Posts Tagged → photography

Travelling without moving

Jacqui Kenny lives with agoraphobia, an anxiety condition that causes individuals to avoid venturing into crowded or remote places, for fear of having a panic attack and being unable to escape or find help. For some, at its worst, this can mean a fear of leaving home. To counter this, Kenny roams the globe via Google Street View, and virtually combs streets and landscapes to snap screenshots for her photography series “Agoraphobic Traveller.”

[via]

Disappear with me

disappear_large_nobackground_square_6c6304be-15f0-4d53-bc3b-21f642a7a8d6_grande
“Renowned American photographer Alec Soth invites you to disappear with him, and spend a few days conversing with him through Snapchat. Over the course of the conversation, Alec will send the buyer a series of twenty-five original photos, which may vary from beautifully composed landscapes to simple shower selfies depending on how the conversation develops and the nature of the narrative that emerges. Each photo will only ever be seen by Soth and the buyer, and will disappear immediately. The buyer may choose to send Soth photos in return as part of the conversation.”

Cyanotypes

mailander

Thomas Mailaender is showcasing a new series of his cyanotypes at Ditto Gallery in London.
The cyanotype process (characterised by its cyan-blue hue) was developed as a means for blueprinting. Mailender utilises this technique to print images taken from his Fun Archive, a personal collection of absurd and anonymous pictures intuitively pulled from the Internet. Using this archaic and outmoded process to reproduce images from the modern digital age creates a dialogue about the validity and authenticity of images, and their place as artworks.

Bucolic landfills

landscape-1

Amazing series of digitally manipulated images of landscapes by chinese artist Yao Lu:

“The artist photographs mounds of garbage covered in green protective nets which he assembles and reworks by computer to create bucolic images of mountain landscapes shrouded in the mist inspired by traditional Chinese paintings. Lying somewhere between painting and photography, between the past and the present, Yao Lu’s work speaks of the radical mutations affecting nature in China as it is subjected to rampant urbanization and the ecological threats that endanger the environment.”

[via colossal]

Anhedonia

Aleksandra Domanovic, Anhedonia, 2007. Video

“In psychology, anhedonia is an inability to experience satisfaction from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise and social or sexual interaction. It was also supposed to be the original title of Annie Hall, but was considered unmarketable.”

[via collect]

______.jpg

Alan Belcher, “______.jpg”, 2012

“Alan Belcher has produced new work for this exhibition, a ceramic multiple edition. Known for his pioneering of the photo-object_ genre (artworks which fused the disciplines of photography and sculpture); he has furthered that exploration with a multiple series of what can be seen as perhaps the ultimate “photo-object”. Belcher has taken the ephemeral nature of the universal jpeg, and solidified its default icon into a standard image surrogate. The edition entitled “______.jpg” was fabricated in China, is a series of 125 pieces each signed and dated.” 25 Years of Talent at Marianne Boesky Gallery, curated by Michelle Grabner May 2 – Jun 16, 2012.”

[via jockohomo]

Time portraits

Time-lapse portraits layered and cut to reveal the passage of time, by Nerhol:

“The numerous portraits are actually different, photographed over a period of three minutes as the subject tried to sit motionless, the idea being that it’s impossible to ever truly be still as our center of gravity shifts and our muscles are tense. The portraits are actually a layered lime-lapse representing several minutes in the subjects life and then cut like an onion to show slices of time, similar to the trunk of a tree.”

[via colossal]

Fake Holidays

Fake Holidays is a photography project by Reiner Riedler:

“When wishes are out of reach, simulation is taking over our leisure time and our holidays. Imaginary worlds are created, often under massive technological exertion, in order to offer us experience as reproducible merchandise. Although the quality of these adventures on demand sometimes proves to be rather dubious, the boom does shed light on one thing: the yearnings and dreams underlying people’s daily lives.”


 

 

Bliss and rage sulle colline di Sonoma

Impossibile non riconoscerlo. Bliss (in italiano: beatitudine, felicità) è il wallpaper più famoso del mondo. Arrivato sui computer di milioni di persone con Windows XP nel 2001, è stato il panorama più visto da chi in questi dieci anni si è “affacciato” sui desktop e sul web attraverso le finestre del sistema operativo della Microsoft.
Quello che forse pochi sanno invece è che non si tratta di un’immagine sintetica, né, almeno a detta del suo autore, di una fotografia sottoposta a pesanti sessioni di Photoshop. Secondo Charles O’Rear, infatti, lo scatto è totalmente genuino e ritrae le colline di Sonoma County, in California (più info in questa pagina di Wikipedia). Un luogo che a guardarlo oggi si presenta parecchio meno paradisiaco, anche perché da molti anni è stato convertito a vigna (la foto è stata scattata nel 1996).
Photoshoppata o no, l’immagine è ormai entrata a far parte dell’immaginario legato ai computer, tanto che le reinterpretazioni, le parodie e gli usi artistici non si contano.
A cominciare dal progetto After Microsoft (2006), del duo artistico Goldin+Senneby: i due sono andati fisicamente sul “luogo del delitto” e sono tornati con una versione aggiornata dello stesso panorama:

Poi c’è chi è andato a scovare la location su Google Street View, offrendoci una visione non molto dissimile:


Ecco invece cosa ci ha fatto l’artista Paul Destieu (My Favourite Landscape, 2007), riproducendo fisicamente uno dei bug più classici del mondo Windows:

Un altro artista, Carlo Zanni, nel 2003, l’ha dipinto, come si fa con un vero paesaggio, olio su tela:

Poi c’è “Windows Real”, realizzato da Johannes P Osterhoff con l’aiuto dei suoi studenti della Merz Academy di Stoccarda:

Chiudo con la mia consueta notazione personale: quello che vedete qui di seguito, e che potete scaricare qui, è il mio desktop attuale, montato però, con buona pace di Bill Gates, su un Macintosh. Ma che fanno i tre uomini a destra? Distruggono un fax a suon di calci e mazzate da baseball (citazione del film “Office Space”). Il nostro rapporto con la tecnologia? Bliss & Rage. Da sempre.