Monthly Archives: May 2011

hc gilje :: snitt




‘Snitt’ is H.C. Gilje’s installation made for Galleri 21 in Malmö. A straight light line moves slowly through the three rooms of the gallery space, cutting it into different sections (snitt). The movement of the line is “attacking” the room from different angles and it focuses the attention of the viewer on the physical qualities of the space. The physical properties of the gallery’s space (walls, ceiling, floor, door openings, light fixtures etc.) modulate/break up the straight line into a continuously evolving pattern of line fragments, depending on the position of the viewer and the angle of the line in relation to the architecture.

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H.C. Gilje works with realtime environments, installations, live performance, set design and single channel video. He has presented his works in concert halls, theatre and cinema venues, galleries, festivals and on several DVD releases, including ‘242.pilots live in Bruxelles’ on the label Carpark and ‘Cityscapes’ on the French label Lowave. He was a member of the video-impro trio 242.pilots and the visual motor of the Norwegian dance company Kreutzerkompani. In October 2006 Gilje started a 3 year position as a research fellow at Bergen National Academy of the Arts in Norway, exploring how audiovisual technology can be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces.

H.C. Gilje’s current exhibition Light space modulators is open until 22 May in iMAL center for digital cultures and technology in Brussels.

hcgilje.com

barbara kasten :: abstract photographs of geometric constructions


A selection of photographs from the series Studio Constructs (2007-10)


barbara kasten_Studio Construct 8

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Studio Construct 8 (2007), archival pigment print 43.75×53.75in


barbara kasten_Studio Construct 69

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Studio Construct 69 (2008), archival pigment print 43.75×53.75 in


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Studio Construct 51 (2008), archival pigment print 43.75×53.75 in


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Studio Construct 17 (2007), archival pigment print 43.75×53.75 in


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Studio Construct 59 (2008), archival pigment print 43.75×53.75in



Barbara Kasten explores modes of reorganizing the visual environment by using geometric shapes, mirrors and glass to create elaborate constructions for the purpose of being photographed while exposed to specific light conditions. The scale of these constructions has ranged from the moderate to full-blown architectural interactions, that have been more akin to film sets with crews in attendance. By this approach, the photograph itself becomes the object and is removed from being representative or documentary. Kasten expands that while subject matter is inherent to photography, her images are unidentifiable and exist as records of light that explore spatial and formal ambiguity. This distance results in a more indirect connection between the viewer and the work. (edit from B.K.’s website)

While Kasten has referred to the influences of The Bauhaus and Constructivism in her work, there are clearly traces back to work of Moholy Nagy. She can also be seen as a precursor to a new generation of artists using photography and constructed environments such as Eileen Quinlan and Sara Van Der Beek. Perhaps a less expected but also a defining influence was her time as a West Coast artist that was spent with artists such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin, who were both working light as a primary material.

>The process of capturing an image through a camera lens requires an object. This body of work addresses the representational value of that object. By photographing a transparent plane, and its shadow, familiar association with life experience is eliminated. The result is a concrete photographic abstract image.< Barbara Kasten

More info barbarakasten.net
To read James R. Hugunin’s essay about Barbara Kasten’s photography click here.

various artists :: EIN MAGAZIN ÜBER ORTE NO. 8


The eighth edition of EIN MAGAZIN ÜBER ORTE No.8 is published, the theme is Paradise.

“The paradise does not exist. This is clear. That is a shame of course, the idea that a fulfilled, carefree existence would await us is too beautiful. But there is also one good thing about it. Because that way the paradise has become a projection surface for everything that is bigger, fairer, more transcendent and more livable than reality. Utopias concerning the paradise are allowed and also earthly moments, which appear heavenly, exist occasionally.

To follow others, when they ponder about the ephemeral term in texts and images, is very inspiring. All the more when in the latest Ein Magazin über Orte clichés are skipped and very different approaches are spread in a flowing current of thoughts and feelings. Dreams, wishes, hopes from the wide-ranging perspectives of many known and some less known artists and authors. What pleases me most is that the long deceased Kevin Coyne gets a chance to speak through his poem Skinhead in Heaven:

›Nobody is objecting my presence.
I don´t have to knock anybody about.‹

A state that is unattainable on earth for the time being.” (edit from 25books.com)

EIN MAGAZIN ÜBER ORTE No. 8, springtime 2011
210 X 270 mm / 84 pages with photos and illustrations
Featuring: Ryan Mcginley, Jeff Wall, Raymond Pettibon, Miranda July, Marcus Oakley, John Copeland, Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Luc Tuymans, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Michael Borremans, Zoe Leonard, Bushra Rehman, Ibrahim Samuel, Lidwien van der Ven, Günter Kunert, Jana Gontscharuk, Kevin Coyne, Agi Mishol
GERMAN / ENGLISH

MORE INFO: orte-magazine.de

aaron schuman and charlotte cotton :: what’s next? : on future of photography

Aaron Schuman: One thing that I find fascinating about what’s happening right now – and I suspect that this will gain importance in the future – is that rather than photography represents the capture in culmination of something, it’s becoming a form of investigation. For me, the most interesting works coming out right now even if they’ve been formalized in the form of a book, an exhibition, a print or a website – represent the beginnings of something. They’re not simply an end result, or the remnants of somethings that has past and been preserved in silver gelatin, emulsion or ink; they’re starts, sparks or seeds from which many other things might grow.

