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Roger Ballen in Conversation

On Monday night, the 9th of November, I had the real privilege of participating in a conversation with Roger Ballen live at the SVA auditorium on 23rd street in Manhattan. Roger Ballen’s work has fascinated me for a long time, and I was thrilled to be able to engage him in dialogue before an audience in New York City. Hosted by SVA and introduced by Chair of the Photography Department, Stephen Frailey, the evening proved to be one of riveting photographs and thought-provoking dialogue. My own introductory notes are below, followed by a video of the evening as well as two passage—one from C.G. Jung and another from Robert Sobieszek’s essay for Shadow Chamber—that I used during the on-stage conversation.

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Tags: Roger Ballen, Stephen Frailey, SVA
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A movie about wind (and messages)

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Amazing Days

The semester has begun, and many of my friends and colleagues are back in their classrooms and lecture halls inspiring willing, ready students of higher education.

For me, this (lost) summer was a bit of a technological explosion: I updated this, my WordPress blog (actually, the team at Bad Feather updated it!); got permanently locked out of my FB page (Yes, that’s me. No, I can’t access it. Yes, FB has been notified and NO, they haven’t responded. Yes, my Twitter feed still goes to my status updates and makes it look like I’m actually on FB a lot…but I digress…). I also figured out how to best utilize Twitter (and TweetDeck) and love writing with it; I had fun with my Flip video; I geeked out on various Apps for my iPhone (and recorded an entire “live” album on my built-in Voice Memo App).

I also watched the people (and youth) of Iran challenge their government through the same “social media” networks that many use in frivolous ways on a daily basis, and I honored the imprisoned, innocent Baha’is in Iran who have spent over one year in jail for serving their country and promoting the oneness of humanity.

In addition to the frenetic-ness of the summer, I sat in awe and wonder as various absolutely amazing programs, utilities and apps were developed and released into our Internet-world. I was introduced to Tokbox, Qik, Shazam, and Blip.fm and began using them regularly.

With bluetooth capabilities in our cars, Pandora.com playing on our iPhones, Skype on the laptops and massive file sharing through any number of online services, I began to feel rather Jetsonian. I just need to find Rosie the Robot to complete the picture.

But then I came across this passage (online, of course) by Thoreau:

“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” —Thoreau, Walden

And then this from the maestro:

These two passages instantly resonated with me and my inner dialogue felt stimulated, nourished and challenged. I both agree and disagree with Thoreau and Benjamin. Many of the “inventions” I came across this summer are not much more than “pretty toys” and fall into the entertainment category. In fact, depending on how you use them, all of these tools could reside at the level of superficial entertainment.

But that is precisely the point. It depends on how you use them. For example: the people of Iran (primarily young adults) were able to publicize on a hitherto unprecedented international level what they saw as rigged election results by the Iranian government through utilizing Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Protests, beatings, police crackdowns and deaths were all placed directly in front of the eyes of the people of the world to see and bear witness to. No longer could a government simply drive over to the TV and radio stations and easily shut down the stream of information flowing to the outside world. Every single person with a cell phone or a PDA was a potential broadcaster in a worldwide sea of journalists. It was truly amazing to watch and follow (and I say that regardless of political positions).

That may beg the question, however: Why do we care what happens to people on the other side of the world? The answer (besides a much longer blog post) is that our world has shrunk to such a degree that we are all connected in ways that, as a human race, we have never been before.

Let me say that again: in the entire history of humanity, humans have never been this in touch with each other—socially, politically, through commerce and the military, through ideas and religion and popular culture—ever before. New realities require new paradigms and new ways of existing. To many, it’s obvious that a new system of ordering society at the global and local levels to facilitate those social, political, commercial, popular culture connections is not only required but will inevitably be constructed. (And to be honest, to be alive at a time when the global body-politic of humanity is passing through such changes is about the most amazing, exciting thing I can even imagine, like witnessing a stormy teenager enter into a confident adulthood.)

Back to the point though. Benjamin’s wonderful observation, made nearly a century ago, is as much about the worth of the content published as it is about the ability to publish, held even more so now by any and all average citizens.

In the world of publishing (and photography book publishing specifically), there is a fascinating development going on in the form of print-on-demand books. As I state in my essay “Who Cares About Books” (published by LACMA in WordsWithoutPictures*), “An entirely new generation of curators, critics and photographers** see the book as a central form of expression in photography.” This appreciation of the book, coupled with the ease and accessibility of book production, thanks to companies like Blurb.com, has fueled a flood of new books, all printed out one at a time using technology that was unthinkable 15 years ago.

Anyway, the coolest tools of the age are all around us, and they only add to the great developments of the twentieth century. The ability to produce a book is only a few clicks away. The responsibility to produce worthwhile content, as Thoreau implies, is still there.

[For someone not at all related to photography but doing amazing book~literature~new media stuff, check out Barbara Hui. Her Litmap project, about Rings of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage by W. G. Sebald will blow you away. Imagine Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's The Photobook: A History organized like this!]

* —join essayists and Charlotte Cotton in NYC September 17, 2009).

** —Markus Schaden (of Schaden.com, Europe’s best photobook store talks with Martin Parr  about Parr’s newest book, Playas, published by Editorial RM)

To order the WordsWithoutPictures book (a print-on-demand title), click the image below. This is what will come in the mail (if you order two, that is):

Tags: #iranelection, BadFeather, Barbara Hui, Blurb.com, Charlotte Cotton, Editorial RM, LACMA, Martin Parr, Schaden.com, Thoreau, Walter Benjamin, WordsWithoutPictures
Posted in Art + Film + Design + Architecture, My Life | 3 Comments »

My favorite Easter story

There are David Sedaris “lovers” and “haters”. I’m an admirer, and when it comes to this particular story, I inevitably find myself nearly on the floor laughing, tears in my eyes. I remember the first time I came across this story. I could NOT stop laughing. Reading this out loud to my mother, Fay Himes, a former minister with an over-charged sense of humor, is one of my fondest memories. Listening to my mother as she enters into one of her laughing fits is like witnessing a force of Nature. It is awe-some, frightening, and mesmerizing all at once. It’s also impossible not to laugh with her. Mid-way through my reading of this story to her, she was on one knee, leaning out of her chair, her whole face red, tears streaming down her cheeks, laugh-screams coming out of her so loudly that they pierced through your whole body. Like I said, it’s one of my fondest memories. That, and listening to her sing and play “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” off the Life of Brian soundtrack on our family, upright piano.

If you haven’t read or heard this, I hope you enjoy. [Be warned, this approaches blasphemy for some. And remember, God loves laughter.]

Jesus Shaves, by David Sedaris

“What is an Easter?”

“It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his-self Jesus, and, you know… like that.” “He call his-self Jesus and then he die one day on two morsels of lumber.” The rest of the class, jumps in offering bits of information that would have given the Pope an aneurysm. “He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your Father.” “He make the good thing and on the Easter we be sad because someone make Him dead today.”

Tags: David Sedaris, Easter
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