Into the Picture

Among the many fascinating things about yesterday's conference on photography as an art form by Delfim Sardo at the Culturgest, the one that confused me most was the setting.
Since the small auditorium where the conference took place filled up quickly, the organizers decided to allow the remaining spectators (about 50 of them or more!) to sit in the tiny entrance and listen to the conference while watching it on a TV screen.
This is not an uncommon practice. Still, there was something about it that made one wonder. We could hear the speaker, but the image on the TV screen showed only the images that were projected to accompany the lecture (because of the size of the TV, it wouldn't make sense to get the general view of the stage). Delfim Sardo read his lecture, and although I couldn't see it to confirm it and he is an excellent reader, often stopping to tell an anecdote or two, the bulk of it was there in the text. So there we were, all 50 of us, sitting in a hallway, some of us standing or sitting on the ground, to listen to a lecture and see a series of images.
What was it about the event that made it so unique? Was it because we had all traveled that far and didn't want to leave empty-handed? Or was it because it was free? Or because it was so original? One thing was certain: one can hardly say it was because it was live. The conference could very well be an illusionist trick, there could be no one there and what we would have gotten would have been the same: a recorded voice and recorded images. The 'live' aspect of that event was a pure convention. Yet, nearly no one left in the middle.
There is something in the idea of witnessing that is more powerful than the actual thing.
The conference was mainly about the possibilities of using photography as a means of transforming reality, their origins and their impact. We saw the impressive, huge Russian constructivist images and compositions, and the comparable Nazi posters, and the contemporary works of the likes of Jeff Wall - with the references do Velasquez and Monet... All this on a small TV screen reproducing the reproduction that Delfim Sardo made of a reproduction of a reproduction. And yet, it was the real thing.

Now, see the work of Thomas Wrede, photographer. Thomas Wrede seems to be enjoying the idea that it is still, and yet again, the real thing. It can start off with the pleasure of bringing pieces together to create a certain impression of reality:
This impression of reality takes its power precisely from the fact that it does not correspond exactly to what we feel is real. Only here, reality is an issue of the past. It is something that has been disposed of and now is being reinvented. The question is - what does it mean to re-invent? What is the reference?
What do we need to know? Which is real? What would be the point? The comfortable feeling of recognition, maybe. But what we get is hardly different.
Let's go a step further, then:
Don't laugh - this is serious business. What we have here is an image of nature. It is an image of landscape. And that is precisely why what we have here is landscape. Because if we swim in the lake, than it stops being a landscape, doesn't it? Or is what we need the possibility of swimming in the lake? But if we can swim in it, what is left of our contemplation?

The possibility of touching. Of talking about. Of having witnessed. This is a road. This is snow. This is the light from another place, from another landscape. I recognize this.
(But what is the work here - the picture of the snowy landscape or the picture you see above, with the spectators included?)
Finally, let's move out of this tight exhibition room or hall, let's go out.

How different is this? It seems just as constructed, just as formally challenging. Just as distanced from what I would think a place is, a landscape is, a view is.
Oh, how I enjoy this hesitation, this pleasure of falling into the trap, into the work, out of the auditorium where the comfortable presence of the speaker would have made everything transparent and much, much too plain.

Technorati: photography, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Small, innocent me!

Toji when he was a baby! By fofurasfelinas.

Parker posey kitten picture

Parker posey kitten picture by cer!se.

Horcrux Socks

Here are Susan's adorable Horcrux socks. I used violet Wool of the Andes and a slightly tighter gauge (size 4 dpns) because I only had two skeins of yarn and I have size 9 feet. Good thing I did because I only had a few yards of yarn left over. The free .PDF pattern for the socks is HERE.



I just bought these two fabrics to make camp-type short-sleeved shirts for DH. I only purchased the lighthouse fabric because it was on sale but I adore the fabric on the right from a Mardi Gras fabric collection. It has gold metallic accents and will look wonderful on him. I suspect it may be too busy alone so I'm going to add some black cotton of a similar weight and make him a two-tone shirt.



