Recently in existentialist photo-musings Category

Here is a java applet that traverses the html of a webpage and turns it into a visual graphic.  Website graphs are the work of Marcel Salathe, a young conceptual artist living inZurich, Switzerland. 

Photographsdonotbend today i.e. Aug-2012

Vinyl record grooves shot under an electron microscope taken by Chris Supranowitz who is a researcher based at the Institute of Optics, University of Rochester.

"My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in lovemaking; that is to say: heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity."

John Barth 

The hilarious 'Sixteen Studies from Vegetable Locomotion'  by Hollis Frampton and Marion Faller, 1975

 Carrot ejaculating

 Savoy Cabbage Flying

More here  

Out of this world photographic project? Send your face into space

PETITES MORTS

"In French, there is a phrase - petit mort, or 'little death' - that alludes to the orgasm. For me, photographing is like this.I am a pack of nerves while waiting for the moment, and this feeling grows and grows and grows and then it explodes, it is a physical joy, a dance, space and time reunited. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Like the end of Joyce's Ulysses. To see is everything."

Henri Cartier-Bresson

"I've come to regard the production of aesthetic meaning and value as a collective enterprise ... as the product of a group of ... curators, art  historians, caption writers, preparators, docents, lecturers and even dealers and collectors ... acting together (and not necessarily consciously in concert) to produce what we think of as being the meaning of the work of art, and the value of the work of art" [1] - Craig Owens

a film from asa mader : la maladie de la mort/ the malady of death

We all know how technologies have changed the way we work today, but what exactly is photography evolving into? Is it a propagandist tool used beside words in the media? Or merely a form of digital illustration? What are the hidden agendas? Is our consciousness deceived by the imagery we see before us in our everyday lives? Have technologies opened a world up to non-professionals, that now threaten the industry with sub standard images and information, or does it simply make photography more democratic? Does technology allow things to be meddled with too easily, or has technology given us more tools to open our minds to an all new types of art and so therefore create new realities? Is copyright now completely undermined? Has playfulness with imagery enhanced or destroyed truths, beliefs and practices? Is seeing, still believing? Has photography lost its soul?

The latest cd release by Antony & the Johnsons has been dedicated to the legendary butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno. An extraordinary portrait of the artist, chosen by Antony Hegarty, features on the cover of The Crying Light.  Kazuo Ohno was born in Hokkaido in 1906 & he danced until 2000.  He was the founder of butoh, a Japanese dance form concerned with surreal metamorphoses (whom Hegarty refers to as "kind of like my art parent"). After his 90th birthday, Kazuo Ohno was still active as a butoh dancer. His last overseas performance was Requiem for the 20th Century which was held in New York in December 1999. But in the same year he had eye trouble & his physical strength gradually deteriorated. Yet Kazuo Ohno continued dancing as if he was nourished by his age. When he could not walk by himself, he danced with the support of others. When he could not stand even with support, he danced seated. When his legs didn't move as he wanted them to, he danced with his hands. When he lost himself, he crawled on his knees & audiences were moved by watching his back. The butoh dance tradition is continued by Kazuo Ohno's son Yoshito Ohno. Antony Hegarty is not only an accomplished singer/songwriter but also visual artist, & this maybe explains his beautiful & unconventional choices for the aesthetics of all of his releases. Peter Hujar's photograph Candy Darling on his death bed, 1974 was used for the cover of Antony & the Johnsons' second album, I Am a Bird Now (2005).

A bit of fun!

Here is a java applet that traverses the html of a webpage and turns it into a stunning visual graphic.  A more detailed on-line explanation and examples found here.

Website graphs are the work of Marcel Salathe, a young conceptual artist living in Zurich, Switzerland.  

Screenshot of Photographs Do Not Bend (above).  Create your own.

What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags