From the artist statement for a body of photographic work by Alison Jackson called Confidential:

This work is about simulation. Creating a clone or a copy of the ‘real’ on paper. It is not a fake, it takes the place of the ‘real’ for a moment, whilst looking at the image. The aim is to create likenesses of icons, where in the image, the simulations of icons, ‘threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false, between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’. The ‘real’ subject becomes not necessary. The photographic image or the icon is more important and more seductive. It doesn’t matter to the viewer if the portrayal is not the ‘real’ - as long as it looks like him or her - it creates a temporary confusion. This is the confusion the work searches to create. We think we are looking at something real, but we’re not. They are false images of look-alikes of the real thing.

I think the photographs are much more interesting than the artist statement’s attempt at handling the concept of simulacra. Even though she uses “real” people - celebrity look-alikes - instead of digitally manipulating the images, a lot of the photographs kind of come across as one-liner political cartoons. Jackson’s videos also seem to read more as comedy sketches (albeit still in the realm of social or cultural criticism).

Here are some incredible clips of time lapse photography made with Bryan (”Crackpot Inventor”) Mumford’s Time Machine.

via Boing Boing

A dead plant photographed in the rain through a window from afternoon to evening

There is this chalkboard at school in the room where one of my classes meets. Over the last semester, there has been something compelling (and occasionally coincidentally relevant) written on this chalkboard by a professor - Dominique Nahas - who uses the room the day before my class meets. This morning, I was greeted with some surprisingly relevant text:

“Aura” depends on two factors:

1. Presence of a tradition (stable framework of experience in which an object is embedded)
2. The continuous existence of a unique object across tradition

Okay - so it’s an art school, and it shouldn’t really be all that surprising to find notes on Benjamin’s writings there - that’s not actually coincidental at all. However, I was just thinking about the aura last night, and now have to reconsider my silly bottled water analogy.

Oh - and the video doesn’t have anything to do with anything (unless you count the fact that YouTube employs object and embed tags in the HTML they give their users for posting videos).

This would be looped, I think.

A first draft of a new piece. This is meant to be looped, and I’m pretty sure that it should be installed somehow in a room. (Or maybe under the stairs?)

The second version of a now (really) untitled video (but I have to call it something, so I’m calling it Walking even though that sounds dumb to me - any suggestions would be welcome). The first version is here, and all I did was remove the text and crop the images a bit. I’m still considering the sound, and whether or not it needs to be added.

This piece, along with a couple of photographs, recently made it to Kansas City for a show at Leedy Voulkos Art Center (which apparently has an extremely outdated website). Mr. Jake Gillespie was kind enough to invite me to participate, as well as transport my work down there. Thanks Jake!

This is why the world hates us.

via What Would Tyler Durden Do

After watching this video demonstrating a dynamic image resizing tool, I am somewhat taken aback. This poses so many questions and raises as many concerns as it does potential uses. Does the integrity of an image rely on its aspect ratio? If the “real world” is already known to be unfaithfully represented by photography, should this even be a concern?

I can think of many ways in which this could be put to use artistically, as well as purely functionally. For instance, an artist photographs a scene, and then leaves it up to the user to define the crop and elements within the photograph, thereby creating a virtually infinite range of possible photographs.

But! How does that reflect the artist’s intention? Does the validity of such work rely upon the condition that the intention is to uncover the range of possible photographs within a photograph? Is that somehow an avoidance of “responsibility?” Does the artist even have “responsibility?”

At the risk of this blog becoming merely about our new dog and his adventures, I proudly present Tony in his new sweatshirt. (You may recognize this same sweatshirt as once belonging to Louise, who grew out of it. Tony will probably never grow into it. Maybe if we get him a turtleneck to go under it or something.)