One more cup of coffee for the road. One more cup of coffe before I go.........To the valley below.

I made this video for the final project in experimental photo. It's 1-part absurdest gestural painting, 1-part Dada inspired, video collage, and 1-part of Brian Bress inspired performance. I call it, "Absurdada". Included with the video is a sculptural element as well, which is basically a reassembled artifact from within the video itself. I'm hoping that this combination could be more effectual compared to a video and photographs which hold the exact same content. It seems that the two together face the problem of redundancy, where the less impactful suddenly becomes drained and weakened. Recontextualizing an element from within the original image has the potential to open up new meanings and possibilities, extending beyond the original content.

And, as always here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMR0MdfcOEM

shooting is complete!

Starting my journey around 4:30am, I set out for what I hoped to be my final shoot. Success.

Just need to finish up a couple things, and then, that's it, that all.

Also, I somehow found a piece of audio on youtube that seems to fit quite well with the unabomber piece. Pretty much, it's exactly along the lines of what I was trying to accomplish, but in my opinion, the results are much better. So I stole it.

It was 4am, after sitting down at the beach for almost two hours, I suddenly realized that the moon is not setting over the water right now. No worries, it gave me time to think about a few things, one example is, what it must've been like in those final moments before swimming off towards Hawaii.

I went ahead and shot anyways, and I'm not happy at all with the shot I got. The scene was shot to wide, and combined with the low light, it's nearly impossible to tell exactly when I disappear into the water. Dawn might be the better way to go, for two reasons, one, is the availability of light (that's obvious), two, morning seems to suit the idea of the journey, as well as rebirth and renewal. I was gonna shoot last night, but I was already on my third project for the night, and I failed to get up after a short nap, which kinda sucks, because clear skies seem to be more appropriate then cloudy skies. Oh, well that's what I get for waiting so long, then again stormy sea's might work as well. My only concern is that it might read simply as just a suicide mission.

It's been on my mind, so I googled it.

Is Photography Dead?

GALLERY

Is Photography Dead?

The last art form to be tethered to realism, its factual validity has lately been manipulated and pixelated to the point of extinction. Photo: Cindy Sherman

By Peter Plagens | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Dec 10, 2007

How is that even remotely possible? The medium certainly looks alive, well and, if anything, overpopulated. There are hordes of photographers out there, working with back-to-basics pinhole cameras and pixeled images measured in gigabytes, with street photography taken by cell phones and massive photo "shoots" whose crews, complexity and expense resemble those of movie sets. Step into almost any serious art gallery in Chelsea, Santa Monica or Mayfair and you're likely to be greeted with breathtaking large-format color photographs, such as Andreas Gefeller's overhead views of parking lots digitally montaged from thousands of individual shots or Didier Massard's completely "fabricated photographs" of phantasmagoric landscapes. And the establishment's seal of approval for photography has been renewed in two current museum exhibitions. In "Depth of Field"— the first installation in the new contemporary-photography galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on display through March 23—the fare includes Thomas Struth's hyperdetailed chromogenic print of the interior of San Zaccaria in Venice and Adam Fuss's exposure of a piece of photo paper floating in water to a simultaneous splash and strobe.

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, "The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978" (up through Dec. 31) celebrates average Americans who wielded their Brownies and Instamatics to stunning effect.

Yet wandering the galleries of these two shows, you can't help but wonder if the entire medium hasn't fractured itself beyond all recognition. Sculpture did the same thing a while back, so that now "sculpture" can indicate a hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue. Digitalization has made much of art photography's vast variety possible. But it's also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul. Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality. By now, we've witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers—formerly bearers of truth—into conjurers of fiction. It's hard to say "gee whiz" anymore.

Soon, photography escaped the exclusive grasp of the professionals and moneyed hobbyists who could afford its cumbersome equipment, and the public began to take its own pictures. In the 1920s, small, inexpensive fast-shutter cameras like the Kodak Brownie appeared. By 1950, according to Kodak, nearly three quarters of American families owned cameras and took 2 billion photographs with them. By the 1970s, they were taking 9 billion pictures a year, most of them quick, informal snapshots. To be sure, some masterpieces did emerge—mostly accidentally—from this Everest-size heap of images. The person who pointed his Brownie at the woman in "Unknown [photographer], 1950s" in "The Art of the American Snapshot" probably didn't anticipate that she'd cover her face with her hands just as he clicked the shutter. And he (or she) couldn't predict that the result would be a great composition—long fingers and angular elbows set against the gentle downhill sweep of a field—and a wonderful metaphor for photography's tango with the truth. What the inadvertently great snapshot shared with the work of realist artist-photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans in the 1930s and '40s, and Diane Arbus and Robert Frank in the 1950s and '60s, was that the people in them were who they looked like they were—raw-boned farmers, gritty miners, harried housewives, burly bikers—really doing what they looked like they were doing.Art and truth used to be fast friends. Until the beginning of modernism, the most admired quality in Western art was mimesis—objects in painting and sculpture closely resembling things in real life. William Henry Fox Talbot, who produced the first photographic prints from a negative in 1839, immediately saw the mimetic new medium as an art form. Talbot wanted only to be able to "draw" more accurately than by hand. In fact, he called his first book of reproduced photographs "The Pencil of Nature." For at least a century thereafter, any photograph with a claim to being art had in its DNA at least a few chromosomes from Talbot's "The Open Door" (1844), a picture of a tree-branch broom leaning just-so-esthetically against a dark doorway. Of course, great photographers have never merely recorded visual facts indiscriminately, like a court stenographer taking down testimony. They've selected their subjects carefully and framed their views of them precisely, in order to give their pictures the look of "art." Later in the 19th century, "pictorialist" photographers used soft focus, toothy paper, sepia tones, multiple negatives and even scratching back into the image as ways of getting photographs to look more like paintings.

