Thur: Oxymoronic (Sunday is right below)

Oxymoron: Rhetoric
a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect
Major corporations, distributors and companies have been preaching the news of their eco-freindly improvements . The list of companies who are supposedly "going green" is lengthy, including BP, NBC, Lamar, and even Domion Power. Is this really a commitment to reducing their negative impacts on our earth, or are these companies trying to improve customer relations by appearing environmentally positive?

BP is the perfect example. BP is an oil company that employs over 97,00 people in over 100 countries. They own interest in 17 oil refineries and turn over 284 billion dollars a year (figures from 2007). They are one of the worlds largest energy companies.

In early 2007, BP increased advertising efforts to drastically make over their image, trying to transform themselves from "the big bad oil company" into your friendly neighborhood business. BP's website, advertisements and stores are heavy with loaded and sometimes misleading words such as "energy", "impact" and "development". Their television spots suggest the new slogan as "Beyond Petroleum".

Of course, there was the 2007 unveiling of the first green gas station, the Helios House in Los Angeles. The building is powered mainly from 90 solar panels, and comes complete with a rainfall collection system to keep the nearby plants well watered (Wouldn't the rain be doing this anyway?) . The structure is built from farmed wood, and painted with "less polluting" paint. To their credit, BP acknowledges the station not as a model, but simply put, "a little better". According to their website, BP has donated over $500 million dollars to alternative fuel research, a fact which they use to deny accusations of the campaign as nothing more than a PR stunt.

It is interesting to note that the next gas station I'm photogaphin is an abandoned BP station; gas hoses lying on the trash-covered concrete are quite a contrast to the bright and sparkly image the company present on their website.

"2007 Annual Report and Accounts. ." BP p.l.c.. 25 Sep 2008 .

Douglass, Elizabeth. "BP Unveils Green Gas Station." Los Angeles Times 2/22/2007 25 Sep 2008 .

Sunday: Jens Liebchen: German Contemporary Photographer

Born in 1970, and studying Social Anthropology at Freie Universität in Berlin from '92 -'95, Jens Liebchen is known for his photographic books emphasizing pollictically charged subjects. All of the above images are taken from a recent project, Playing Fields" and was published in 2005 in a magazine format. This collections is a group of photographs at the epicenters "where geopolitics is at work in search of power and oil"(Gary badger, magazine introduction).

Gallery representing Liebchen: http://www.cohenamador.com/

Link to interview with Liebchen: http://www.lensculture.com/jens.html

Candice Breitz

On Tuesday October 19th, Candice Breitz graced the art community of VCU with her lecture and a sizable sample of her video works. Her speaking style, peppered with humor and culture references, seems to match her work. Both are easily accessible, honest, yet loaded with meaning. Brietz explained that she uses popular culture to interact with people whom she may not otherwise have anything in common with. Working in both found and created video, Brietz says she is interested in the relationships between the audience, who has no public voice, and the public personalities.

Brietz broke her lecture into two portions, and I'll focus on the first section, her found video work. She gave examples of multi-screen displays, which loop brief takes from famous music videos. She selects basic vocabulary units, that is single syllables, and plays them repetitiously. The performer is stuck in this eternal moment ; Brietz calls it the "common denominator" of language. This series of work lifts the material from its context, which is Brietz claims good work with found material should accomplish.

Breitz went on to a bolder social commentary with her Mother/Father works. She assembled in clips, from various famous feature length films, a collection of "mothers", and the quotes they've given in their respective roles. All though she explained it in her lecture, the works takes a negative strike at the media's replacement as parents. Brietz explained that, no matter how we may feel about the situation, mainstream media has become and "opponent of the mother/father structure." We are learning our identity roles from what we see on television.

Breitz made clear that she is not interested in cynicism or making light of popular culture, because she understands how much pleasure can draw from such. I felt her work to be effective in underscoring the culture construct of mass media, which crosses many boundaries we thought couldn't be crossed, and maybe some that shouldn't have been.

Sunday Post:Suzette Bross

Commute Series:






















































































"Everyday we make journeys. During these journeys to our intended destinations, it is easy to become detached from the surroundings, lost in thought. It becomes hard to see anything before or beyond what we have already learned to see and most of what we see, when we see, is quick and remote. ... We live in an age of accelerated transition. These images are of the ‘in between’ places. Consider them part of our new picturesque, symbols of America, symbols of internal musing. "Suzette Bross, Commute artist statement

Bross's photographic work is widely varied, but I'm drawn to her commute series. The photos are shot from a moving vehicle, and frequently have the edge of a car window or an arm in the frame. I'm interested in the stress upon landscape repetition , and why we don't seem to absorb the settings around us; a passing glance is the height of attention the scenery usually receives.
Bross graduated from Northwestern University in 1990, and received her MFA from the Institute of Design, Chicago, Illinois in 1999. She has been exhibiting in the Chicago-Milwaukee metro areas for the past 5 years.


Artist's Site:
http://suzettebross.com/

Review:
http://mocp.org/collections/mpp/bross_suzette.php




Bross is represented by the Scneider Gallery, Chicago Illinois:
http://schneidergallerychicago.com/section/40450.html

Thur: Renewable (Energy)

Renew: verb

to make effective for an additional period: to renew a lease.
to restore or replenish



















Ok, it's two words, but "Renewable Energy" is one idea. Ok, I take that back, it's many ideas under one concept: Power derived from natural resources. The list includes electromagnetic radiation, (aka sunlight), wind, geothermal heat, rain, rivers, even the tides.

