a multidisciplinary dialog
I recently noticed that I was making some images that had a reversed figure/ground relationship, in terms of lightness. That is, the main subject was light with a darker surrounding, rather than the more common dark with a lighter surrounding. For example, compare the first picture with the one below it, which I showed last week.
As mentioned last week, I’ve been re-examining my photography in terms of some ideas from Japanese aesthetics. In practical terms, that means I’ve been going out and looking differently at subjects. For example, I’ve tried to be more aware of views involving negative space along Sourdough Trail, my main project of the moment.
Old musings on recent photography have led to the resurrection of a completely different series I thought I’d given up on. Just last week I deleted a draft from March that I had started in excitement, but never finished because I couldn’t make the pictures work.
The thoughts were on Japanese aesthetics, and the abandoned series was a rather minimalistic one, captured in all of 15 minutes near the start of a Yellowstone outing during which I later busted my aging ski gear, cutting the trip short (I managed to limp out with frequent falls, discovering in the process that it’s not easy getting up from soft, deep snow when your skis are higher than you are).
There seems to be an uptick in concern about the separation of art and science and in efforts to join them in some fashion. Though I must say it’s very difficult to assess this sort of cultural trend, and in pessimistic moments I sometimes wonder if anyone knows or cares much about either. At any rate, I’ve come across a recent book that brings together contributions by artists and scientists of various stripes: Findings on Ice, first in a series envisioned by the PARS Foundation of Amsterdam. It doesn’t seem to have made much of a splash so far; I’ve found no reviews or mentions online, except for publishers’ blurbs.
Michaela Frühwirth, Obstruction_1, detail
This post began life as a musing on Robert Irwin’s not permitting reproductions of his (abstract) paintings, detailed in a statement in the catalog of his recent show in San Diego. The catalog, of course, is loaded with photographs, including ones of his early paintings, though many could be considered installation views rather than “reproductions.” (As far as I can tell, Irwin has less objection to photographs of his more recent work, despite its contextual and perceptual nature, seemingly much less representable via photography.)
It appears I’ll be making good on my recent threat to re-activate my dormant Sourdough Trail project. But never fear, I do not intend to flood A&P with posts on that topic. In fact, because, through A&P, I’ve realized how blogs can be useful, I’ve decided to create a new one specifically focused on my project. I’m in no way attempting to create a popular or active site; I simply think the blog structure is appropriate to the nature of what I’m doing, namely a variation on the psychogeography project discussed here a few months ago (and which I still hope to carry out this year). This one has similar concerns, but will be in a familiar rather than a new setting, and will be over a longer time scale, months rather than days. In essence, I want to observe how my sense of that particular place evolves and how it relates to the photography I do there. But if you want to know more, visit Along Sourdough Trail.
Leaves are beginning to come out here now, but branches were quite bare a week ago when I payed a visit to the strip of woods along Sourdough Trail. I’ve gone there occasionally through the winter, but much less frequently than I used to while actively engaged in that project (I never closed the books on it, but I’ve done very little in the last year). I’m thinking seriously of re-activating it. In any case, the new season seemed to call for a little experimentation.
When I started my Patina project on weathered auto paint and rock surfaces, I originally had in mind flat surfaces with intriguing designs and colors. But rocks aren’t smooth, so I soon began photographing rocks with some three-dimensionality, playing with the ambiguity between tone and color as surface properties or caused by orientation to the light.
Last week, just back from photographing a favorite rock face, a number of ideas relating to that work seemed to be coming together. Unfortunately, working with the images (just a little) since then, the ideas have muddled themselves rather than resolving. Despite some enticing ingredients, the fine soup is still mostly in my imagination. Here’s what’s stirring in the pot:
Often our lives are made more difficult by greater choice. In photography, the choice of color vs. monochrome was not necessarily easier in the past, but at least it had to be made by the time film was in the camera. With digital capture, you can change your mind at any time. Some photographers, as far as I can tell, use only color; a far smaller number are all about black and white. Some, like myself, dither. Not to complain, but this is a constant issue in ways it wouldn’t have been before. Reminded of it by both the previous post and recent experience, I here present the latest dithers. Prepare yourself: I’ll be asking for opinions…
I’ve often been asked whether there is any relation between my interest in art and my work in artificial intelligence (AI). At a practical level, where my work is aimed at making computers more “intelligent,” I’d say the connection is tenuous at best. But at a more philosophical level, AI is essentially cognitive science, which like art is intimately concerned with human perception. Questions about how visual perception works, from retinal stimulation to conceptual understanding and emotional response, are not only central to cognitive science, but probably its best-studied example. I think learning about the psychology of perception can be of value to artists, though certainly many care for it not at all, even if, through training or intuition, they are using its teachings anyway. I think a more explicit knowledge becomes especially useful in applied areas, such as how to design a pleasing and useful object of some sort, or how to alter a graphic or put words with it to achieve some desired effect.
It’s approaching two years since I first created a web site, and I’ve decided it’s time for a makeover. With my original site, adding a new image required also creating a thumbnail version and editing a file. I was running out of space in the navigation area to list more projects. And on a new monitor I was distressed to see how garish the banner color became. So I’m re-building. I want the new design to be: 1) simple and flexible for me; 2) simple and easy to use for the viewer; and 3) responsive to browser settings such as window and text size.
While reworking and sequencing my Winter Water project, I realized that, for a photographer as well as a physicist, snow, ice, and liquid are very distinct states of water, with distinct texture, tone, and shape. Perhaps because those photographs had no sky, I managed to completely forget about the vaporous state. Last Monday, however, I was vividly reminded of that glorious phase while biking through Yellowstone. Roads were clear but cars not yet allowed, so I had it almost to myself: only a half dozen other bikers all day, and a few service vehicles per hour. Fortunately I had a late start, so by the time I reached the Lower Falls it was well on in the afternoon. The westerly light left the falling water in shade while illuminating the mist.