In the late 1970s, however, the concept of fiction in photography reared its little postmodern head. "The big change in attitude from realist photography," says Lawrence Miller, who owns a prominent photography gallery in New York, "was when Metro Pictures [one of the hippest galleries in SoHo] showed Cindy Sherman in 1980." Sherman's fictional self-portraits—fake "film stills" with the artist posed as a negligeed blonde on a bed, or a dark-haired femme fatale in a chic apartment—weren't photography's first turn away from the straight, nonfiction reportage most people think of as great photography. But her pictures represented something new in the way that photography was considered as art. It wasn't just for reportage anymore. The Talbotian esthetic door was now fully opened for photographers to make photographs just as well as to take them. The advent of digital technology only exacerbated photography's flight into fable.

We live in a culture dominated by pixels, increasingly unmoored from corpor-eal reality. Movies are stuffed with CGI and, in such "performance animation" films as "Beowulf," overwhelmed by them. Some big pop-music hits are so cyberized the singer might as well be telling you to press 1 if you know your party's exten-sion. Even sculpture has adopted digital "rapid prototyping" technology that allows whatever a programmer can imagine to be translated into 3-D objects in plastic. Why should photography be any different? Why shouldn't it give in to the digital temptation to make every landscape shot look like the most absolutely beautiful scenery in the whole history of the universe, or turn every urban view into a high-rise fantasy?

Photography is finally escaping any dependence on what is in front of a lens, but it comes at the price of its special claim on a viewer's attention as "evidence" rooted in reality. As gallery material, photographs are now essentially no different from paintings concocted entirely from an artist's imagination, except that they lack painting's manual touch and surface variation. As the great modern photographer Lisette Model once said, "Photography is the easiest art, which perhaps makes it the hardest." She had no idea how easy exotic effects would get, and just how hard that would make it to capture beauty and truth in the same photograph. The next great photographers—if there are to be any—will have to find a way to reclaim photography's special link to reality. And they'll have to do it in a brand-new way.

Art and God

Just watched a Docu called "The History of God", which takes a historical look at the concept of God, how and where it was born, and how it was adopted and changed through different religions and ages. Part way through I thought, where does God fit into contemporary art, and does contemporary art acknowledge the existence of God or reject it. While I do consider myself spiritual, by no means whatsoever do I acknowledge the usefulness of religion, and if anything it's often condemned in my work. This seems to be the case with contemporary art as well, however, if one was to look for the definitive answer as to where contemporary art stands in relation to God, the waters seem to be a bit muddied. Where as the various religions of the world have chosen to spill blood in their on going debate, contemporary art to seems to be spilling various ideas as a way to sort it all out. I myself am interested in what art scholars would say about the subject, and why is it that art history books will only discuss God as subject, they never discuss God as something concrete, it's usually always second hand.

http://www.sprword.com/videos/historyofgod/

Parodic Realism

Artists have critiqued pop. culture for some time now. The critique has come in practically every form possible. That's the motivation behind the American Idol video. I think my goal is to blur the line between actual reality, and my own perception. I'm trying to rearrange the language and desires of pop. culture in order to exploit the underlying messages being sold through its content. I think it's a form of realism but obviously parodied in the sense that the visuals and behavior is all there but the intentions of the piece are quite the opposite of what might be expected from such a person, or performance, or video.

But is it Art?

I'm still not sure how I feel about this one.

Please feel free to comment, as I'd prefer not to discuss this one in an open setting.

Here's the link if you have problems watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_UYbVYlZXc

I might be a little paraniod but it's for good reason.

Tonight I trusted a complete stranger with the work that's going into senior show. It's the first time that I've had work framed, and it feels as though I'm taking a total shot in dark. I know nothing about this business, or the people running. It's not that the place had any reason to give me second thoughts, they were quite pleasant actually, but still it's as though I just handed over a piece of my soul and I have no idea what condition it's going to be in when I get it back. Is that just me or do other people experience the same thoughts and feelings.

Oh, here's another thing that kind of freaked me out. When calling around to find the best price, a pattern began to emerge. It was either about a hundred fifty a piece, or around two seventy five a piece. Being the student I am I went for the cheapest, but then I started wondering, why are they so much cheaper than the more expensive framers. Where are they cutting corners, what's the compromise? They're doing the exact same job with the same materials, but it just seems to good to be true.