Ms. Peaches LaRue is in her punk rock stage. Every rabbit I've ever known has shed in a different style and Peaches does it all over at the same time, giving her a pathetic ragamuffin appearance. I try to pull out all the excess fur but she disapproves greatly of this practice. She takes off for parts unknown if she even suspects I have a comb or brush.



I'm done goofing off - I need to do nothing but gloves for the next few weeks until the booklet is finished.

Ginger kitten picture

Between the railings. My cat Ginger. She's a star! BEST VIEWED LARGE. By Rick Macomber.

KC

By Angele.

Who owns art?

The excellent newsgrist has several articles about appropriation and the issues related authorship.
So who does own art?
And what is art ownership about? Only in the simplest of all versions is it about owning an object. The thing is, it has been increasingly clear that ownership is one of the most delicate - and taboo - issues of contemporary art. Yes, we have the art market which helps us keep it all together. But the fragility of the system is impressive.
Once you get to Manzoni's Artist's Shit, and keep on going all the way to Cattelan's provocations, something strange happens: not only is the value of the work conventional, but the convention can change quite abruptly. In the case of Manzoni's work, we still have an object. But the further we go into the conceptual & performative realms, the more difficult it is to speak of ownership. After all, how can one own Yves Klein's emptiness?
If art is intellectual property, then what about the image of the work? Is it mimesis? Or a copy of the thing, i.e., a sub-product of the original work? How different is my picture of something from that thing? We often assume it's close - possibly because it's simpler this way. A reproduction is another example of production. But then, what can be reproduced?
If the question is old, new technologies seem to give it a reality bite. We are all photographers. Reproduction is so easy, it seems impossible to judge it by the same strict rules. The tiny video cameras and cell phones make it all-too-easy to take a piece of the world with you.
There's the rub: we somehow feel taking a picture is taking a piece of the world. Reproduction is re-production. Are we therefore constantly stealing the world away? Doesn't that seem a bit naive? Isn't the problem rather in the authorship, and ownership? That is what is happening: by taking the picture of a picture, we are re-apropriating it. Its original value, given by the convention of authorship ('it came out of the head of this person') and ownership ('it belongs to that person'), is questioned. Or maybe rather, challenged, since we can easily imagine someone acknowledging the copyright and taking care of all the related formal issues. (see this article about copyright and contemporary art). There are several issues here. One of them is the question of what exactly constitutes a work of art. If my work includes someone else's work, or copies it, is it a simple legal issue for me to regulate? What if I somehow took the same picture as someone else? Contrary to Joy Garnett, I do believe this can be a serious issue and is not about the public space being public domain. The image, even if it is "just a photo", is still a work. And the difficulty seems to be in acknoledging it every time, that is, even if we just happen to bump into the same view as someone else. Is it a question of recognition? It seems it simply stopped making sense to acknowledge every single picture taken from somewhere else, every picture of a picture of a screenshot of a security camera... But what is the alternative?

What complicates this is that some contemporary art already focuses on challenging the idea of authorship and ownership. That's where the really strange paradoxes appear. That's where one can very well own an 'original' that was made as a questioning of the idea of the original, where the remains of a performance that was a statement for the ephemeral gain the status of permanent art value, etc.etc.
We might be used to this, but there is something incredibly hypocritical about our easy acceptance of it. Why shouldn't we consider that a work of art can actually have a self-eliminating value, that is, have its value limited to an experience that excludes any form of later valuing. This could mean the creation of an exhibition of works not for sale, but it could also mean acknowledging all the works that have been created, often by celebrated and expensive artists, into the void. Such as Gordon Matta-Clark's public, 'illegal' works. They fascinate us today precisely because they seemed destined to disappear, challenging the very idea of an object of value.
Another way of seeing this is attacking (yet again) the very notion of copyright by exposing it to the test of the world. Do we really live our lives in a way that makes room for copyright? Or is it just so out of date that it would need a serious rethinking? See the iMoma, where pictures from the New York MOMA are published. Those are illegally taken pictures, pictures of the visitors, pictures that make the ownership of art-as-image problematic, to say the least. And the officials trying to fight this 'crime wave' seem like ridiculous bureaucrats. But on the other hand - what are they supposed to do? Let it go? And what remains?
Read the story about the iMoma and the image pirates issue at Newsgrist.


