Shadow Catchers - Camera-less Photography

I like forms in my work to raise questions.
Is there a spiritual element to being alive?
                                                      Is there a spiritual element
                                                      to my past experiences?

Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography - Adam Fuss from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Nigel Doll in Paris (Waiting for Aaron Doll...)

I feel lucky to be at the center of one of Nigel Grimmer`s latest pieces. Meeting him last month was also a delight. I think this image is beautiful, as is his approach to his other projects which you must check out here.

http://www.nigelgrimmer.com

Village of the Dolls

Just watched this documentary and it was so moving, art being created not to be ironic or wink an eye at the audience, art being used to create a world of escape and give Mark Hogancamp his freedom back. 

                                                                 "Everybody has a dream"

Pass Through

pass through

Image 3
120 ISO B/W Illford

At Work

        "We spend the better part of our lives
          on the job in a factory, an office or
                                 somewhere else in the assembly line
                                 of service and commerce."

Shot over a period of 16 years, Friedlander captured American workers in locations as diverse as factories, offices, telemarketing centers and corporate offices. The images examine the relationships between objects, people and places and connect together the mundane bits and pieces of our lives in new, surprising and often  comedic manner. I find them both alluring and slightly odd. The banality of the framing works well with the message that the work we do shapes us into the people we are today. Work gives us the freedom to grow, earn, meet new people and develop in ways we sometimes don't expect, the other side to this is one can get trapped into a position which stops the very freedom we need to grow and full fill our true potential. The expression or lack of in these images reflect this, these people look lost and robotic, have they forgotten who they are or where they really want to be?

V For Vendetta

"By the power of truth, I, while living
                                                       have conquered the universe."
         - V

Ai Weiwei

Hong Kong (Top)   Mona Lisa (Bottom)  -   Study of Perspective 1995-2003

Photographers interjecting their presence in front of the viewfinder. The photographer wants the viewer to see how they are in a way 'claiming' the landscape, in relation to how the freedom of  people is being claimed unfairly around the world. The Mona Lisa image is even more stirring, the aura that is held by this piece is unquestionable as it is recognized world wide, however what I think Weiwei wants to get at are the constraints now faced by artists such as himself  for speaking the truth.  People must understand that the very art they consume is at risk, Weiwei is rejecting the establishment. His own studio was demolished without warning by the Chinese government as it was said to be 'illegal'.  He could be going as far as saying that people should concentrate on a matter which is so vital, at our doors, understand that today works of art are creating a much different kind of aura. His finger represents the anger and freedom he seeks to find. The very freedom we seek to explore is being crushed. Where peoples own freedom of self expression is being silenced for creating work which questions the norm, the familiar, alas how free are we really?
Weiwei whereabouts is unknown

"you constantly ask yourself if physically
                            or mentally you are strong enough for jail"

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - LETTER - PERFECT LOVERS

Perfect Lovers, 1987-1990

This made me cry! This minimalistic piece of work is accompanied with the letter above which represents the artists love for his late partner that passed away from AIDS. The cold conceptualism is complimented by Torres putting the heart back into his work. The two clocks started at the same time and run at he same time, however fate will have it that one will stop before the other. Representing the loss of his lover. He finds a way to make the personal engaging to "his public". The artist himself later passed away of AIDS.

The way in which Torres exhibited is so inspiring and eye opening. I want to challenge the way I exhibit my final pieces to challenge conventional methods. It is sad to also think about how one can feel free when in love, but when it is lost this feeling can change and free may be not the world to describe the latter.

Challenges to Freedom/Freewill from a Scientific Perspective

1.24 Onwards

                                                  We must solve to problem of freedom, finding room for choice and
responsibility, and trying to understand individuality.

Laws govern our behaviour in the world.

"Worried about how we can be free, if God already knows in advance everything that were going to do"

"Basic physical laws governing everything"

Not alot of room left for freedom. Its a question without an answer? 

Individuality. FREE CHOICE, FREE WILL.

