I found the toughest part of this project to be the aspect of spontaneity. Robert Frank's images emulate that quality so effectively, while still capturing emotion, movement, and beauty. I have never really tried to seem spontaneous in my artistic endeavors, and am more akin to structured and symmetrical images. McLuhan quotes John Cage in a section that clearly illuminates the concept that I was struggling to understand:
"Give up illusions about ideas of order, expressions of sentiment, and all the rest of our inherited aesthetic claptrap... Theatre takes place all the time, wherever one is. And art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case."
Opposite this reading in The Medium is the Massage is a visual display of voice tracks. After deciding not to continue with a project titled "Fuck Off," imitating an Ai Wei Wei series, I went back to some random photographs I took over the past week. I discovered that I was most interest in a visceral texture in several of the photos that had some of the same qualities as the voice track images in McLuhan's book.
Each of the photos are intended to be paired in twos, except for the first and last image. These pairings are mostly dictated by shared aesthetic qualities.
God is real and so is art. Flickr page
"Ode to Robert Frank"
"Wooden Shed Door"
I really enjoyed your photo book, just because the relationships you make with the pairing of the photos is so aesthetically pleasing. The title of the series is also really intriguing, because now my brain immediately looks for both God and art, and what your trying to say with those relationships. Awesome!
ReplyDeleteWhile I really enjoyed your first photo concept, I think the textures is very intriguing; especially the close-ups. The close-up of the fur and wood are particularly cool because it requires your audience to question what they're looking at- which is fun.
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