Bruce Nauman, Human/Need/Desire (currently at the MOMA)

Technorati: visual art, photography, fine art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Sunkist

By shutupyourface.

On top of the door

"OK, now I'm very high, that's great ... but how am I going to get down now???? HELP ME!"

LOL! That's no joke, Chatouille jumped alone on top of the door, but then he was meowing like mad asking for our help! We first took some pictures and then rescued him! By isazappy.

Body Art of the YouTube era

See also other works by Phil Hansen.

Triplets!

Triplet cats in a sun ray. This was shot opposite the pagoda being repaired. By phitar.

Anatolian Knitting Designs

Most of Anatolian Knitting Designs by Betsy Harrell consists of black and white knitting charts. The back of the book includes some fascinating history of Turkish sock knitting; the book also includes one pattern for toe-up socks with a peasant/afterthought heel.

I'm a bit disappointed in the actual charts but perhaps that is because I have most of them in my other sources already. They do have some fascinating names like donkey eye, earring, and chimney grate. The charts also include the name in Turkish.

The author interviewed a group of traditional knitters from a cooperative in the Sivas province to find out whether or not there was significance in the colors and charts used in the sock patterns. It doesn't really sound like there is significance to the specific patterns anymore although she muses that there must have been at one time. She talks a bit about Asian motifs in textiles - triangles for mountains, trees as a symbol for immortality, and snakes (s-curves).

I'm not sure if she is talking about stranded color knitting or intarsia in the sock pattern. "Bobbins may be thought useful for carrying the colors of the bands...Changing and carrying colors: When changing colors, it is necessary to twist the different-colored yarns at the back of the work, so no holes occur in the knitting. ... Colors should be loosely carried across the back of the work to prevent having long threads, which toes get tangled in when the stockings are being put on. To carry yarn on the backside, bring the yarn of the color not being used under and over the yarn being knitted, and continue knitting with the latter. No more than 3 sts of 1 color should be knitted without carrying the other color(s) along at the back." The photo on the front of the book shows antique Turkish socks that have many colors per row and may have been done in intarsia in the round although all the socks pictured in the book using the book's charts look like they are done in two-color stranded color knitting.

The most interesting part of the book for me was a two-page essay titled "Historical Notes on Knitting and the Wearing of Stockings." She discusses the earliest known examples of knitted socks. "The heroes at Troy wore foot coverings, though it is not certain what kind... At first the Romans considered that covering the legs was effeminate, but in due time they adopted the barbarians' practice of wearing breeches." ( This was interesting to me because I could swear I saw Lucius Vorenus wearing socks with his sandals in last week's (Philippi) episode of HBO's Rome!)

I bought it from Needlearts Bookshop but Schoolhouse Press carries it as well.

Here's a pair of Turkish socks I knit years ago from Anna Zilboorg's excellent book Fancy Feet: Traditional Knitting Patterns of Turkey. In it she says it is traditional in Turkey not to weave in yarn ends from all the colors used. I have no clue if the yarn ends would then go on the inside or the outside of the sock.

Sam Taylor-Wood's vanitas

Sam Taylor-Wood, Still Life (video stills), 2001

Still Life is one of the most classical works of contemporary art I know. It inscribes itself in art history with hardly any commentary. This is not just a Still Life. It is a vanitas, a particular type of still life developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Flanders and Netherlands. Its specificity was the showing of the vanity of the worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay. Some of the vanitas had obvious references like skulls, but others yet had simply a watch, or a slightly rotting fruit. Sam Taylor-Wood's work is another step in that direction: the image, beautiful as ever in Taylor-Wood's universe, decomposes itself. By the end, nothing is left but a grey amorphous mass.
On closer inspection, one thing distinguishes this picture from its predecessors. The ball-point pen. A cheap, contemporary object. One that doesn't seem to decay. That is not part of the universal, self-disappearing life. Is it here to stay? This nothingness, this ridiculous signature of us?
This is a poor vanitas. We are more accustomed to rich interiors with gold and crystal. But we don't need more: we got the point. And nothing more is necessary. A simple basket, some light. Time. And a cheap pen. Oh, and lest I forget: an extremely good camera, top of the line, to catch this delicate, beautiful insurgence of death.