These ideas are not new: we've been harvesting the power of the rivers and the wind for years, and solar power is starting to catch on. But these are not the only options. Geothermal Energy is one of these alternatives. Literally meaning "heat from the earth", Geothermal Energy uses steam and hot water in three fundamental ways. First, it heats by conduction, that is direct heating and use taking from springs, wells & reservoirs. Second, it uses the hot water or steam, which must be between 300-700 degrees Fahrenheit, and uses it in power plants to generate electricity. This is called hydrothermal use, and the wells must reach 2-3 miles below the earth's surface. The final geothermal concept relies on the constant temperature that lies about 15 feet or more beneath the earths surface, pumping the heat up using Geothermal Heat Pumps.

I know this runs off on a tangent from my photographs, but this project has left me wondering what's happening to America as gasoline and oil continues to be problematic, economically and possibly environmentally. I've been hesitant to jump on the "green" bandwagon, and I'm not doing so now, however I am willing to explore options. They say good visual art solves a conceptual problem; maybe while we artists are at it, we can solve some physical problems as well.



Kump, Lee, and Kasting, James. The Earth System. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2004

Sunday: Walter Niedermayr

"Many Photographers have been...drawn to analysing the world through the thoughtfulness and precision that is possible with large-format cameras, with or without the aid of digital post-production. "- Charlotte Cotton on Walter Niedermayr, "The Photography as Contemporary Art"

Niedermayr, was born 1952 in Balzado, Italy, where he continues to reside. His large scale photographs, often presented as diptychs or multi-panels, deal with architecture, light, and structure. Most recently, he has turned to shooting landscapes, in an overwhelming fashion similar to Burtynsky. His subjects have included unfinished buildings, tourist sites, and hospitals.

I'm attracted to his crisp, clear treatment of structure, and his dependency of one photograph on the print beside it, and wondering how something similar could work with my subjects- but could two different aesthetics be paired together? Some experimentation is in order.

Represented by the Robert Miller Gallery: http://www.robertmillergallery.com/artists/all_artists/niedermayr/niedermayr.html

No interview is available, unless you speak Italian!

Thursday: Deficit

Deficit:

A lack, or shortage.

A noun that could allude to our governemnt, our personal bank accounts, to the economy in general. A deficit has, indirectly, given me a subject to photograph. All across our country, hundreds of gas stations are closing down. A shortage of customers, a lack of money, you name it; owners are filling the same pinch as the consumer.

Consider this: the gas stations have to fill their tanks before you can fill yours. The cost of buying 9,000 gallons of wholesale gasoline has jumped 26 percent to $27,432 since 2006, according to the Oil Price Information Service. That's quite a chunk of money the owner has to front.

Station owners typically mark up gas prices between 8 and 12 cents per gallon, regardless of the market prices. As the market prices increase, the owner profit would remain the same, except for one catch: credit card sales. The credit card companies generally charge a fee between 2 and 3 percent of total card sales. This means that has the gas prices increase, the station ownders profit actually decreases. With household budgets becoming leaner, customers are increasingly using credit where they once spent cash. Bill Douglass, CEO of Douglass Distributing Co. in Sherman, Texas, explains that "the average gas station makes 1.5 cents per gallon and sells 4,000 gallons of gas a day.This means we generate about $60 in profit per day at the pump," Douglass said. So what does this mean for many filling stations? They're in the red.

Hancock, Laura. "Record Oil Company Earnings Haven't Trickled Down to Gas Stations." DESERET NEWS 5/11/2008 11 Sep 2008 . http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=20166

Levenson, Michael. "Tanks, but no thanks: Gas Station Owners driven off." Boston Globe 06/22/2008 11 Sep 2008 http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_9667776.

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore, a contemporary AAmerican photographer who has been working since the late 1960s, has been referred to as "one of the most important figures in early color photography". His work with the 8x10 view camera is profound. His compositions are frequently void of live subjects, yet unmistakably, they are visual commentaries of industrial repercussions. He is known for his deadpan takes on commonplace subjects, similar in scene to Walker Evans.

When asked in 2007 for his reactions to the digital revolution, and how it compares with the photography tools of earlier days, he reflected on the economical difference between a large format photograph, and the freedom of digital capture: "As one considers one's pictures less, one produces fewer truly considered pictures." Shore continues to work as an artist, and also serves as the Director of Photography at Bard College. He is represented by gallery 303.

Link to Stephen Shore Interview:

http://seesawmagazine.com/shore_pages/shore_interview.html

Gallery representing Stephen Shore:

http://www.billcharles.com/shore/stephenshore_1.htm

He is also represented by gallery 303:

http://www.303gallery.com/artists/stephen_shore/index.php

(Artisits doesn't have a web site)

(Un)Covered

William Kates, AP USA Today 5/17/2008
" Jennifer Marsh was sick of paying high gas prices and bothered by the abandoned gas station that was an eyesore on the drive to her studio each day.
So the aspiring artist and inspired activist came up with an idea -- to cover the gas station with a colossal handmade blanket in a way that would bring greater attention to the world's dependency on oil.
"I really tried to find a good balance of art and politics. I don't want it to be just a political statement. And I don't want it to just be a sculpture," said the 27-year-old Marsh, who is finishing her master of fine arts degree at nearby Syracuse University."

Kates, William. "Artist covers old gas station with huge blanket." USA Today 5/17/2008 3 Sep 2008 http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-05-17-3199215737_x.htm.

Marsh, Jennifer. "Documentation of Installation." http:/international fiber collaborative. International Fiber Collaborative. 3 Sep 2008 . http://www.internationalfibercollaborative.com/pages/documentation_of_installation.html


This artist's innovatiave approach brings attention to a problem expaning across the country: abandoned gas stations. Her physical treatment of the topic is drastically different than mine while be, but it deals with the same subject, and I hope my final product will be as effective.

Word Assignment: Reveal