the fact that the vast majority of photographs are now only viewed on screen, as projected light...twenty years ago the opposite was true- most photos were viewed as prints...I want to capture the impermanence, the fleeting nature of the everyday image, but also the nature of the photo in the "digital age". Hope to see you Thursday, June 21 - 6pm-9pm at Big Medium gallery...http://www.bigmedium.org/about.html 

New work for Hsu Office Of Architecture - Austin, Texas


Hubbard Circle residence and Lucy's Fried Chicken and Oysters... 


More on Big Medium showing - Closing Reception will be held the evening of Thursday, June 21st. Details forthcoming...



http://www.hsuoffice.com/projects-homes-hubbard.html

Lucy's...

How does this thing work?

It's been too long folks..Too much to cover in a quick post...I'll get to the big picture/long story of the past two years in the coming days...But I wanted to post some new work and and start a few new and focused conversations...


I will be showing the work at Big Medium gallery in Austin,TX in June. Check out the link below...

https://www.facebook.com/events/309563399118205/

To say you "stumble onto an image"...in how many ways, in what circumstances, with what technology have image makers discovered something in the photographic process that was unexpected, yet oddly effective...The serendipity of Bresson, the miraculous in the mundane captured by Muybridge...a print left too long in a chemical bath...resulting in a new ways of thinking about how to approach the medium...


I think it would be a stretch to say I've done anything remotely close to what has come before (in fact, you could question wether I've done anything at all)...but when I stumbled upon these images...they piqued my interest on enough levels to wonder if anyone else would want to have a conversation about what they could mean...


For perspective on where this is coming from..the total amount of digital data in existence now exceeds 45GB per person on the planet...that's actually more data than there exists storage to hold it..


Since the "mainstreaming" of digital photography we now make more than 375 billion images a year..Given that we've made around 3.5 trillion TOTAL photographs in the history of the medium...it means that the majority of all images made have been captured in the past decade... 


Why all the numbers? I guess because since I first picked up Canon A1 with a 50mm f1.4 sometime around 1990...I had no idea i'd end up here...and so quickly...You actually need to take a moment, step back and consider, wonder...think.


How many times have you heard me say ..."IT AIN'T IF your hard drive is going to fail..IT'S WHEN!"..what happens to all this data? This flood of zeros and ones that disappears before it even actually exists in any true physical form beyond photons -  then electrons and protons...that said...

There's more to this...there are over 30 images in the group... made up of what I estimate to be more than 75 original files- all interlaced together...as I've work backwards trying to reverse engineer the results...I realized the even more intriguing fact that the resulting recovered files are actually readable, editable .CR2 raw files..All technical nerd-dom aside...the next part of this conversation is about what's actually "contained" in these images...stay tuned.

  

October!!!

Death Valley

I'm proud to announce my participation in SF Open Studios 09"...

Sat and Sun - October 17 and 18 from 11AM - 5PM both days

855 Scott St. (Scott at McAllister)

It's an open house...turned gallery. Come by and see a "retrospective" of sorts along with some new work. I'll be showing images from several series - "Kentucky Farm House", "Rackhouse", "Night Study" and more...and new panoramic landscape work from Death Valley. We look forward to seeing you...

Kentucky Farm House 3

Kentucky Farm House 2

Kentucky Farm House 1

Night Study #5

Vernazza

Vernazza is the 4th of 5 villages within a 10km span on the north-central, western coast of Italy...in a region called Cinque Terre (chink-qwa ter-ah), the "Five Lands"...Sadly (or not), once we arrived in Vernazza...we decided we were going nowhere else...Check out the the images...I think you'll understand why! And to my folks..HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

  

..to the Med..Cinque Terre..

...three more days left...on the coast...quiet time for Hill and I...may not have the power of this technology in a sleepy fishing town, but there is more to come...hopefully I'll get the chance to bring this trip to a close before we renter reality on the 19th...

good night

...not enough hours in the day

Damn...it's our last night in Tuscany...I've been averaging about six hours of sleep a night...why is it we expend more energy on vacation?(of course, I have plenty to spare...). The excitement is palpable, the sense of something new, is constant...but isn't the point to slow down? To clear that incessant buzz, the hum of responsibility- droning low- omnipresent, in the background of "everyday" life?...Well, there's the problem...where do we find our value? what is it that pushes the rock up the hill? It cannot be the need for a vacation...I whine, that I don't have time for this, or that...something is always in the way...so much to do. so little time to do it...how are my responsibilities tied to who I am? If they aren't woven from the same thread...then I'm simply shrouded...wrapped up in something...there should be no such thing as work...only labor...ha, I preach and pontificate...now put it to practice...

I've passed the same tree half a dozen times in a week...stuck in my head...only this evening did I take the time to consider it... 

Duomo, Florence

Things have sped into a blur...It's both good and bad to be a foreigner...Our identities...given a certain context, are plastic,(perhaps, that I believe this, is my greatest failing, or maybe an asset...)...malleable, fleeting...Coming to this part of the world for the first time has warped me...like a fresh cut plank of green hardwood (or, balsa?)set in the sun...The twist may just be useful...what can make the shape take practical form?...Time, and our perception of it is such a funny thing...Sitting, looking out across a countryside that is geologically no older than any other tract of land I've had the pleasure to contemplate...It's the patina of man, the weight of human time, that has come to bear...Over two thousand years of human experience made visible...in worn rock and hewn marble..layers over layers built up and excavated and remade, reused, reinvented...things lost and found..ages of ideas burned up (Alexandria)and slowly rediscovered...taking physical form. 

Time...

...lost in the overwhelming sense of it...what foolish, wonderful little creatures we are...a billion blisters of slaves and artisans in bricks and smooth stone... the eyes of bishops and cardinals staring down from cracked canvas...standing helpless before an impenetrable monument of pure human desperation...Venus rises from a shell, David's massive, disproportionate hands hide the stone meant to slay the giant...

...to slay the giant...

wow...

Filippo Brunelleschi, nearly 1400 years after the Pantheon, after the loss of much of the knowledge of entire civilizations... considered the form of a dome and how it may be constructed...good story...and history continues to repeat itself...