Globe

the geology museum, UW-Madison

Madison

I went to UW Madison with Nate today to shoot some things that have been on my short list for a while. Nate re-shot a few things too. I've been taking cell phone pics straight from the top of my camera after I shoot the 4x5, thus these instant, day-of-the-shoot pics are on my blog tonight. This globe was a happy accident on the way to the bathroom in the geology building.

inside the geology building

the observatory

a medium sized radio telescope

Nate making his picture

Nate Mathews opening!

My friend and colleague Nate Mathews has a solo-show opening tonight from 4-7pm at the UIC Student Center. Here's the info and GPS coordinates from Nate himself:

The Address is: Art Lounge, UIC Student Center West, 828 South Wolcott Ave. This is the west end of the UIC campus near Damen so you could take a Damen bus south to Polk and go one block east, or take the pink line to polk and walk two blocks west. There is also plenty of metered parking within a block or two walk. The space is in the south east corner of the building so enter from the south doors (near the center of the block) and turn right. The gallery is next to the bookstore in the corner past the stairs.

an old favorite

Sesame Street turned 40 today. This clip is from 1973. Watch the kid headbanging @ 0:38 and 4:11. Probably the best moment in children's television, ever.

delayed

On the way to the Midwest Society for Photographic Education Conference in Minneapolis my flight got a little delayed. 8 hours in all. I arrived at 2am in a deserted airport. As I got off the plane the pilot apologized and a stack of diet coke and peanuts waited for me at the gate. Here's a map of what the plane did. As we approached Minneapolis, the pilot came on and said "they're making us circle the airport until we can land so we're gonna have to go to Milwaukee because we're going to run out of gas." So we flew to Milwaukee, refueled, sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half and then flew an hour back to Minneapolis. A lady got sick at the end. A woman on the plane had to help her and paramedics were called to get her off the plane first. This was hell. And I had to give my first big artist lecture the next day. My friend Heather drove there and beat my plane by over an hour. I decided not to go with her because I wanted to get there early and rest up for my talk. The lecture did go well though. I might of rushed through a few things and I did forget W.H. Jackson's name, but it was pretty good anyway. I showed this map at the beginning of my talk. The second map is all the trips that I've taken so far for my project. It looks like I might be making another one soon. People have told me the coasts look conspicuously empty.

Thomas Ruff

So today I read this article about Thomas Ruff and his project where he pixelates images. A little ways down the author asks why no one else has made "work dealing with the technological impact of digitisation on photography." Ruff says: "there are so many interesting photographers, but why don't they think about the structure of photography? They're young, they're curious, but they're not interested. So I had to do this work because no one else would."

Well, this inspired me. I've let the "pixel destruction" project get a little dusty and haven't really been working on it for the past 8 months. I think I'll start it back up again. I need to narrow down the scope of the project though, specifically what images I choose to "destroy" or appropriate. I've been using images important to the history of photography so far but I am definitely a landscape photographer and would like to somehow integrate or extend this from my previous bodies of work...


Ruff's images are mostly landscapes. He explains "the jpegs are divided into three or four categories: the one I started with was ‘catastrophes created by man,’ then ‘catastrophes created by nature.’ Then I added another category that included examples of nature coming back or conquering man-made creations."

I've thought about using images from my previous bodies of work and sending them through my machine to see what happens. I think this could be productive or at least put to good use images that would otherwise not be seen. I think the concept could also stem from the previous projects in that the images would have some element of Romance or Exploration- exploring the boundaries of what we've already discovered or alluding to what we might discover next... but then- it just becomes pixel garbage :)

the yield

Grant Ray, Athens, Ohio: Shadow of its Former Self. Electric Ouija Board for Trees

Here's some new work from an old buddy from skool. Check out the show that he and a few other mates are in @

Heaven Gallery
1550 N. Milwaukee Ave. 2nd floor
Chicago, IL

Opening Reception
Friday, October 23, 7-11pm

Saturday, October 24
Open gallery from 1-5pm