Veo

veo kitten picture by Difusa.

Do-Ho Suh - Moving On

Do-Ho Suh is an immigrant.
See the nostalgia of this Staircase. See how suspended it is, how volatile and fragile, yet how present and precise. Apparently the artist waited 6 years to ask the landlord of his house in Seoul if he could measure the house to reproduce the staircase. This is another hint: it is a replica. A precise replica. As if someone tried to have the memory here, at his service. Which is common, maybe, if you're an aging artist going back to what once was. But hardly if you are 40. Unless this home is too far away to be a home. Unless the only sensation you have is that of a volatile present, a parallel world where things are not quite palpable... and still. Made of red nylon, made of air. It goes nowhere (Stairway to Heaven?? Come on...), yet it brings about the change a staircase does: it hints at another space. And indirectly, it divides: there are other levels. And it cuts through, diagonally, like a clean razor.
What is this floor that is a ceiling that is not a floor? What is this carpet-red sky? How am I to deal with it - and with this strange, unaccessible space that suddenly appears in-between? Don't count on the stairs - they are what they are, a suspended image of an all-too-precise memory, and they aren't even touching the ground. Count on the absence. On what you think might be there, or might have been there. Count on the distance that helps you travel.

Oh, the elegance of memory. The title is Uni-Form/s: Self-Portrait/s. All My 39 Years. And those are indeed all the uniforms Do-Ho Suh wore during 39 years of his life. This boat is exquisitely neat. Just observe the lines, the purity of form. Notice how Do-Ho Suh focuses on the essencial: there are no trousers, very few additional items (bowtie, shirt). The only real intervention, beyond the selection and maybe the neat construction (the wheels...), is the adjustment of the uniforms to the lower line. That, for me, is the stroke of genius. This work, as the previous one, is not like a clay sculpture, but like a stone one: it is made by chopping away. The context, the environment, the whole which over-justifies the object. Its power, to me, lies in the new framing, where the elements are picked out very carefully, hardly even re-arranged, but above all, re-framed. Here, more than in the Staircase, it is the framework that makes the picture.

One small detail: The work was made in 2006. The artist was born in 1962. Meaning he was 44 when creating this work. Which suggests he spent 5 years without a uniform. Infancy? Or recent years? Where is the place of freedom?

I apologize for the wonkiness of my last post. I'm still getting the hang of the new Blogger. If losing my archives and one of my Bloglines feeds wasn't bad enough, now I am having trouble signing in.

I did manage to find a photo of the new Blogger executives hard at work. This explains quite a bit.

Today I sent $504.43 to the Colorado House Rabbit Society from knitting booklet and pattern sales. I held some of the money back which I'm going to put in a savings account to use for a possible web site redesign, knitting software to help with pattern design, materials, etc. That is why it now says on the Lulu web site that a portion of the proceeds go to pet rabbit rescue instead of the 100% I was sending before.

Today I also heard some good news about a rabbit named "Baby" who has been listed for adoption on our Four Corners Bunnies web site. She is the black bunny in the photo below. She and her young partners in crime were found dumped in a field in a rural area and a nice woman rescued them. The two white babies were adopted much earlier but finally Baby has found a new wonderful home with some bunny people who don't mind if rabbits chew on their antique furniture. Apparently the adopters also renamed Baby after the woman who rescued her.

I just love good news like that. Here are my other favorite rabbit rescue stories.

Rusty (see below) was spotted at a feed store downtown. The rescuer had to go check him out because she'd never seen a spotted rabbit before. Turns out that Rusty was in a small cage with another unneutered male and he was covered with fight wounds. The rescuer yelled at the store owner and grabbed Rusty and took him straight to the vet. Fortunately Rusty recovered, gained back his good looks, and went to a really wonderful couple who had another rabbit who needed a companion.

