More Work

I just posted my most recent paper on Atemporality. Generally, I received positive feedback from it, and I am considering exploring more of the nuances of the subject in future papers.

My mentor and I met for our forth meeting yesterday. I brought two new pieces, and two reworks from our last meeting. I'm planning to focus this next week on solidifying a body of work for the residency, now that my day job has settled down for the moment. This last meeting brought to light some inconsistencies with my concepts and visual content that I need to address. Karl and I both agree that working intuitively is generally a good practice, and he doesn't think I should I try to illustrate my ideas. However, the content does need farther consideration. Overall, these images are formally interesting, and I am currently considering ways to make the work more relevant to my ideas. It's admittedly somewhat frustrating, but this is part of the challenge of the program. It would probably be concerning if I never felt a sense of conflict.

Karl also suggested using less "pretty" images (my words, not his). I think this aligns with suggestions from last residency to photograph abandon places. I understand where it is coming from, and I also think it is valid and something I should do. I currently do not have the images, but I could find things probably. It's not something I have a natural inclination to do, but that's a rather weak excuse.

He also warned me not to get too formulaic, especially with the circle element. It's something that's effective, but I have to be careful not to over use it. On my own initiative, I've started a research board for photographers I should probably know. Speaking with Karl makes me realize how little photographers I actually know. It's only in the last year or so that I've committed to photography as my primary medium, and my general art history survey courses provided limited exposure to photographers I should know. I do often recognize images once we look them up, so I'm working to commit the names to memory.

Third Mentor Meeting

My mentor has been willing to meet with me every three weeks to help make up for some of the time lost at the beginning of the semester when I had to switch mentors. I am so grateful for that, but it does keep me on a very rigorous schedule. Balancing studio and academic assignments always is a vicious tug-of-war with my time, but it's all beneficial. Most recent piece marks a divergent from my other work, but I think it is perhaps the most focused of my pieces so far.

The more I research and evaluate my art, the more I realize the importance of time is to my work. It has always been something I've contemplated, but at the moment, I find it moving to the fore front of the work. I researched atemporality for my last paper, and found it extremely compelling. Bruce Sterling and Kazys Varnelis both contribute to this concept, which basically describes the time period we are currently in. Because of technology, history has become open to us in a non-narrative, non-linear form and this flexibility in time puts us in a state of continuous now. With the piece above, I am thinking of it as expressing multiple movements of time existing at one suspended moment.

Karl and I discussed the potential issues with some of the more concrete elements in the piece, such as the boats, buoy, and manhole. These all serve to remind the viewer of present day, whereas the rest of the piece is more ambiguous. We talked about conveying a message without being as direct. I feel think piece is helping my work mature in a more satisfying way. While the surreal architectural pieces were interesting and visually, very rich, they were perhaps more obvious and easily understood. Karl said they almost compensated for this with their beauty, but perhaps not quite enough. After trying to working in the same manner after last residency, I felt they were lacking a depth I wanted to get to. 

While talking about ambiguity, we went to look at a book in the Boston College art library called the Somnambulist, published by Ralph Gibson. A somnambulist is a sleepwalker, and the photographs imply a subliminal narrative. The images invoked a specific yet evasive feeling of something just beyond the viewer's grasp. Ultimately, I think this feeling is what contributes to lasting art that stays with you. I keep thinking of the work in Somnambulist, and am reminded of similar impression from work by Catherine Opie, and other artists I admire. I am seeking out the balance of specificity and ambivalence. My "breakthroughs" these days seem less sudden and enlightening as I would wish, but I'm getting there.

An unfinished sequel in the series.