Nihilsentimentalgia

┐ Becky Comber, construt, collage, photograph and re-photograph └

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:08:00 +0000

www.beckycomber.com

┐ Alison Honey, heterogeneously coherent └

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:53:42 +0000

More of Alison’s here

┐ Laurie Kang, multiple folds and a print └

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:57:17 +0000

Laurie’s website here

┐ Berndnaut Smilde, the Weatherman └

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:10:17 +0000

“I came up with a method using temperature controllers, moisture and backlighting. It took a while but I eventually got the hang of it. It’s not really a particular high tech process and the work does not function as a permanent installation. The cloud remains for only a few seconds. The physical aspect is really important but the work in the end only exists as a photograph.“

More of Berndnaut’s work here

┐ Irena Lagator, responsible resistance └

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:31:38 +0000

© Irena Lagator Pejović, Resistence Reservoir, 2012. Equation in english, montenegrin and german written on an ex Mazut (fuel oil) reservoir @ garden of the Ministry of Culture, public project for Cetinje, Montenegro

“All utopias fail in the Balkans: the greater Serbian principality in the Middle Ages, the Ottoman Empire, the Danube monarchy, the greater Serbian monarchy, the Yugoslavian multi-ethnic state, market-based socialism and, in the future possibly, the European Union, too.

At the same time, all the states that arose from the legacy of the old Yugoslavia have to find new identities. The permanent diminishment of the states since the Ottoman Empire and the Danube monarchy were dismantled into tiny states such as Kosovo did not solve the fundamental problem of the western Balkans: the establishment of ethnically homogeneous societies which, in an ideal scenario, represent the basis of the modern nation state.

The new societies, too, are ethnically heterogeneous structures, the basis of which cannot be, in the long term, about ethnicity and nationalism – their downfall would be the price to pay. These societies are thus unintentional laboratories of the post-modern era and have an uncertain outcome.(…)

Irena Lagator understands her artistic function as “a social strategy”; art as the vehicle of the human – that is, of the social civilising. With this claim, she belongs to a post-avant garde generation of artists who no longer herald the presumptuous claim to the liberation of mankind and the salvation of human pre-history from misery. The radical art avantgardes of the classical modern period often forgot that the freedom of art also always contains its social responsibility. Art’s complete freedom implies the artist’s absolute lack of responsibility. Political theory can sing a song about the absolute freedom of the totalitarian agitators; aesthetic theory still has to learn it.

The project on “unlimited social responsibility” sets high standards among societies which would only like to take on limited responsibility. Even over fifty years ago the conservative art historian Hans Sedlmayr spoke of the “loss of the middle way” which, among other things, he saw in the radical autonomy of the arts and the ever-threatening collectivisation of societies.

Irena Lagator avoids the danger of pronouncing (artistic) truths by devising multiple realities; and by changing perspectives she denies the observer and artistic creation any one-dimensionality. Her installations with thousands of material fibres may communicate an insight into the fragility of our knowledge and what we believe to be certain.

What is more, her installations communicate an awareness of how fleeting time and space are, of the finite nature of everything and of human endeavour. Nevertheless, she calls for responsibility on the part of artists and societies: with gentle reason she reminds us whether we want to find ourselves in the museum of the humane or in the memorial to the collective lack of reason, to the barbaric lack of responsibility.”

excerpt of Michael Ley‘s Art and Reason, or: Art as Social Strategy

┐ Can a symbolic image become a code? └

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:18:36 +0000

This image is from yesterday’s official communication by the Portuguese PM about new austerity measures. It shows a reporter wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. I know it is symbolic but I like to imagine it could be a code, a message given to rise a sort of underground army. Yes, I know, sci-fi, maybe I’ve seen “The Fight Club” too many times, but we need to believe we can take this government down, or else we’ll go mental. In the climax of our national anthem it reads “às armas”, aux armes!!! It doesn’t get more symbolic than this.
The video starts at the moment when the editor chooses to change angle to show the reporter. Thank you both!

┐ Alma Haser’s Cosmic Surgery └

Thu, 02 May 2013 10:43:42 +0000

“Alma has always made things with her hands and now tries to find ways to combine her fine art background with photography. She has used origami in the past as props in her photographs, but in this series ‘Cosmic Surgery’ the origami has become an integral part of the final image.

The series has three distinct stages. Firstly Alma photographs her sitter, then prints multiple images of the subjects face and folds them into a complicated origami modular construction, which then gets placed back onto the original face of the portrait. Finally the whole thing is re-photographed.

Origami is very meditative, you can get lost in the world of folding for hours. It is also extremely delicate and fragile, so by giving each geometric paper shape somewhere to sit within the final image, the origami has been given a backbone.

There is something quite alien about the manipulated faces, as if they belong to some futuristic next generation. In these portraits the children become uncanny, while their parents are seen in a more familiar moment.

With the simple act of folding an image Alma can transform each face and make a sort of flattened sculpture. By de-facing her models she has made their portraits into her own creations.”

Alma’s website here

┐ The Invisible Matter of Caleb Charland └

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:57:35 +0000

“Recently one Sunday I spent the day at the kitchen table playing with oranges, copper wires and galvanized nails. My hope was that I could make this on going project work with a single piece of fruit. I tried cutting it into slices and wedges but that ever present voice in my head reminded me the SIMPLER IS BETTER. It only seemed logical to use the orange’s natural wedges as the cells for the battery. The wedges are held up-right with an armature of small wooden skewers. The LED is nestled with in the bounds of the orange wedges. I’m still amazed this worked…though it did require 14 hours of exposure.”

“I began installing the work at 9 in the morning. I had no frame of reference for how long the process would actually take. I didn’t want to start too early fearing I would get done too soon and potentially wear out the “batteries” before I could start my photographic exposure, thus wasting a lot of time and fruit. I worked all day and took no break, I was still wiring the orchard after sunset. I finished install at 8 pm then began my 4 hour exposure on photographic film. The final image was created using a large format camera that uses color film measuring 4×5 inches.” making of video here

More of Caleb’s work here

┐ Zachary Copfer’s bacteriographs └

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:03:29 +0000

“Microbiologist-turned-photographer Zachary Copfer has developed an amazing photo-printing technique that’s very different from any we’ve seen before. Rather than use photo-sensitive papers, chemicals, or ink, Copfer uses bacteria. The University of Cincinnati MFA photography student calls the technique “bacteriography”, which involves controlling bacteria growth to form desired images.

Here’s how Copfer’s method works: he first takes a supply of bacteria like E. coli, turns it into a fluorescent protein, and covers a plate with it (does this remind you something?). Next, he creates a “negative” of the photo he wants to print by covering the prepared plate with the photo and then exposing it to radiation. He then “develops” the image by having the bacterial grow, and finally “fixes” the image by coating the image with a layer of acrylic and resin.“

┐ Susan Boafo, organic photography └

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:52:32 +0000

“Photosynthesis by microscopic organisms produces the majority of the life supporting oxygen that is required by all living things. In return, our reciprocal relationship provides them with carbon dioxide.

The photograph is created by millions of these organisms as they carryout photosynthesis. When photographic negatives are placed in front of the organisms, they move towards the varying degrees of light and form eerie, temporary images. They seek out the light they need for photosynthesis and leave behind a haunting trace of this life-giving process.”

“Video still; green algae drawn towards sunlight during photosynthesis. Letters and symbols were created by thousands of microscopic, single celled algae as they moved towards light. Each letter took around fifteen minutes to form. The algae ‘spell out’ the scientific formula for photosynthesis; the process through which they provide most of the Earth”s oxygen.”

More of Susan’s work can be seen here