Charlotte Cotton: Perhaps that’s something that could be credited to this digital phase in our culture – not just in terms of the web, open-sourcing, or crowd-sourcing, which all present dynamics that offer participation – but even on a rudimentary level. For photographers no longer have to self-censor or edit themselves because of analogue limitations, such as the number of frames on a roll of film or the cost of a sheet of film. The endlessness of digital capture is actually loosening photography up and allowing it to be lots of different things, rather than simply a culmination or condensation of something.

Aaron Schuman: Absolutely. The technology has shifted, but also the way in which people encounter and engage with photography has shifted. Rather than there being a limited supply of information and images, there’s this overwhelming torrent that we all have to sift through on a daily basis and the process of editing itself is becoming internalized by everyone. Just within the last years, there have been so many incredibly complex and original photographic projects and books, rather than simply more typologies and traditional narratives. Photographers are cobbling together loads of information in really intricate and often open-ended, non-linear and puzzling ways, but they’re not solving these puzzles for the reader or viewer; they’re entrusting their audience with that power. I was so excited, and surprised, by the recent success of a number of these very challenging projects. The fact that these kinds of works are being embraced indicates that there is a burgeoning audience for these sorts of photo-involving puzzles, which I find incredibly encouraging.

Charlotte Cotton: I think that we are finally getting over the notion that photography is democratic.

Aaron Schuman: Could you explain why do you think that photography is democratic?

Charlotte Cotton: One way that you could define photography in terms of democracy is that anyone can make a picture; billions are made every year, so it’s clearly very easy and I’m happy to admit that photography is very democratic in terms of its rendering. But as a meaningful cultural force it should not be described as being democratic, because culture is a process of defining what’s good – what’s resonant – and that’s not determined by a democratic or even an empirical system. So I’m not happy with the idea that, just because it’s easy to render a photographic image, anyone can make a great, culturally resonant photograph. These processes are not democratic; at some point there is an elitism involved and I think that such elitism is only a problem if you think in terms of its high-art version, in which there are millions of reasons why you might not be allowed entry into that world. But a group of people who all really get the same thing whether it’s photography form of collective culture – if that’s elitist, it’s in an entirely different league. It’s about self-elected elitism rather than the elitism of an establishment. ( … )

Edit from Aaron Schuman and Charlotte Cotton’s dialogue which is published in WHAT’S NEXT? publication from FOAM (Fotomuseum Amsterdam) as part of their recent project that critically examines possible future in the field of photography. More info on WHAT’S NEXT forum.

Related post: Joan Fontcuberta’s essay for ‘What’s next?’ forum

Dieter Roelstraete :: What you see is what you get

The creation narrative of photography – and, consequently, both its mission statement and its meaning – is a matter of pure and simple etymology. “Photo-graphein” equals “writing with light” – or: writing at the speed of light, as the artistic ideology of the snapshot/the singular moment, courtesy of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the like, would have it. The speed of a single defining and by definition creative glance – one brief and utterly powerful barrage of photons: the camera flash. Photography as the quintessential art of the instant, this instant here and now, one moment in time – the proverbial twinkling of the eye. If ever an art form has been immersed in the conceptual apparatus of the temporal, it surely has to be the art of photography: writing with light and writing in time, the art of photography presents itself as the one art form fully – and desperately – aware of its fleeting temporality, its unalterable transience, its total and utter impotence versus all attempts, so achingly typical of so many other art forms (the more traditional media of painting and sculpture in particular seem to ground their essence-as-existence in an ambitious claim to permanence), to record a certain state of wilful eternity. Short-lived but real. The art of photography may well pride itself on being the most sincere of all art forms exactly because of its fateful modesty: unable to grasp more than this one futile moment in time, the photograph finds itself “closer” to the experiential nature of reality than any other art form known to man.

Recording no more than this one futile moment in time – and supposedly doing so in the interest of posterity. This one futile moment in time, recorded for us to return to time and time again: a remembrance and souvenir of things and times past, but also a slice of things and times past made present every time we take another look at it. A gateway to a moment long gone but far from closed down/off, the photograph offers us a possibility of endlessly revisiting the spiral of time, discovering “new” things, things unseen, unsuspected or simply forgotten, every time we lay eyes upon its image. Think of a photograph as a means of circumnavigating the trappings of superficial first impressions: we can always go back to what we saw or, better still, didn’t see.

Through the lens of the camera, we get a chance to actually peer through the treacherous simplicity and seeming transparency of representation: taking recourse to the univocal evidence of the snapshot, we can actually try and learn to cure ourselves from the deeply ingrained visual addiction to “love at first sight” and “taking things at face value”. Photography equals the chance of a second glance: deeper, more closely focused, longer, in the relative seclusion of a brief moment out of time, as we take one step back into time. Photography is out there to explore – lighten up – the dark side of sight – all the things we thought didn’t matter, or simply forgot to look at in our habitual hurry to consider the world a fully known and explored place. Stepping back into the momentary space of the photograph, we can actually revive the one moment we thought we’d seen it all – only to find ourselves deceived by the so-called “naturalness” of the glimpse: so many things we always thought “to be” now resurface “to seem”.