It's these sort of issues that really draw me to the idea of creatig unique one of kind frames to go with a paticular work. I guess it becomes more sculptural at that point, which just creates a whole other set of issues to resolve, however, I'm pretty sure you'd save a quite a bit in framing cost and stress. Well maybe cost,maybe. I have this idea that involves layers and layers of acrylic paint with a photograph pressed into it. Just pure acrylic holding the photograph in place. I would build up the acrylic quite a bit anywhere from a 1/4" to an 1" or so. Basically, the acrylic would be a mold of a traditional frame, only made out entirely out of paint. I'm thinking that as long as the color is really held back, not gestural at all, but almost monotone, that it shouldn't compete to much with the image. I need to stop talking about this now, and actually produce one.

Joe Johnson

Joe Jonhson's "Mega Churches" reminded me of Jonathan's work. Both Joe and Jonathan photograph the inertior spaces of places that are meant to heal sick people, how ironic. Except Jonathan's are actual places of healing....

http://www.joejohnsonphoto.com/

Revolt Against Graphic Design

"Artists" used to fill postions that graphic designers now proclaim as their own. The term alone sounds like some overly technical way to say the word art, while simaltaneously draining it of all its life and wonder. It's the art world's equivalent to marketing; it's all about $$$$$$. What do they do that any well trained studio artist couldn't whip out in the blink of an eye. Have you seen the stuff they hang up. Does it get anymore literal. Could it attempt to seduce my visual pleasures any harder. Cliche, sugar coated, mindless. As a self proclaimed artist, I say its time to revolt against graphic design. Next time you meet one let them know what they're doing to the economic status of fine artists everywhere. Let them know what a cop out they are. Prank them. Petition to have graphic design programs removed from your school (I know that sounds harsh but just realize that means more money for the arts. Now it sounds kind of appealling doesn't it). I think art historians just got bumped down a notch.

Here's a link to what the late great Bill Hicks has to say about marketing, it's hillarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

Senior Show

Just thought I'd post the images that I plan on putting in the senior show. I was hoping to have all three images share the same color balance, but the location had some mixed light sources, so instead of all the images matching up, I've printed them so that they don't match up at all. Not sure how I feel about it, but with hardly anytime left, decisions must be finalized.

Vice magazine: The Film Issue

A friend of mine just gave me an older copy of vice magazine, entitled the film issue, meaning movies, not film in general. There's some good interviews, including Lars Von Trier, who talks about his own mental instabilities, destroying Bjorks soul, and his recent film Antichrist. I love reading about other peoples mental issues, especially when they apply to my own, it always brings me a sense of relief. I've only gotten to a couple things, but there's alot of interesting stuff in this issue. I found the link, and you can find everything that's in the issue here,

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n9/htdocs/index.php

Extra footage

My humiliation is your diversion.

Just finished one of my videos, which is a mock American Idol audition. Tried to see if I could send it in for real, but it turns out that's not how the process works. In order to audition, you gotta go stand in line for a couple days, figures.

I ended up with a couple versions. My original idea was to delete the original audio, and replace it with a different song that I sung to. Also, the plan was to perform both songs all the way through to the end, but once I watched the video portion, it seemed to lack enough content to keep you interested all the way through. It just seemed like a really bad home made white trash video. It was then suggested that I fake a nervous breakdown at some point through the song, which now I like, but once I did this, the audio seemed to powerful to be replaced. But now I'm question the artistic merit of the video, since it has become so straight-forward. On the other hand, if the viewer does in fact have this response, I'm hoping that it'll lead to questioning whether or not contests like American Idol produce actual merit worthy vocalists. Then maybe from there the viewer will question the motives behind such shows; are they there to assist those who lack opportunity or exploit them.

At Least the Wealthy Still Have Some Loot

Heard about this over the weekend. In this current fake economy, stories like this really seem to back up the claim that were in more of a class war than any type of so-called "crisis".

$43m Warhol gives lift to bruised art market

And you thought that you had it ruff

Since I'm too overwhelmed to find something truly worth blogging about I'll leave you with this link I found. I do think it's appropriate considering finals are just around the corner.

Half man's recovery stuns surgeons

Somebody should write a movie about karaoke cults

Have you ever auditioned for a realty show? Better yet, have you ever pretended to audition for one? Even better still, have you ever pretended to audition for one and then have a nervous breakdown right in the middle of your audition? Has to be one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and I was the only one in the room.

Also, I realized last night that its real hard to try and film prostitutes while you're the one driving. I start feeling real guilty, and lose all ability to operate a camera.

Completely overwhelmed

All of my classes have me completely overwhelmed right now, and that'll be the case till it's all over. I'm in a position where it's seems as though there just isn't enough time for anything. I have hardly anytime to reshoot, to see other work, to pursue outside interests, nothing. It's not cool, I feel like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'm juggling various projects, for four different classes, and I still have more on top of that, so I'm just going to say it, this fucking sucks. It's as though I don't even know who I am right now. I feel like I'm on autopilot, no control, just zooming towards some unknown final destination, with the fear that at any second, everything could just explode spontaneously into some large ball of fiery debris.

On the other hand, with so much on the table right now, I'm getting a bit more clear as to what my process is, what kind of work I want to pursue, what's valuable to me and what isn't in terms of content. Despite being completely overwhelmed, I'm glad to have explored so much this semester, even if it comes at great cost to my well-being.

