Isolated Frame(s)

A quick transmission from Portland.  Had a fantastic couple of days with Leigh-Ann Pahapill and Lisa Zaher, as usual.  Extending our ongoing conversation/continual questioning of how/when/where meaning is located within experience and representation.  They had their first chance to see the triple-projection of Goldfields installed in a gallery, as opposed to on the screen of a computer.  Lots of good talk about the nature of experiencing the simultaneous streams within one space, but without the body having to be fixed in any one position.  And subsequent chatting about the role of focus in relation to both the camera eye as well as the spectator’s focal shifts. 

Discussing the relationship between subject matter (the particularities of the space – the Goldfields region) and the broader subjects of the work led to more thinking on framing and positioning (both literally in terms of camera placement as well as culturally, conceptually, methodologically – negotiating within particular histories of photographic practice).  This I think is going to be helpful as I continue with my recent work (see my earlier post, Frame Follows Focus) which seems to be moving toward working in these kinds of long strips of space, butting “isolated frames” up next to one another and in some instances overlapping and pressing in a manner that is a bit disconcerting (both optically and psychologically). 

Yeah, lots, lots, lots to think about again.  I’ll close with a portion of a Hollis Frampton quote that seems to almost serve as a metaphor for the manner in which the conversations between Leigh-Ann, Lisa and myself seem to unfold – looking around in all directions and grabbing thoughts from one another, adding them to the ever looping strip of film, occasionally plucking out the perfect snippet.

“A polymorphous camera has always turned, and will turn forever, its lens focused upon all the appearances of the world. Before the invention of still photography, the frames of the infinite cinema were blank, black leader; then a few images began to appear upon the endless ribbon of the film.

A still photograph is simply an isolated frame taken out of the infinite cinema.”

Welcome to This

A few from this summer's excursions

So, what’s this all about?  Well, that remains to be seen.  For now, I’ve decided I need a place to compile things – notes, pictures, video clips, quotations, excerpts, ephemera – so I can go back through everything and make a more concerted effort to bring it all together.  As this summer came to a close, I felt that familiar feeling of my artwork and the research/thinking around it starting to slide off into the background as I geared up for the school year.  Inspired by my friend Jessica Auer’s research/photo blog, The Viking Explorer, I decided to try something a bit similar.  I’m going to use the forum of a blog as an on-line (and public) journal, where I’ll hopefully be able to accomplish a few things, 1) keep the work going by imposing a requirement/promise for one post of original content per week, 2) get the writing out on the page/screen, without worrying about formality, creating an archive of already typed out notes, 3) possibly, maybe, engage in conversation about some of my thoughts/ideas/imagery with those who come across my posts.

Now, I don’t necessarily expect much of an audience for this clearly self-indulgent venture.  Like I said, it’s really more of a place for me to plunk the stuff, keep it out there, get it going, etc.  But, I really would like to chat about ideas and images and will gladly welcome any comments/conversation.  And, if you’re in my part of the country/world (Winter Park, Florida and Asheville, North Carolina) getting together in good old-fashioned real time would be fantastic.  (I’ve got some absurdly grand plans to host a residency based around visual art and philosophy during the summer months in the next year or two – if that sounds like your idea of a good time, let’s chat!)

And, about the blog title – Between the Already and the Still More – that’s paraphrased from a (translated) Alain Badiou line in Being and Event (thank you, Leigh-Ann Pahapill for suggesting this text).  It actually reads, “Infinity is the Other on the basis of which there is – between the fixity of the already and the repetition of the still-more – a rule according to which the others are the same.”  Yep.  Admittedly, one of my main goals is to sift through the dense texts I struggle with, but that excite me to no end in terms of how I think about applying these critical and philosophical ideas to my work in photography, film and video.  Ever since I was introduced to Henri Bergson in graduate school (thank you, ShonaMacDonald), I’ve found that I can think more clearly about my own work, and can discover what my true interests are, what I’m really trying to get at, via the thoughts of minds much more complex than my own. 

Here’s a caveat, of sorts.  I often find myself torn between two poles.  I’m not a trained philosopher by any stretch, and I’m barely an intellectual.  Maybe ¼ intellectual, ¾ dirt road.  I engage with this stuff because it’s what I enjoy and what seems authentic to me.  I’m not going to make any apologies for being too theory-based, or for not being theory-based enough.  And believe me, I feel pressure from both “sides” often enough.  But, that’s not what all this is for.  So, keep that in mind (note to self).

What’s up for me in the coming weeks?  Next week I’ll post some work-in-progress photographs from some stops-and-starts from 2012.  I’ll include a particular image that I think is going to prompt the direction of my thinking for a bit.  In the following weeks I plan to include short video clips of in-progress sequences, notes and sections of text and my response to certain passages, etc.  So, basically, the idea is to get up new visual work and some writing that relates to it each week.  I’m planning to do lots of work in the studio with the 4 x 5 camera using b/w film, but will continue to shoot color digital and video – might combine things. 

Tomorrow, I start on next week!

See you/me, then…..

xodroe