Sequential Photography

Danesgate Synth

New Synths

 Here are some new experimental Photosynths using 250 photographs of Lincoln Cathedral.

The first looks like a great medieval city, a utopian dream.

This one looks like a Medieval replay of a cubist composition.

Tatlin

Many of the shapes that photography is forced into by Photosynthing recalls the abstraction of constructivism. Featured here is a  Tatlin, or at least a reconstruction by Martyn Chalk. The work is Corner Relief from 1915. The reconstruction was made in 1982 (there may be more than one reconstruction of this particular sculpture as I have seen one dated 1979 and another 1980). Is not the title Corner Counter-Relief, a term that Talin adopted in 1914, "as if to signal a dialectical advance in his constructions since they extended from the wall" to act as a "counter" to architecture, painting and sculpture (Foster et.al, 2004 p. 127).

 Tatlin's work was informed by Picasso's cubist collages and sculptures and constructions. Tatlin would use  "proletariat stuff of the workshop- wood, scraps of iron and copper, wire and rope, string and nails" ( Weston, R., 1996 p. 146).

Sources:

Foster et.al, (2004) Art Since 1900, London: Thames and Hudson

Weston, R., (1996) Modernism London: Phaidon.

John Harper

A quick thank you to Barry Wenden: when Barry Wenden, an external examiner from Northampton for the University of Lincoln, caught a glimpse of my work on this blog, he mentioned the photography of his colleague John Harper. He then went on to show several web pages featuring Harper’s work. John Harper produces photographic joiners, which are very interesting and suggest an array of ideas close to my interests.  

Featured here are a number of photographic joiners that are part of a series called “River”.  John Harper’s work is concerned with landscape: “Geomorphology had always interested me, not from any scientific basis but more in terms of its essential relationship to the activities of the artist. It seemed to me that there were many associations between the practices of the artist and the making of the land, and such thoughts had played their part in previous work. In the mid seventies when I was working more directly with the landscape I produced a series of works which I termed 'Catchment'. I felt that the artist’s activities related to this concept in that we gather material from a catchment area around us to condense and reform it, much in the same way as a river does. This information is then carried along through time by forces that are out of the artists hands. We work with time, no matter what our subject matter is and are always conscious of our own temporality and transience” (Harper, J., n.d.). 

Although nature is not the subject of or referred to directly in the final project, the work does concern itself with landscape and to “temporality and transience”.  This is Harper's description of his relationship to landscape:

“I began to think of the river in allegorical terms and to realise the close temporal and physical relationships that exist between the nature of the river and the nature of film. Both are translucent ribbons that carry memory along in their flow, that have complex and overlapping time structures, and each in their own way transport light and reflection with complex plays on the nature of picture plane and space” (Harper, J., n.d.). 

The above work is part of 'Broken and Breaking Ground' a Book project with John Harper featuring recent work from Fermynwoods. Working closely with John Harper, the book was produced over a 3 month period between 2007 and 2008. It's launch coincided with the associated exhibition of John Harper’s work at Fermynwoods.

John Harper is a member of the creative practice-led research network LAND2 (“land squared”) - formally LAN2D) – which was started in 2002 by Iain Biggs (UWE Bristol) and Judith Tucker (Leeds) as a national network of artist / lecturers and research students with an interest in landscape / place-oriented art practice.



Sources:

Harper, J., (n.d.) "The River" Land 2, Membership, Statement and Work:

http://www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/harper.htm

Project Three Presentation and Proposal

Themes and Technologies:

The third project:

–engages with the relationship between the representation of real spaces and places and their virtual equivalent

–Using software like Microsoft Silverlight and Photosynth amplifies photographic possibilities in such a way that it problematises representation

–Explores the architectural idea of deconstructivism associated with hyper architecture

–It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, and an interest in manipulating structures.

•The final project concerns itself with the technologies that make it possible to construct photographic panoramas and auto stitch pictures to essentially create what has come to be described as auto joiners (Zelnik-Manor & Perona, 2008).

•The following images are achieved via the use of Microsoft’s Photosynth technology:

Photosynth Architectural Mutations:

Photosynthed architecture: algorithmic architecture (2011)

 

Key influences

•The visual artefacts
–corresponds to the mosaic of visual experiences contained within collage, and especially cubist collage and painting.
–a response to the expanding field of photography a response to Berger and Vertov’s description of a technological way of seeing:

-“the invention of the camera changed the way” we “saw…. The visible no longer presented itself” in “order to be seen.  On the contrary, the visible, in continual flux, became fugitive” (1972, p.18)

-Cubism “creates these fractured, multiple images which are like shifting kaleidoscopes” (Levy, M, 1969, p.322).
-Fred Ritchin in his book After Photography, states that photography is becoming “cubist” (2010, p. 123). 

-The “contradictory ‘double’ image” created by Photosynth “is cubist; reality has no single truth” (Ritchin, .F., 2010 p. 147).
-The imagery for project 3 attempts to describe in visual terms “the flickering ungovernable mobility of the gaze” (Bryson, 1983 p.121).

-Uricchio in “The Algorithmic turn: photosynth, augmented reality and changing implications of the Image” (2011):
Notes the temporal slippage contained within a photosynth. Something similar to “the ‘transient, the contingent’ that Baudelaire ascribes to the modern” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29)

-Uricchio argues that the photosynth recalls the imagery of the early-nineteenth-century, where long time exposure  often resulted in ghost figures (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29)
-This project concerns itself with Photosynth’s “radical disjunctures” and the “unstable nature of the composite” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.30).

Visual Influences

The photosynth is also referred to as the auto joiner (“joiner” is coined by Hockney). This term is associated with Jan Dibbetts, David Hockney, John Stezaker, Thomas Kellner and Gordon Matta-Clark .

George Braque Soda 1911

Pablo Picasso Still Life with Chair Caning 1912

Jan Dibbets Panorama Dutch Mountain 12 x 15° Sea II A  1971

Jan Dibbets, Musée Zadkine photo collages 1994

 John Stezaker Untitled (For Angus) Film Still Collage II, 2009 

 Gordon Matta- Clark Splitting, 1974
Chromogenic prints mounted on board

David Hockney Mother, Los Angeles, Dec. ‘82 1982

Thomas Kellner Houston Texas, Oil Refinery 2006

Tim Head’s Displacement installation also with similar themes. 

Tim Head Displacements (installation view) 1975

Visualization

•The imagery is digitally projected
•Visually it is a mosaic of different perspectives of architecture
•The original idea draws from Tim Head’s installation: the building projected on to is the same building as the one represented within the projection. 

Sources:


Baudelaire, C., (2008) The Painter of Modern Life, London:  Phaidon

Berger, J., (1972) Ways of Seeing London: BBC, Penguin Books

Bryson, n., (1983) Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze, New Haven: Yale University Press

Levy, M., (1969) A History of Western Art London: Thames and Hudson

Ritchin, F., After Photography London: Norton

Uricchio, W., (2011) “The Algorithmic Turn: Photosynth, Augmented Reality and the Changing Implications of the Image” Visual Studies vol 26 Issue 1pp. 25- 35

Zelnik-Manor (2007) “Mult-View Image Compositions”
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/7695/1/paper.pdf
[Last Accessed 10 May, 2011]

Zelnik-Manor & Perona (2008) ”Automating Joiners”
http://webee.technion.ac.il/~lihi/Publications/ZelnikPerona.AutoJoiners.pdf
[Last Accessed 10 May, 2011]

New Synths

When the Photosynth is exported as a jpeg it renders a three dimensional space as a flat image. Here the image recalls collage or montage, cubist art or expressionism where distortion is expected.

Photosynth: Obama Inauguration - The Moment

Photosynth: Obama Inauguration - "The Moment" CNN.

Boulevard du Temple, taken by Louis Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839

Uricchio in “The Algorithmic turn: photosynth, augmented reality and changing implications of the Image” (2011) notes the distortions seen in the imagery produced by the program and the photographs that could be rejected because they were taken at different times of the day. Then, Uricchio asks, “what about the "transient, the contingent‟ that Baudelaire ascribes to the modern” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29)? The most widely seen example that “addresses this problem” was CNN‟s "The Moment‟: “a synth of 628 user-submitted photographs of the moment that President Obama took his oath of office” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29). Uricchio suggests that „The Moment‟ “reveals a lot of temporal slippage- changes in bodily position, different configurations of the flags in the wind and so on. The constants, the point clouds, seem grounded in architectural detail and the configuration of the podium more than anything else” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29). Yet, the more “one examines close shots of the crowd, Uricchio argues, the more one is reminded of early-nineteenth-century, where long time exposure often resulted in ghost figures” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29). The photographic images: “these fugitive images emerged from the gaze locked within three-perspective and subject to early photochemical emulsions” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29).Within Photosynth, “there is a different mechanism is at play: tolerances of algorithmic reassembly; but the ephemeral, nevertheless, seem to pose a very real challenge to the system” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.29). Uricchio points to the work of Canaletto‟s Piazza San Marco with its Basilica 1730 as an example of an image where the “subject-object relationship is fixed” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.30). In Photosynth‟s “dynamic assemblage” “the relationship is unstable” and “subject to the whims of the user and the capacities of the algorithm” (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.30). What project 3 iis concerned with is Photosynth‟s “radical disjunctures” and the “unstable nature of the composite” and as in cubism, many points of view are called upon (Uricchio, W., 2011, p.30).

Sources:

"The Moment" final version - Photosynth:  http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=05dc1585-dc53-4f2c-bfb1-4da8d5915256

Uricchio, W., (2011) “The Algorithmic Turn: Photosynth, Augmented Reality and the Changing Implications of the Image” Visual Studies vol 26 Issue 1pp. 25- 35

Tim Head

Tim Head (1946-) is a British artist who according to Nikos Stangos (1994) studied with Richard Hamilton at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1965-9). I have a friend who may have known him then. Head went on to teach on the advance sculpture course run by Barry Flanagan at St Martin’s School (1969-70). In his work he employs a variety of media and forms. In his installations he uses mirrors and light, projections and painted serial imagery and patterned pictures.

Tim Head  “devised several installations in which photographs were projected on to those same objects and spaces” (Walker, J., 1992: 543). The series works that he is famous for is called Displacements (1975-6).  Displacements are installations which was first constructed and exhibited at the Rowan Gallery in January and February 1975. According to the Tate Gallery The Tate Gallery 1976-8: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, “the title Displacements is used to indicate that in each case the projected images are a displacement of the view originally photographed, i.e. the projected image has been moved in a particular direction away from the original position in which it was photographed” (1979).

Sources:
 

Head, Tim:  http://www.timhead.net/

Stangos, N & Read, H., (1994) The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists London: Thames and Hudson

Tate Gallery, (1979) The Tate Gallery 1976-8: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=5928&searchid=9915&tabview=text

Walker, J. A. (1992) Glossary of Art, Architecture & Design Since 1945, Boston, Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & Co.

Johannes Kahrs

 Finally Accept Fate (2002)

In the catalogue for the exhibition "The Movement of Images" (2006) it states that Johanne's Kahr's I Finally Accept Fate "is a work emblematic  of the temporal space in which the works" of the artist "are situated" (Racine et.al, p.125).

Kahrs "favours drawings (even though he also makes videos) to amplify, using editing effects, the emotive and narrative charge of photographic images and film sceneshe has selected (p.125). In the above image "Kahr has used charcoal drawing to focus on the hands glimpsed in images of American political life. Suspended on a black back ground and placed outside of any context, their gestures form an ambiguous drama with mystical overtones" (Racine et.al, p.125).

Racine et.al (2006) The Movement of Images Paris: Pompidou Centre

David Hockney

 Don and Christopher, Los Angeles, 6th March 1982

David Hockney’s work shows an infatuation with the Polaroid, which led him to “re-explore the riches of the space-time equation investigated by Braque and Picasso in Analytical Cubism” (Wheeler, 1991 p. 159).

     Photographing Annie Leibovitz While She Is Photographing Me, 1982
photographic collage, 25 7/8 x 61 3/4 in.

In a conversation between David Hockney and Paul Joyce they explore the way in which technology influences the way we see:

Paul Joyce: So called reality accords with a programmed way of looking which goes back to what you were saying earlier, that the photograph has influenced the way we look. If we are presented with a photograph we say: well, that’s life. But it may not only be still photog4raphers that are responsible for that. Movies have influenced our way of seeing as well, but they are not life at all. They show a world confected, glamorized, changed.

Still Life Blue Guitar, 1982  composite polaroid, 24 1/2 x30 in.

Mother, Bradford Yorkshire 1982, composite polaroid, 56x23 1/2

David Hockney: I do think it’s true that all depictions must be stylized, what we call stylized. There is no way they can’t be. After all, they are not really reality. They are put on a flat surface as stylizations of some kind.

Listen to this [quotes from Leo Steinberg*]

Surveying Picasso’s lifelong commitment to women as solid reality - a commitment relaxed only during the cubist episode – one arrives at a disturbing conclusion. That Picasso, the great flattener of the Twentieth Century painting has had to cope within himself with the most uncompromising three dimensional; imagination that ever possessed a great painter. And that he flattened the language of painting in the years just before World War I because the traditional means of 3D rendering inherited from the past were for him too one-sided , too lamely content with the exclusive aspect in other words- not 3-D enough.

Amazing, isn’t it! Picasso shows you both front and back, and this must be about memory because…

 

PJ: You must retain one when you are looking at the other. Of course, when we walk around in an object, such as a jacket that’s on a peg, we are also dealing with what we expect it to be like. We have seen a jacket before and our imagination and our memory are stimulated by something already seen and known.

 

*Other Criteria by Leo Sternberg (Oxford University Press, 1975).

Sources:

Joyce, P., (1988) Hockney on Photography London: Jonathan Cape

Wheeler, D., (1991) Art Since Mid-Century London: Thames and Hudson