Project wise, things are coming along, slowly, but they're coming along, even though I'm totally on the fence about how I feel about this project, but like I said I glad to be exploring.

Mid-Term Evaluation

Note: This is by no means an end all be all, but it’s what I could pull off the top of my head. Otherwise, I could think and respond to this for quite a while. I also noticed that what seemed like a strength also seemed to lead into weaknesses and vice versa.

Strengths

First I’ll start by saying that I probably have no shortage of ideas. Since most of my work deals with social/political issues, content is everywhere. Some projects are more thought out, whereas others simply pop into my head. On the flipside, I wonder what other kinds of things I would be exploring if I weren’t so fanatical about the whole social/political commentary. Hmmmm………all of a sudden it seems possible to stick with my preferred content as a vehicle to exploring other area’s of expression, regardless if it’s relevant to my content of choice.

Second, I think I may be a bit of a masochist when it comes to creating projects. For some reason I always find it necessary to make the entire project rigorous and enduring. Something about my unconscious need to always go over the top, which seems to be motivated by two places; As a student I’m definitely overly ambitious to explore and accomplish as much as possible (whether I carry through on this statement is another story), also, I seem to have this underlying desire to make chaos beautiful. What this all adds up to is me putting myself into situations that often seem ridiculous and completely unnecessary at this stage of my development. At the same time I’m not afraid to experiment, to try new things, and to put myself into both revealing and often compromising positions.

Thirdly, I’m finding that I am indeed my own worst critic. It always seems that I manage to know exactly what’s wrong with a piece before I even show it. When I do share the work, the common problems people have are usually the same things I noticed. Again, this works against me, because I to often begin to create a premature negative response to my own work before I even show it to others. In the end though, I’m getting better at seeing the problems and working them out before I waste the time of others.

Lastly, I noticed that due to my rigid thinking, I’ve developed this intuitive ability to work out the ruts as I progress through a project. It’s kind of like a personal editing device that works in real time. Though I think I need to learn how to listen to this ability more often, I might save myself some reshoots.

The Weakness

Theory and the professional art word still intimidate me. Although, I’ve committed to seeing more art lately, I find that I have problems comprehending anything deeply theoretical. In terms of my own process, I have problems figuring out where my own work stands in relation to others, if it even relates at all. Most of the time I feel as though I’m missing the true message, and in exchange I selfishly take and interpret what I want. This probably relates to the fact that I need to read more.

It’s been said before that I can be a little over-ambitious. I try to take on the world through art, and I always end up totally overwhelming myself. Though, I admit, I love it when I do manage to pull out of such situations. The problem is that often my work tends to get compromised in order to make the deadline. Another problem here is that I tend to over think projects way too much. Sure I’m good at planning it all out, but going back to taking on the world, I’ll try thinking about something until it’s perfect, which often takes a while. Knowing that nothing is ever perfect, my ideas can end up disastrous because the results are always different from anything I could possibly imagine, and then it’s like, “shit, I totally thought that out, now what am I going to do”.

I do feel like I should be utilizing the faculty more, but with a full life, those kinds of decisions also get compromised.

Bitching aside, I do feel as though I’m making progress, but since I can be overly self critical at times, there are moments when I feel as though I’m going nowhere. I need to work on self-editing, as well as making sure that I start working on something the moment it manifest, rather than just sitting on it until it feels perfect enough to act upon.

The Process

For this particular project, I started with an idea for one video, and then thought of a series to accompany the starting point, which would also expand upon the original idea. Then I kind of sat on the idea for a week or two thinking of various ways to execute the project. This process could’ve been sped up a bit, but I need time to cultivate an idea, rather than just shoot aimlessly. Once I figure out a method of execution, it’s a pretty straightforward process at that point. I change things as needed, and in the process, I occasionally come with additional ways to enhance the final image, an example is in the case of the power-cord that I used in the Pollock video. I hate to reshoot as well so I really try and do my best to get exactly what I want. The problem is that, if the final image fails to capture what sought out to achieve, I can get stuck trying to figure out a solution. I get so invested in a particular idea, that’s its difficult to think of another solution. Luckily, that hasn’t been an issue with this project, yet. For the most part everything is coming out pretty close to what I was aiming for, and I like that through editing there is still room to push my videos further, which will be an additional goal for the final videos. One thing that does keep coming, however, is that I lack some knowledge in the technical aspects of the digital realm. It kind of freaks me out a little bit, it seems like learning photography all over again, so I’ve decided that I’ll just tackle those issues when they arise, otherwise I’ll get overwhelmed trying to figure it all out.

New Video

Started this project last year, but the final version had some formal issues. Started over from scratch, resolved the problems, now enjoi.

here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivRcBwhN1s

Bress Hater

Was Watching some Brian Bress Videos last night, when I came across this comment. It's totally hilarious considering, that he is a professional artist.

Rich BOY humor trying to be an artist and different heres a clue rich BOY stop using your parents money get a job and find out what it is to have social interactions with other people. Is your name fonsworth or ainsworth or stupid survived the attempt at abortion ,grow up I am sure you have heard this one before I can here it now, but mommy i am going to be a star, o thats great fartsworth now take mommies makeup off and refresh my martini

A Darker Side of Psychology

While the advent of psychology may have proven useful for some, there remains a darker side as well.

