Final Project (Any)Thing and a few thoughts.

            First let me say that I had a great time during this class this year. I saw so many different creative styles and interests it was very inspiring. I hope that everyone continues to create and grow and I look forward to seeing future works from everyone. Next I really do appreciate the feedback on my work and after being in so many critiques over the years I still learn things I can do better from other students. Good luck to you and your creative endeavors. 

Chris Hackard.

THE TEMPLE OF THE DARK PARTS OF THE MIND

           

ARTIST STATEMENT FINAL PROJECT: (ANY)THING

            Take a moment and think of the things that haunt you. I’ve often travelled there in my own mind with its limitless imagination conjuring all types of monstrosities. On many occasion I have been accused of being angry or somewhat disturbed because of the art work I create and what inspires me. My creations are nothing more than an act of catharsis, a way to bring forth my troubles and fears and visualize them. The simple act of creating something in some strange way lessons the anxiety of the unknown that my own imagination can bring forth from the dark ether of dreams. 

            I’ve taken a moment to once again to gaze into the temple of the dark parts of my mind to bring forth the following images based on my nightmares. One image is my vision of the constant struggle to create being torn between the left and right brain with neither giving way yet I bow down to them both.  One of my other images is my fear of becoming cold and machine like, feeling alien and not allowing anyone to see the light within. My last image is fear of the unknown unlocking some dark place where only anger resides that is beyond reason creating in essence my own demon. I explore my own dualism through my art and no matter how dark a creation the light is never completely extinguished from it. That ethereal-light is a reminder that things no matter how bad will eventually get better. So once again take a moment to think of the things that haunt you and then find a place within your own temple, a place where the light is just breaking through the fears that surround you.

Two Levels

Man Machine Am I

Inner Demon

Jason Langer

I found the photographer Jason Langer in Fraction Magazine. Langer’s series Possession works to universalize the identity of individuals while humanizing inanimate, often creepy objects. Langer’s photos are often black and white, making use of the night in order to mystify the subjects of his work. The inanimate objects in Possession are given a sense of personality while he works to hide the personality of his human subjects in order to create a more universal or generic identity. 

I was impressed with Langer’s use of black and white in primarily night time scenes, as I have an interest in this color choice and time frame. He creates haunting images that have a supernatural presence due to the somewhat abstracted settings hidden by the darkness. His use of mannequins and other similar human-like objects works to blur the line between animate and inanimate. 

Link to site: http://jasonlanger.com/#

Loretta Lux

Loretta Lux is a fine art photographer from Dresden, Germany who makes surreal portraits of young children. She particularly favors portraying young children as otherworldly adults, using photoshop to give her photographs a foreign aesthetic which gives them a surreal feel. She also makes use of a low camera angle, bringing the viewpoint to that of the child in order to scale down the world to their size. The perspective from which we view the child is similar to the way children view adults, a viewpoint that we rarely ever see children from. Lux's use of various costumes that seem both adult-like and from an vague era also contribute to her photographs' surreal, stylized appearance. 

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is a fine art photographer who creates massive, cinematic-like photographs in which every small detail is meticulously planned. Crewdson makes use of a large crew similar to a movie set in which he is the director. His large-scale photographs have an inherent narrative quality, they give the viewer hints about what has happened or about to happen while still leaving a certain vagueness, leaving some room for open interpretation. I really enjoy his photographs because they often seem close enough to reality to be true, but also have some type of otherworldly feel created by the composed aesthetics.

Cool 3D photography stuff

So I came across a few cool new "cameras", while doing research for an art history paper. They are really neat and really bring the mediums of 3D modelling/printing and photography together.

 
Sense's 3D Scanner:
So this is essentially a 3D camera. You approach your object from different views, and presto- you've got a rendered model on the computer. And if you've got a 3D printer, you can even print those models. It's like magic. But, judging on the amazon customer reviews page, the 3D scanner is a fraud. Real shame... The company also doesn't accept returns- go figure... So, yeah, some things are too good to be true. Well- that's what you get for buying a camera that looks like a staple-gun. 

Panono (360 degree) Panoramic Ball Camera:

Now, this one looks pretty legit. It's a ball, that you throw in the air, with a bunch of cameras on it (36 total), that all go off at the same time. You can then go onto a computer/ tablet/ smartphone and view the image from all angles. Seeing that these guys are still in the development phase, they will be able to actively work on their product and make sure that they fulfill their promises to their investors/ possible buyers.

Penelope Umbrico

  Penelope Umbrico is another artist I've discovered since moving to Albuquerque. Photography becomes the subject itself in her work. She employs traditional photographic techniques and methods of appropriation, extraction, multiple production, and intervention to explore how we, as a culture, make and use images.

The first image is called "Suns (From Sunsets) from Flickr, 2006-ongoing. The piece is made by searching sunset on flickr, cropping the sunset and then each photograph uploaded to Kodak and 6x4 machine prints are made. The installation grows each time it's put on display according to the amount of hits she got when searching sunsets. The piece began with 2,303,057 suns from flickr in 2007 and by 2011, it was at 8,730,221 suns.

The second image is similar to the first but the suns were taken from stock photography websites and each photograph had a copyright watermark on it. Her intention for this work was to point out the absurdity of trying to "own" the image of the sun.

I think her work speaks a lot about today's attitude towards photography. Everyone is taking photographs and posting them online and it's at a point where it's like there's too much to look at. I think the act of appropriation is a good way of demonstrating those ideas.

http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/index.html

Sergey Larenkov

Sergev Larenkov is a russian photographer that decided to make this project blending old images from World War II with actual images of the same scene.

He traveled to Paris, Berlin, Prague and Russia to take pictures from a similar angle as the original war Photographs.