Unnamed Forty Four — Sidelong :: (click image to see more)
When I photographed with film there was a disconnect between when I made the image and when I made the print. I work iteratively so I update and revise my idea trying new things on the fly as I shoot … and then I forget all about it. With film there was a long period of time between shooting, completing a roll, processing multiple rolls and then finally making prints. I would often be unable to remember what I had been up to.
Photographing with digital dramatically shortens this process making it easier to reconnect my thoughts and remember my ideas. But – I guess there was a part of me that found the disconnect useful. Now I make photographs on an almost daily basis, then leave them on my computer for sometimes months, before I return to work on them.
Go figure. I suppose I do this subconsciously, perhaps to allow fresh perspective, with distance acting as a filter so only the really good ideas survive.
Unnamed Twenty Eight, 2018 — Sidelong :: (click to see more)
In considering ideas for my next project, I’ve been thinking about the city as a living organism or perhaps a living reef. The inert infrastructure is ever morphing from the efforts of us the living inhabitants – we are like the city’s life blood. We come and go, supporting, utilizing, inhabiting as we change and grow the structure of the city to meet our needs.
The perspective of my work on the city to date has been from close proximity – illustrating this concept in detail. Perhaps it’s time to pull back and take a larger view – although I feel the problem will be time scale. My close proximity images have all been short time scale but to properly present the flow in a larger view I’ll need a longer scale – much longer.
Unnamed Twenty One, 2017 — Sidelong :: (click to see more)
Wait a sec – I’m not interested in the intersection of time and rhythm, like I said last week – it’s just rhythm.
Time is a factor of rhythm not a separate element – so are cycles, so is movement, so is pattern. This is why music is so strongly linked. It’s full of pattern and rhythm – on all levels, music is entirely comprised of rhythm.
I do think time is fascinating but it’s an element of my main interest. However, rhythm couldn’t properly exist outside the framework of time – without the expression of time rhythm becomes pattern.
And Alignment is rhythm too – on a different scale… perhaps.
What an A-HA! moment.
Unnamed Eighteen, 2017 — Sidelong :: (click to see more)
Time is a peculiar thing for me. I’m beginning to wonder if I have some form of memory issue. I kind of need images as a key to remember or perhaps I should say – images act as a key for memories. Today I’m feeling rather tired and it occurred to me while I was trying to remember something that fatigue particularly jumbles the order and timeframe of memories for me.
Normally… well lets say under the best circumstances, I feel a long continuous string of actions falling away into the past, connected to now – to this moment, forming a complete array of memory. But this string becomes broken and disconnected – particularly after not enough sleep. Then time and memory become compressed, disordered and sometimes lost.
This disjunction is kind of like experiencing a vivid dream, which upon waking feels so real, it becomes difficult to distinguish between it and remembered reality.
Stationary Front, 2016 – Convergent :: (click to see more)
I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating how things are going to unfold in the near future – both in general and personally. First of all, because I’m self-employed it means I’m on my own for future finances but also I’m having a hard time imagining myself just stopping work at a certain age. I would get incredibly bored. I prefer to enjoy my life now as it unfolds and then just keep on doing that until I run out of steam.
But aside from this dilemma I believe we are all on a path that will drastically change what we collectively do with our time regarding useful work. We are experiencing the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to the changes that AI is bringing to our lives. And these changes are following an exponential asymptotic curve – which means it starts out as a very mild shallow curve which we recognize as close to a straight line, but then it hits a sudden upward bend that goes essentially vertical. The really large changes this will bring are unimaginable now and seem very far away, but they aren’t.
A parallel past example – if you remember when the human genome sequencing project began in 1990 almost all scientists at the time believed there was no way it would be completed in the target 15 year timeframe – and it would not have been with the technology available in 1990. But in that 15 year timeframe the technology matured exponentially and the project was in fact essentially completed in 2000 – with a complete draft published in 2003, 5 years early at a cost of $3 billion. Now 13 years later anyone can have their genome sequenced for under $1000.
We are at the start of the same thing now with AI and it will affect our lives in the same way retirement affects most people.
What useful things will we do with our time?
What will we do with these new extraordinary abilities?
How will our lives change?
What next?
Orange Jupiter Squall, 2014 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
Staring out my studio window now watching as vehicles and people struggle to move about in this winter snow storm I imagine the city as a body – somewhat geometric in design but organic in it’s deference to the geography of the land.
Referring to our highways and byways as arteries – we are corpuscles – cells of the body moving about carrying out our duties – living out our lives within the life of the city. We are the miniscule creatures of a reef accreting the city around us as we live – industriously building and changing it.
These are documents of the flow of this organism – of which we are a part. And more, they are documents from within the organism – from our miniscule perspective – enveloping our emotion – dilated and disengaged from time.
In speaking with my grandmother last night, she talked about an early work of mine she has where I broke the bounds of the photographic frame by drawing and colouring – extending the image beyond the photograph. Her comment – this piece was from an earlier period, when I was interested in breaking the frame.
This struck a chord with me. I had forgotten my roots – forgotten what originally drove me in the direction I’m heading.
How easily we forget the arc of our lives when we become engrossed in the moment.
Reflecting on our conversation this morning, I remembered even more and see now how this idea has driven me ever since. I was obsessed with the implications of the edge of the photograph – its limiting bounds – its enclosing restriction. I even went to great lengths to find a way to frame my photographs without a frame in an effort to mitigate this enclosing effect.
Ironically in opposition to this, I was – am still – fascinated by the enclosing effect – the window a photograph creates to another time – another place – another moment – another emotion. I find photographs are worm holes in time and space – portals or links across great distances.
My first exhibition called Openings explored this restriction of enclosure a step further. Openings was a series of images looking through openings – an enclosure within the enclosure of the frame and in some images openings within openings, iterating redundantly.
This was my earliest attempt at breaking the boundaries of photographic convention. Breaking limitation and restriction continues to motivate me and has evolved into my recent efforts – present an event in its entirety (interactive video installation Can I Help You and 3 channel enveloping video installation Airfish) – articulate emotion through core elements of shape, colour and movement (photographs, Metro Motion, Coloured City and recently Light Signatures).
All this time, I’ve been asking Why, pounding my head against restriction and limitation.
Truly – this is the story of my life… isn’t it.
