Exercise

for ths exercise I have to comment on the pixelated images of Thomas Ruff in the light of two reviews by Colberg (1) and Campany (2).

Colberg as well as writing his review has since then also had a go at pixellation himself (3). Ruff's images were created in response to 9/11 – he was actually in New York at that time but all his negatives were blank. He still felt he had to do something and so the idea of deliberately making photos pixellated occurred to him. Colberg's pixellated pictures are also in response to violence – he found that explosions from US military websites were the best subjects.

I was very glad to see pixellation as part of the course as you see I have tried it myself and I thought perhaps it wasn't a good photo but I liked it and again it was in response to 9/11. I wasn't in New York at the time but it is one of my last memories of my late father – he was lying on the sofa and I came in and put the tv on and the first tower had been hit and they came with their camera and kept it rolling and then the second tower was hit – I watched this for hours. BUT I was in New York just after the exterior of the new World Trade Centre was finished and that time it was the opening of the new Ground Zero Museum also. One of my brothers now works in New York and his apartment block is directly opposite across the Hudson in Jersey City – he has vivid memories of 9/11 too as he worked in Reuters in London at the time. So here is my pixellated photo of the new WTC shrouded in fog plus another photo of the new Manhattan skyline in which I used duotone in Picasa to give a spooky effect.

References


(1) http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2009/04/review_jpegs_by_thomas_ruff/

(2)http://davidcampany.com/thomas-ruff-the-aesthetics-of-the-pixel/

(3)http://jmcolberg.com/american-pixels

Other work I read and viewed :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Colberg

http://www.thefirst10000.com/joerg-colbergs-photography-after-photography-considered-or-a-response-to-a-provocation/ :

“But if we reframe photography (pun only partly intended) – what it’s for, how it works, and what it’s capable of doing – we might move closer to something that’s always changing, growing, and evolving, that is capable of being intuitive and responsive rather than limiting or dictating possibilities. In the meantime, the rest of us will fumble along as best we can, looking for and trying new ways of seeing and new ways of creating until, by sheer stubbornness and persistence, someone somewhere arrives at something truly new”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLyOSkokn_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRRPd5NcGkc