Alphonso was found by a woman walking her dog through her neighborhood. She heard some sounds coming from a construction dumpster and found Alphonso who'd been dumped there. This kind woman learned all about rabbits and set up a special section of her home office for Alphonso while looking for a forever home for him. It took a few months of waiting but Alphonso also found a great forever home with some folks who love rabbits.

Tomorrow I'll have a review of the Anatolian knitting book for you.

CUTEST POSITION EVAR!11!!1

No, seriously. Evar. By Malavagma.

Gypsy kitten picture

Gypsy kitten picture by Lynie

Look no boogers

Look!!! Turk has a clean nose. No boogers :) by Karatanya.

Caspian Sea Socks

Here are the Caspian Sea Socks done in size 3 dpns and Merino Style DK yarn from Knitpicks. These socks were just a complete comedy of errors. First of all I accidentally shaved off four rows between one of the motifs on the foot. No problem - I did the second one the same way and will just call it a design feature. Then I ran out of green yarn and couldn't find any other similar colors. So the heels are different colors.

Then I finished the second sock and realize I actually put the waste yarn for the heel on the front of the sock. I didn't feel like ripping out the whole foot so I removed the waste yarn and kitchenered the two sides together. So I snipped a thread and removed a row from the heel sides to insert the peasant heel.

The fit is decent but I prefer my usual sock heel. I do like this yarn for socks and plan to get more. It is soft and feels really well-cushioned with all the stranding.

Baby Sydney

Baby Sydney. Basking in the sun, this is Sydney in London, Ontario July 2002. By eva viezel.

Valentine kitten picture

7 week old Peace... By Carm Cole. You can see more of Carm's beautiful cat pictures at http://www.pbase.com/carmcole


Cats never strike a pose that isn't photogenic. ~Lillian Jackson Braun~

Dexter and Celia revisited

Last spring, you printed a picture of our then new adoptees, Dexter and Celia, getting ready to make trouble in a waste basket (April 26, "Ambush kittens"). The update from Eliot inspired us -- here are Dexter and Celia, a year old, brother and sister together. By Mary Richman and Steve Alcott.

There's no hiding place...

My psychotic cat in the dryer by Queen Roly

Feed me kitten picture

Feed me kitten picture by Marchnwe

Here's a dark photo of my teapot collection nestled among the dried lentils and beans. The black and white cat one is my newest and favorite although it drips when it pours. The green one second from the left has bunnies and carrots sculpted on it.



Despite Blogger's insistence that my blog would not be changed in any way, upgrading to the new version of Blogger has resulted in my archives disappearing. I'll try to figure it out later this week.

I know I should be knitting gloves but I started Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Caspian Sea Socks. If you go to Knitting Daily and do the free registration you can get her free pattern. I am apparently incapable of knitting any of PGR patterns the way she writes them so I am doing it top down with extra colors.






There are some three color rows on the cuff with a braided edging. I plan to add the extra colors on the foot via duplicate stitch. I'm using Knitpicks Merino DK and I went up to size 3 dpns for the foot to ensure they'll be long enough for my size 9 foot.

These socks have a peasant heel - it is worked similar to a peasant thumb where you put in some waste yarn while knitting then add the heel later. I'm not especially fond of the fit of these heels but the pattern for the bottom of the foot was so cool I'm going to do the heels her way.

Milton kitten picture

Milton kitten picture by rofanator.

Cat got your tongue?

Cat got your tongue? By limowreck666.

I found a cute British book on house rabbits at the library - it is called Living with a House Rabbit by Linda Dykes and Helen Flacks and it has lots of adorable photos.



I love the hilarious captions for the photos such as "Carpet-chewing is a favorite pastime of house rabbits" and "Jaffa's youth was spent on one long mission of destruction."

Apparently British house rabbits have much larger ears than American rabbits:



The caption says this guy is 6 months old - he'll have to triple his size to grow into these ears.

Catnip junkie

Louie playing with his catnip mouse by jellywatson.