PASSAGENWERK

I came across this article today.... www.lensculture.com/rauschenberg.html

it has to do with re-photographing atget shots, looking for the same locations (if they are still there) and replicating the shot as closely as possible.
Inspiring! because i've been looking for a type of photo-project to pursue and to structure the time i'll be spending in paris starting on the 19th of this month. i've come to the conclusion that I should spend some time re-reading as much of Benjamin as I can, in particular his writings on photography, on flanerie, and revisit the Arcades Project. There's a New York Times article from a couple years back, says that there are about 30 of the actual arcades left, on the right bank, 1st and 2nd arrondissement.
the idea is to photograph decay, fetishism, the crowd, politicization of art, the ways in which the street becomes the interior, the perspective of the flaneur, to do a kind of photo-mapping of the different neighborhoods within the city, and at the same time pay a kind of homage to benjamin.

I have a lot of reading to do.

tuesday nonsense

first thing that pops into mind: a cabin crew member from the earlier class (french so imagine a heavy accent) is asked by an instructor:
what do you say/do when you are patrolling the aisle on a night flight and you see someone awake?
"you say to zem: are you lonely tonight?"

its funnier if you say it out loud. and if you imagine it actually happening.

there's not much to keep us entertained here during the week. bad tv. internet research. some reading. listening out for ghosts. making tea. more bad tv.
and missing home, and trying to figure out which home you miss, or rather which idea of home.
because i know at least for myself i don't have a clear concept of it. i don't have a routine, an established life(style). feels like it's been nothing but flux for a while and i can't allow myself to even think too much about it because i get overwhelmed. not depressed, just confused.
takes me back to reading sontag, not too long ago but feels like ages, book's been donated to a photog who seemed keen on it....
her suggestion that photography can be a sort of defense mechanism, a filter you place between yourself and the world, to shield against what damage it may do up close if you make yourself vulnerable to your surroundings. there was a great deal more to it i know but at the moment i have the sense that i'm guilty of that. using the act of photography as my own immediate cheap form of psychotherapy. or something along those lines.
i'm tired and not making much sense at this point. the essence of what i'm trying to say is that in the midst of the drastic changes i've been going through and the focus i've been determined to maintain during this interview/training process, i'm looking left and right for the means by which to orient myself, to ground and center and develop something of a figurative root system. roots more in idea and meaning than actual earth. actual city. the risk of sounding trite, the home within the mind, which can stand physical upheaval and transition....

www.banksy.co.uk

New art etc.

this is stanley donwood.

this is JR.

this is paul insect.
this is faile.

the other weekend matt took me to a pretty amazing little gallery at charing cross road, called Lazarides. that experience, looking mostly at examples of street art, combined with the show at the tate this weekend, well let's just say that i have another new fascination (see following blog). I have copious amounts of "downtime" in the evenings here after class, so i'm now able to do some internets research and generally check out images from these artists that i'm really excited to be learning more about.... i will give you some examples. I hope that Joe Havasy has seen some of this stuff! alot of the work that I saw, I automatically thought that he would appreciate it.... so here goes. see what you like. these are just the ones that caught my eye...

i think i'm attracted to the subversive, cryptic nature of street art. I know that these examples here don't really engender that, these are pieces i saw in gallery, which somewhat contradicts the intent.....i think that these appeal to my love of the pop art aesthetic more than anything. the elusiveness of artists such as banksy really appeals to me though... "artivists" is a term i saw somewhere. work that invades the public space and commands to be seen, transforms ordinary surfaces into art and by extension statement.
there is one image that i saw at the tate that is sticking with me and won't leave my mind... this shot by jr:

it is breathtaking in scale and even more amazing in the current state of decay... the print is peeling from the building. i don't know what to think of this. it's surely powerful though.

the greatest thing, however, is that one of the common threads in the shots i've been inclined to take (esp. around new york) is that of street art and graffiti....finding it accidentally almost always and being pleasantly surprised by it constantly.
so now i have the platform from which i can learn more about street art as a form, those who create it, and seek it out where and when i may...

Remainder

i am newly fascinated by this writer Tom Mccarthy and his International Necronautical Society.... www.necronauts.org. There's an interview in the June Believer issue. Sounds like he's a pretty great novelist and an even more interesting artist...naturally I wiki'ed the society first... and by the by, he praises david lynch in the interview, which gives him extra gold stars in my world. here's why i'm intrigued....
."In 2004 the INS opened an office in Berlin, declaring it to be the “World Capital of Death.” The artist Anthony Auerbach, who holds the position of INS Chief of Propaganda, did field work in the city to seek out sites where the traces of death had most evidently been erased, especially monuments and memorials. These were surveyed using “low altitude aerial surveys” —that is, close-up photography of the pavement at each site. This material was then interpreted using, among other things, a painstaking inventory carried out by professional accountants of each grain of sand visible on the surface of the photographs." (wikipedia)
i love this wiki world so much! from here i am led to the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. a network of people dedicated to building their own spaceships. yes! check it out.

and go to the INS website... fascinating stuff. read the manifesto.

Halfway through training.

we are about to finish up our 757 Conversion training though none of us needed converted as we were all already members of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Flight on Boeing 757-200s. Today was most exciting as we got to put on oversized jumpsuits and white booties and slide down the big slide. also put out fires. also wear a spaceman oxygen hat and stumble through a smoke filled simulated cabin. so much fun. i have some photos here.
just a few examples anyway.
tomorrow i have three tests and im going to go study for them now. it's also my birthday which is neither here nor there, since i'll be studying. but maybe fun will happen this weekend!

Blogging from Merrye Olde

I can't mention the name of the company that I'm training with, turns out. So the moniker will be "The Airline" from here on out.
Here are some photos from the flight over and the barbecue to celebrate the graduation of the last class.... ao here we have the hotel "manor", lyndsea and arellys in club world on our ba flight, terminal 5 at heathrow..
went to brighton on the coat today, so more photos of that when i've got time to organize them...