It's early morning Saturday, I'm listening to Gustav Mahler's Symphony Number 4 in G Major. The music is absolutely beautiful. It's sombre tones and underlying strains of hope suit my mood so well. Although, if I had to choose one piece of music that depicts my inner emotional life I would choose Mahler's Adagietto for Orchestra from Symphony Number 5 ~ it was used in Visconti's Death in Venice (1971) a film that relied on little dialogue, depending instead upon the character's facial expressions to convey meaning. Which leads me to yesterday. I showed a folio of photographs I'd printed out to A3 size to my friend Moira Corby ~ an artist who I greatly respect. She sat with me and clustered the images into themes, which somehow explained my intent. I had for some time experienced a sense of non-integration into the crowded city, but taking photographs was a way of engaging with an energy beyond myself, whilst maintaining a safe distance. I found in taking the photos I was returning to previous concerns in my artwork ~ individuality, difference and facial expressions. But there was also an underlying concern about how some things appeared ordered, whilst being quite disorderly. Although not entirely devoid of anxiety, I was able to traverse the city spaces in what I call the mode of the flaneurs – I allowed the streets and buildings to determine my meandering. I'd read parts of Siegfried Kracauer's The Mass Ornament and after several conversations with Francesco Vitalli an Architect friend of mine who is researching ornamentation, I began to perceive people themselves as decorous to the landscape; indicative of order and disorder, an arrangement of sorts within a fixed urban environment, part of the textural interplay between building surface and body as fluid architecture. I don't know how other photographers feel, but I am almost always self-conscious whilst taking photos, what I mean is I am aware that I am outside of the scene, distant, looking, sometimes waiting and watching. Strangely enough many of my photographs are about people doing the same.
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Saturday, June 5, 2010
Bodies in an urban environment
It's early morning Saturday, I'm listening to Gustav Mahler's Symphony Number 4 in G Major. The music is absolutely beautiful. It's sombre tones and underlying strains of hope suit my mood so well. Although, if I had to choose one piece of music that depicts my inner emotional life I would choose Mahler's Adagietto for Orchestra from Symphony Number 5 ~ it was used in Visconti's Death in Venice (1971) a film that relied on little dialogue, depending instead upon the character's facial expressions to convey meaning. Which leads me to yesterday. I showed a folio of photographs I'd printed out to A3 size to my friend Moira Corby ~ an artist who I greatly respect. She sat with me and clustered the images into themes, which somehow explained my intent. I had for some time experienced a sense of non-integration into the crowded city, but taking photographs was a way of engaging with an energy beyond myself, whilst maintaining a safe distance. I found in taking the photos I was returning to previous concerns in my artwork ~ individuality, difference and facial expressions. But there was also an underlying concern about how some things appeared ordered, whilst being quite disorderly. Although not entirely devoid of anxiety, I was able to traverse the city spaces in what I call the mode of the flaneurs – I allowed the streets and buildings to determine my meandering. I'd read parts of Siegfried Kracauer's The Mass Ornament and after several conversations with Francesco Vitalli an Architect friend of mine who is researching ornamentation, I began to perceive people themselves as decorous to the landscape; indicative of order and disorder, an arrangement of sorts within a fixed urban environment, part of the textural interplay between building surface and body as fluid architecture. I don't know how other photographers feel, but I am almost always self-conscious whilst taking photos, what I mean is I am aware that I am outside of the scene, distant, looking, sometimes waiting and watching. Strangely enough many of my photographs are about people doing the same.
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