Just watched the documentary, "Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis", disturbing to say the least. If your into it here's another that examines the work of Freud, it's affect on western culture, and its inevitable backlash. It's a bit longer than the docu, but it's equally fascinating. Called the "Century of Self", Adam Curtis.

Also, check out, "Pandora's Box, subtitled A fable from the age of science, is a six part 1992 BBC documentary television series written and produced by Adam Curtis, which examines the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism".

Dr. Money-http://www.sprword.com/videos/drmoney/

Century-http://www.sprword.com/videos/centuryoftheself/

Pandora's Box-http://www.sprword.com/videos/pandorasbox/

Kinda forgot about this one

Glen E. Friedman is an early influence of mine. He started his career as a skateboard photographer back in the 70's, eventually leading to other counter cultures who Friedman was deeply involved with. He grew up in West Los Angeles, skateboarding with the whole Dog Town crew and a lot of other top names, but he soon realized that he wasn't as good as the standouts, who were starting to create a possible future through skateboarding. With the advent of skateboarding mags, Glen was inspired to become a skateboarding photographer. At the ripe age of fourteen, after getting a 'D' in photography class, Glen met a freelance writer for Skateboarder magazine. Glen said he had some shots, and the rest is history. Later work focused on the early days of hardcore punk, and hip hop. If your into any of those three categories then surely you've seen some his work before. After that his work takes on a sorta romantic approach towards new topographics, that's the best way I can sum it up, though I wouldn't be surprised if he and the rest of you totally disagree. Some things about him that have stuck with me over the years: The only photographer I know of that has released three successful books with the words Fuck You in the title, and, except for his skateboarding and music stuff, I remember him saying in an interview that sometimes it'll take him weeks or even months to shoot a role of film, just carefully composed everyday scenes that eventually comprised a whole role, if that makes sense.

Sorry

After checking out all the blogs, I realize that mine is starting to dwindle on content. Proof of how overwhelmed I am right now.

Freakin Out

this is my third semester taking three studio classes, and I swore after the first that I would never do that again, but here I am with three studios again, and I'm seriously overloaded. Hardly anytime to reshoot, it seems that I'm just juggling classes one week to the next. At this point I need to become a hermit for next five weeks, but that will never happen, so I'm choosing stress, a lot of it.

New edit

It's just a start, and it could still get shorter, check it out any way, then tell me how much you hate it. Just don't forget to tell me why.

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGklkLJAJpQ

Clutter=Chaos

I'm a very messy person. To the point where I think it's impacting my life in a negative way. Stuff piles up and just sits around. I reorganize it, and again, it just sits there. It's as though it has some kind of strange mystical power over me, where I'm to weak to get rid of it, but to confused to know exactly why I'm holding on to it in the first place. So, today, I'm getting rid of some things in an attempt to create some breathing room in my personal space. Part of that process is getting rid of some the random pieces of art that I've made over the years. If anybody is interested, just let me know and I'll bring you something special. I would burn it, but that seems a bit selfish, and I think that's been done already.

Watch this

Fall of the Republic is a new documentary by Alex Jones. The focus of the film is to shed light on Obama's true agendas and those who are behind these agendas. If you thought Obama was a symbol of positive, humanitarian change, YOU ARE WRONG. See whose behind him, see his ties to elite globalist, who are only focused on greed, power, and control. So stop thinking to yourself, that I'm being extreme, or a conspiracy whacko. Stop thinking that it's just meant to be, and stop buying into the "New World Agenda". Change is occurring, yes, but it doesn't concern our well being, it concerns our enslavement, and it's happening all around us. So take a couple hours and educate yourself. (Damn, I'm so extreme when it comes to this stuff)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

Photo-op

I was up in Wrightwood yesterday, and due to the recent fires, you can find a completely barren landscape. There are parts where everything is burned, all you see is burned trees and bushes. It's very surreal, it's a two tone landscape of black and brown. I've been thinking of ways to use it before it either snows or regrowth begins.

Also, I got a couple brainstorms as to how I could re-edit my video's. I'll post them when they're finished.

If I only had $50,000 lying around....

I could have perfect video images forever and ever.........and ever..........

http://www.red.com/

I give up

For some reason you tube keeps "aborting" the additional edits I was going to post. I'll bring it to class, it's only a few minutes long, it also has the extended ending, even though it's a jump cut style edit, you'll at least get the picture.

Should have the alternative edits up soon.

Black on White parts 1&2

enjoi

Stay Tuned

I just started uploading everything correctly. Would've had the longer one up, but I forgot to cut it up, and it got denied(Only, after taking two hours trying to upload the whole video, I love the Internet). The additional edits are also currently uploading. Hopefully they're up before you go to bed, otherwise, sorry, I guess you'll just have to wait till tomorrow...

Sometimes buying is cheaper than renting

For the price of one or two days rental fees, you can just buy what you need and return it for the same price as the restocking fee. I'm having trouble deciding what kind of video camera to buy. Don't know if I want total professional quality($3000+) or if I want a high end pro-sumer model(around $1000), and then I'm tempted to go totally budget by buying the cheapest thing possible(around $100). The latter sounds interesting, but I'm leaning more towards the first and second choice. I just bought a Canon HF S10, cost $1200 from best buy. They charge a 15% restocking fee, and I have two weeks to return it. So I'm looking at $180 for two weeks, versus about $900 in rental fees.

How often do you just make something without any sort of notion of what its suppose to be, or without any type of conceptual concerns. I remember reading that Duchamp would make dates for himself to go out onto the streets to find random objects and turn them into art. Lots of these objects were passed onto friends. I think this kind of practice is really healthy for the artist. Just pure, unedited, creative energy. There's another artist by the name of Billy Childish, who's also a musician, who once said,"Never Edit Yourself". How often do you stop yourself dead in your tracks because you do, in fact, edit yourself?

Here's Mr. Childish performing a lovely tune by the title, "Youngblood". I think this song embodies exactly what I was just talkin about. Here's the lyrics,

Damn Your Fucking World (repeat)

chorus

I Wanna Be

A Youngblood

We Thought Disco Was Fucking Dead(repeat)

But Now Its Back Inside my Head

chorus

I Wanna Be

A Youngblood

Damn Your Fucking World(repeat)

I Wanna Be

A Youngblood

Simple, straight-forward, no bull-shit.

Been reading some stuff by artist Trevor Paglen, he's known for investigating the "black world, which is basically the result of our government's own black budget. Rather than focus on any fringe material that lacks sufficient evidence, Paglen focuses on what can be seen and acknowledged. This has led him to many paths that branch out from our government's secret spending programs. Undisclosed spy satellites observed by amateurs, flights responsible for transporting workers to and from undisclosed military installations, signatures of fake persons,foreign sites used by the military for torture, these are just a few things Paglen brings to view in order to map out what our government insists doesn't exist.

here's some titles if your interested:

Torture Taxi

Blank Spots

He's also known for coining the term experimental geography(he holds a PH.D. in geography), which is basically a hybrid of art, culture, and geography as a new way of approachinggeography itself, how we interact with the land, and how we map it out. I think, it's still a bit over my head.

Feeling Guilty

I'm considering the addition of one or two stills to accompany the videos. Technically I feel that my project should include additional work. Even though a lot goes into to the build up of performance, post-production is pretty straight-forward and simple. So, I guess I'm just feeling a little guilty that maybe I'm not putting in as much work as I think I should. Also, the issue always seems to come up about selling video art. I'm thinking about producing stills from events that happen during the performance, but aren't included in the video. After each main performance, I would come up with some kind of action based intuitively on my reaction to the original performance. I was gonna include this footage some how, but since the actions are totally spontaneous and out of context, they don't seem to fit in without changing the overall read. Just one or two images seems a bit out of place though, I'm gonna have to think about this.....

Good Times, Good Times

I just got home and to my surprise FCP has arrived

Jumpcut fever

I've decided that what was missing from my video was the original sequence. Jump cutting, like I originally thought, changed the read to dramatically. Personally, its always been hard to know when stop working on a piece.

One down, one to go

Just finished editing one of my video's. Ended up with a harsh jump cut approach, but it seemed worthy of the subject matter. Yet there seems to be something missing. I'll probably try a couple more edits and see what I come up with.

Senior show

I'm just gonna say it, and I know there's people who will back this up. I think there's a gap developing in the quality of work happening between those of us getting ready to graduate and the classes coming up behind us. I'm proposing that those of us in 491 really step it up. Let's make this show worth remembering. Amanda is right, so let's do something about it. If we have to be completely off the wall, or just grossly offensive, I don't care, but lets try and make it count.

O.k. I lied, this is officially my last blog for the night.

I keep forgetting to mention the Bob Poe exhibit. I stopped by Saturday, and talked with Bob for a little about the work. If your interested in low-fi approaches to photography, I suggest you check it out. Bob did an amazing job, creating large scale prints, using nothing but iphoto, and his iphone, which is free of any of the newer photo app's you can get for the iphone that allow for more creative control over the iphone's camera. The work is largely abstract in subject matter as the phone doesn't do much for large scale highly detailed imagery, however, his images have some lovely painterly qualities to them.

There's also a few Joel Peter Witkins inside the auction house gallery, along with some other good work from renown artist, but seriously all you need for motivation is Witkin. They are, only 16x20" if that, but come on, Witkin...... Joel Peter Witkin, seriously.

One last thing before I sign off.

I've taken a liking for sewing and altering my clothes. Here's a couple shirts I did over the summer, some of you have probably seen me where em. If your interested, give me an article of clothing and I'll see what I can come up with. Also, if anyone can tell me who that girl is that would be great. She's killin me, I feel like I totally know who it is, but I can't place her for the life of me. I just noticed that you can see the sleeve of a snowboarding jacket that I painted. Entitled, "the blood for oil jacket". Blood red, and crude black acrylic paint on white. Painted in a very haphazard "slasher" type of gesture(you like my very art historian description there).

This is only for devoted souls.

