nothing to see here, move along

all the time in the world

An imaginary sightseeing tour of Market Street, San Francisco, made using vernacular material over one hundred years old. Market Street is of particular interest to The Selle Circle, a loose collective mentioned earlier, interested in study and repurposing the work of a street vendor photographer. It’s the place many of his photographs were made, starting about 50 years after this source material was created.

tea

The routine of acts performed often should not be cause for boredom. This small film demonstrates that much lies beneath the surface, behind the scene.

paradise

Within each person lies a walled garden, a place where all that’s learned, lessons about soul, happy memories and much more reside. This tour is of one such place, but it’s not much unlike your own.

Etymology: The word 'paradise' is charged. I refer to numerous online definitions that refer to a "walled enclosure" or a "walled garden". The skull is the wall, the mind is contained within.

The project paradise may be seen here.

completely bizarre

Suggested by Andy Eskind, we see the same person, probably the same photographer capturing the subject at the same angle, but with different clothing and on different days. We don’t know how much time has past, only that alignments are weirdly and unexpectedly correct. The project may be seen here.

A fine essay on the topic of Joseph Selle was written by Andy, who includes essential reference to The Selle Circle, a small group interested in what of the Selle archive that remains: at least one million negative images. It can be found here.

experiments can have unexpected outcomes

A similar method used in 2 ladies reveals something unexpected: a group of four men who appear to start floating away. The work four guys can be watched here.

the still picture that moves

One property of 17523 Pictures is that it demonstrates human incapacity to absorb all that goes on around us, leaving a vacuum of incomplete memory. In the experiment 2 ladies, the minutia in 1/8 second of the lives of two ordinary people is explored in piercing detail. Like watching the minute hand of a clock, very subtle movements can be seen. If any of us could have stood on that San Francisco street corner 60 years ago, it would’ve been impossible to notice all those little parts of life. Yet they did happen and 2 ladies shows the fullness of time is actually made of tiny moments.

2 ladies may be viewed here.

ps.

 

In the entry “memories that never formed”, there was a slight introduction to my motion media work 17523 Pictures. A more nuanced explanation of that work, along with works by my colleagues was written by Chris Burnett. It can be found here.
 

A two minute excerpt of the work may be viewed here. The whole piece is about 10 minutes long and is exhibited as a continuous loop without title or credits.

green mansions

Two of my projects, Green Mansions, Chapter Two and The Spectral Property of Text have been included in Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center's Made in NY 2010, on display at 205 Genesee Street, Auburn NY.

ideal seeing

Astronomers sometimes use this phrase to describe skies that are most clear for their work. The atmosphere doesn't obscure the view and accurate observations may be made.

One can explore pages of a book that draws their attention, in this instance using the same tools as those employed in previous examples. Subjectivity influences how they are used, what adjustments are made. The data is really in the page though, and in that fact, a certain objectivity exists.

unheimlich

This term refers to the uncanny, that widely known but hard to describe feeling of strangeness and alienation. Heidegger characterized it as though feeling Not at Home, also the name of my project of photographs made at night. A selection of them are part of the 62nd Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition, open until October 4, 2009 and on display at the Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave., Rochester, NY. They and others from the project may be seen at davidmount.org.

discovery

Enhancing the visual sense with specialized tools is not new. Telescopes and microscopes have long been employed for this task. Part of the physical realm, they extend the range of what's visible to reveal what had been hidden, and perhaps novel truths. Newer means to this end include modeling and image processing, reasonable constructs of the digital realm. As with the earlier equipment, their use is an opportunity to view what can be seen in no other way, and to imagine oneself as an explorer witnessing a scene for the first time ever.

The active recipient surveys the digital realm using tools natural to that sphere. Found in this case is text that illuminates itself: a prose recast in a way not dreamt of by the original author.

memories that never formed

Photography is often made as an example of memory: all those
experiences of life, tucked away in the archive of mind. My motion
media installation 17523 Pictures contradicts that perspective.
It may be seen at Tower Fine Arts Gallery, 180 Holley Street,
Brockport NY, September 2 - October 7, 2008.

Here's the statement:

We privilege the visual sense, yet only those things most
important to us make the hop from short-lived, sensory
memory to permanent, long term memory. The vast
majority of our visual perceptions are never retained.
Among these experiences are the uncountable nameless
faces we've passed but will never remember. Less than
lost memories, they are memories that never formed.

Life is comprised of individuals. There have been so many
of us, so many lives, yet we scarcely notice this in our daily
routine. With this piece, my wish is to draw attention to how

selective our memories are and to suggest the enormous

scope and complexity of humanity.

the active recipient

One could perform an experiment of lifting favorite text from the
grid, copying it out onto an old sketch pad. A technique used in
'specters' might be employed, anticipating an image that's similar
to 'specters' , but different. Instead, unexpected secondary
features will be observed, a consequence of image processing
that provides ideal seeing. On this modern variant of palimpsest,
patterning as though from writings on a sheet above, now long
gone, is the prize received.

omne ignotum pro magnifico

how to make a lead book, a short film of mine, will be screened at The Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue, Rochester NY, on Monday July 28 at 9:15 pm.

from the antipodes

The previous entry offers a page of text as imaginary landscape. What might be on the verso of such a page?

and in utter savagery, mysterious life

We draw closer to the sources and inspirations of our affections.

Thus, marrying interests in landscape and literature could

reasonably lead to imaging words as though they are terrains.

'features of a tract' pulls text from grid-like storage, placing it

into a form that draws attention to a change. In the above

example, the grid is retained, but made into row after row of

valleys. Words sinking into a plain.

complexities

My short film, Tea, will screened at The Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue Rochester, NY on Monday June 30, 2008 at 9:15pm. This project demonstrates that a routine act, like making tea, can be an opportunity to consider that all of life is composed of unseen features and hidden complexities.

features of a tract

The current problem considers the matter of text and image; in this case, topographies made of text. Here, text has been removed from the rectilinear grid, placed into a geometry that's familiar but not the norm. The words are from Fast One by Paul Cain.

specters

During an email conversation with Chris Burnett, I observed that texts often had a spectral quality about them. This exploration is one of my efforts intended for the Image Process Literature project. Here is Joseph Conrad's first page of Heart of Darkness, presented as a ghost. The crop is his first paragraph, one of the loveliest I've ever encountered.