Process is govern by chemical physical law?

Circle of question comes back on itself.

Modes of control.

Blank Slate

Sage Sohier, Man with Woman's Shoes, 2003

At birth, are we given a blank slate?
How does the past shape your future?

Emancipating achieves Equality in ones mind, achieving freedom?

If you haven't been given a choice and are literally brain washed into a mode of thinking, how can you ever be free?

Pioneers of the Downtown Scene New York 1970s - Barbican Art Gallery

Trisha Browns Performance Art is both stunning and mind blowing. Trained as a dancer at the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in 1962. This influence is clear, she uses public spaces as a stage for  a piece of work. This interaction takes somewhere familiar and changes how we see and perceive it. Roof Piece took place on 12 different rooftops over a ten-block area in New York City, each dancer transmitting the movements to a dancer on the nearest roof. Browns work makes me think of the mental and physical concept of place. Her juxtaposition of place and simple movement styles offer a  tongue-in-cheek humor which brings an intellectual sensibility that challenges the mainstream "modern dance" mindset of this period.It could be said that Trisha Brown is freeing these banal places, renewing them in targeting our thoughts to do so.

Maurizo Anzeri - Saatchi

Weird, strange compositions, but brilliant if you ask me. These images caught my eye at Saatchi last month. I love the way Anzeri has transformed these found photographs. He carefully sews directly into the photographs, altering them. He has come up with a way to bridge the future with history which I find fascinating. What also caught my eye was how Anzeri edits into the photographs, he trys to never completely cover the faces and as a rule always leaves one or both eyes open. As they say the eyes are the 'pathway to the soul of a person".


Lastly I want to consider the ethical nature of what Anzeri is doing here,. These photographs were found and for one reason or another were selected and deemed to be 'interesting' to Anzeri. She then edited them further by creating a physical barrier. This portraits original context is unknown, as it has now been given a new one. What I'm trying to get my head around is if an image can ever reflect a open and free representation of someone when the act of photographing someone can be so very constraint (opposite). How can a photographer claim to create an honest image when the subjectivity of the act is so very vital in its creation. It is interesting as Anzeri makes clear she found these images, and then edited them, she makes no claims of who these people are, and in doing this it could be argued that the viewer is allowed to perceive them freely (in doing so the act of making sense of this is free).

Duck Or Rabbit?

Word & Image

W.J.T Mitchell

"Word and Image Like the concept of race, gender, and class in the study of culture, designates multiple regions of social and semiotic difference that we can live neither with nor without, but must continually reinvent and renegotiate."

Placing meaning to the world through subjectivity, the creation of images.
OBJECTIVE ACT
SUBJECTIVE ACT

Existentialism

The condition of human existence :-

Emotions
Actions
Responsibilities

Thoughts
Purpose of life

I want my photographs to target these.


Second Initial Image

Medium Format 120 ISO B/W Illford

Matthew Stone

OPTIMISM AS CULTURAL REBELLION

Rudolf Steiner

Freedom of Thought
Freedom of Action

Steiner attempts to define the Philosophy of Freedom from two sides of our existence, our experience works to make us unfree. Trying to find a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the inner and spiritual needs of the human being.

"Freedom, he says, is only possible because these various constraining factors work in contradictory directions. Between the impulses of our two natures, neither of which is individualized, we find the freedom to choose how to think and act. By overcoming the dictates of both our 'lower' and 'higher' sources of experience, by orchestrating a meeting place of objective and subjective elements of experience, we become true and free individuals"

Eurythmy

LILY DONALDSON BY SHOWSTUDIO
Nick Knight Editorial Shoot

"Eurythmy's aim is to bring the artists' expressive
movement and both the performers'
         and audience's feeling experience
                              into harmony with a piece's content"

FREEDOM - Final Major Project

Initial Image

Medium Format 120 ISO B/W Illford

"Freedom is a state of mind, a simple feeling of gratitude,

and a divine happiness that one can find no matter

how dark and deep the pit is"
Inuaya Hodeib