I grew up a troubled kid, I got into trouble a lot with the law starting at a really young age(busted for commercial burglary right at the age of 12). As I grew up, I surrounded myself with some crazy kids. During my high school years here in LA LA land, I discovered snowboarding, and it become this means of escape from the stupid shit my friends were getting themselves into(for his eighteenth b-day one of my friends went off to spend a year in LA county for assault) It was great in the beginning, I always had a love for skateboarding, but couldn't do it for the life of me, but I could and did learn to get really good on the old shred stick(slang for snowboard). I was always interested in art, but all I really knew about was painting and drawing, and I really sucked at that too. As I got better at snowboarding all of its possibilities began to kinda take hold, and pretty soon I was obsessed. I changed my whole life to become the best I could be. I stopped partying, I became a vegan, I spent my summers and days off in the gym, and I started competing, it was like a job at one point, even though I've never gotten a monthly check. When I got back into school, I really thought I could do both with an equal amount of effort and devotion. I was so wrong. Ya I've been learning stuff, but I've ignored a lot of what my education has offered. I don't think I was being real about how much effort it takes to become a great artist( whatever the fuck that means) It's not just about making visually interesting, technically sound work. There is so much more involved with becoming successful. A knowledge of history, both past and present, a constant interaction and discourse with the art world, and a willingness to constantly push yourself. When I was totally focused on snowboarding, school and art was often compromised, put off, and neglected. I've seen many of my fellow students progress so much in the same amount of time that I've been in school. So now I'm at this point where I've been doing my best to distance myself from the sport. It fucking hurts by the way, not to mention predictions are claiming that this will be one of the best years in over half a decade, and I've started to get some recognition in the industry. Oh, I'm also sittin on two, non-refundable season passes to Bear and Mammoth, which doesn't help matters at all. Understand, this is like a drug to me, it's hard to be a casual user in my case. It's kinda like all or nothin.

And, so, that's my question to all who read this, what have you sacrificed in the order to become more, truly devoted to the making of art? And don't follow up with some flowery b.s., and this isn't a sympathy letter. I really want to know about the pain and suffering that you've incurred through your artistic journey.

Not that it even matters, but here's some random footage of me from past seasons. I'm not really sure why I need to force these on you, but in case you wondering bout my skills, check it out. Yeah I'm know flying tomato, but I've been known to turn some heads. In the amateur realm I was even ranked third in the nation at one time.

O.k. I'm done suckin myself off now. enjoi.

Mid term

I was gonna do some really harsh jump cutting for my video's but since they're really grounded in real life events, I'm feeling that the message might become compromised. I'm now considering a less obvious manipulated edit. I think this approach will keep the piece better rooted to reality. As I'm dealing with some real world concerns, I feel that this is really important. If I let the piece become to overly manipulated by my personal vision, I'm afraid the read will shift away from the issues I'm trying to address, and it'll become more of a purely abstracted personal vision. Since I'm dealing with political/social issues, I think its important that my ideologies not become to seemingly obvious. I want them to remain in the peripheral but not in the direct sight of things. I'm immediately suspect of what I just wrote, but you guys know what I'm gettin at. Right?!

Celebrity fan clubs, websites, etc. always creep me out a bit. I found this website just now that's devoted to Matthew Barney, did you know Bjork and him just moved to New York.

http://cremasterfanatic.blogspot.com/

It's late, and I'm dancing in my head

I know my last blog was a little heavy, so before I review the other exhibits I saw, here's something light and playful. This guy has an assortment of videos and characters that he plays, and their all absurd, and crude in the best ways a "man" knows how!

I'm such a sucker for anything that pokes fun of pop-culture.

here's his link http://www.youtube.com/user/jonlajoie

Art Night in Pasedena

Pasadena....what can I say. I found it really interesting that pedestrians there actually obey the red hand when crossing the street. Even if the street is really small, and the light is green, if that little red hand comes up they just stand there, crowds of them. Pasadena, land of Pinochio's. .

Anyways, back to the art. There was about ten galleries or so that participated. Only two sparked an interest. Well really only one. I planned on touring the Art Center, but I arrived a little late, so I decided to stay on the tour bus. I will say that that campus is beautiful. Nestled in the hills of Pasadena, it's quite the location. I did get a view of the student gallery from inside the bus, and it appeared as though there was some good work in there, even though I didn't get a real good look. So, off to the Armory I went, to see work from Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, Micheal C. McMillen, and more.

I was impressed to see so much happening at the armory; children's space, plus multiple galleries and work spaces. Saw some interesting sculpture/installation work on the second floor, however, I couldn't manage to find the artists name. There was a gallery devoted to 3-d paintings and photographs, but seemed like it was an extension of op-art. One man tried instructing me how I should properly view his "cross-eye" paintings, which proved to be a little annoying after a couple minutes. Also, I realize that Nauman had envisioned his sky writing piece over two decades ago, before this whole green movement began, but honestly, I'm getting a bit annoyed by all the blind faith, and hype thats demonizing humanity more and more. I'm not trying to sound paranoid here, you can do the research yourself, but there is enough science to support that a great deal of environmental change is not occurring from man's detriment.

Science is finding that our entire universe is heating up, and much of the heating is due to our own sun. I totally agree that we could be a bit more efficient in many area's, but trust me when I say that there is a huge amount of manipulation going on here, all in the name of global control. Just wait till the UN tries to issue a global carbon tax on everything that produces carbon, including your own breathe. Swine flu and vaccinations are very much a part of this same process as well, but I'll save that conversation for another day kids.

Back to the art, what I'm getting at is that artists should be more in tune with outsider, non-mainstream thinking, this includes science, politics, economics, etc. When I see artists playing into the hype, it really ruins all credibility for me. Sheppard Fairy is a prime example for me. Where's your hope and change now. Did you know that this week Obama announced that there would be absolutely no withdrawal from Afghanistan anytime soon. I could go on and on...but I think I've said enough for now.

Stuff to do

Bob Poe

Illumination
Exhibition Dates: Saturday, October 10, 2009 - Saturday, October 10, 2009
Opening Reception: October 10, 2009, 5-7pm
Bob Poe Gallery
Bergamot Station, G8A, Santa Monica CA
(310) 582-2278

Illumination

Photographer Bob Poe will be holding an opening for his latest work Saturday, October 10, from 5:00-7:00p.m. at Bob Poe Gallery at Bergamot Station. Titled "Illumination," Poe presents the photography he creates exclusively through his iPhone, and demonstrates the effect of light and movement on his subjects. The exhibit is curated by Los Angeles artist Lisa Adams.

“Lillian Bassman: Women” and "The Face of Fashion" Running Simultaneously

Exhibition Dates: Saturday, October 10, 2009 - Sunday, March 7, 2010
Peter Fetterman Gallery
Bergamot Station, A7, Santa Monica CA
(310) 453-6463 www.peterfetterman.com

“Lillian Bassman: Women” and "The Face of Fashion" Running Simultaneously

"Lillian Bassman: Women" will include more than 50 images (many of them not seen since publication) by the 93-year-old doyenne of 20th Century fashion photography. Ms. Bassman (born 1917 in Brooklyn, New York) was appointed Art Director at Junior Bazaar in 1945, assigning projects to Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Paul Himmel (her late husband). Two years later, she became the Art Director at Harper's Bazaar. Known for manipulating the image in the darkroom, she created photographs that are both elegant and avant-garde. She took her most significant images between the late `40's and early 60's and most were published in Harper's Bazaar. Abrams has just published a book of her work, "Lillian Bassman: Women." It will be her second published monograph - the first long out of print and a cherished item for photography and fashion aficionados alike.

"The Face of Fashion" will feature a who's-who of fashion photography including Irving Penn, Horst, Hoyningen-Huene, William Klein, Louis Faurer, Douglas Kirkland, Barry Lategan, Eve Arnold, Georges Dambier, and Jean Phillipe Charbonnier, among others. Each artist in the show developed his or her unique style and, in doing so, influenced the course of fashion photography. "The Face of Fashion" will feature rare as well as iconic images.

Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum
Artists’ Survival Strategies Seminar

Exhibition Dates: Saturday, October 10, 2009 - Saturday, October 10, 2009

Reception: October 10, 2009, 1-2:30pm

This informative seminar helps artists with issues regarding their career

Magnus Stark

Exhibition Dates: Sunday, October 11, 2009 - Saturday, November 7, 2009
Opening Reception: October 11, 2009, 4-7pm
Haus
517 S. Sierra Madre Boulevard, Pasadena CA
(626) 356-2408 www.hausgallery.com

Magnus Stark

On Sunday, October 11th, a solo exhibition by MAGNUS STARK will begin the 7th year of exhibitions at HAUS with a preview reception for the artist from 4 to 7 p.m.

In this exhibition Stark explores the fringes of photography by creating images without a camera, light, lenses or enlargers. Each of Stark's one-of-a-kind images begins as an unexposed sheet of Polaroid film, which he treats as a blank slate, a tabula rasa. The emulsion of this cellulose "canvas" is then chemically manipulated to summon his compositions from the primordial "id." According to Stark, the process is essentially one of distillation that plays out for hours, days, and sometimes weeks as he "exposes" the images. At a certain point the image is fixed with his scanner and then processed with Photoshop.

This highly personal, symbiotic, digital/alchemical combination produces unpredictable, enigmatic and provocative images that conjure microscopic life-forms, topographic details and far-flung planetary constellations.

Video Work by Gao Shiqiang and Chen Qiulin

Exhibition Dates: Sunday, October 11, 2009 - Sunday, January 10, 2010
Orange County Museum
850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach CA
(949) 759-1122 www.ocma.net

Video Work by Gao Shiqiang and Chen Qiulin

-Video Work by Gao Shiqiang and Chen Qiulin (on view from October 11, 2009- Jan 10, 2010). The exhibition takes place at OCMA and pairs video work by two contemporary Chinese artists whose artistic visions capture the collision of tradition and modernity in China in distinct ways. Shiqiang's epic video Butterfly Lovers (2007) is a tragic love story from ancient folklore reverberating among three couples across time..serving as an allegory for the new millennium. Qiulin's Colour Line ( 2006) is a sublime meditation on rapid urbanization and development in contemporary China---fusing documentary format with dream-scape performance.

ArtNight Pasadena

@ Art Center College of Design

ArtNight is a free event and an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City