Photochallenge #8: Found Text and the Urban Life

Ends: Friday, December 12, 2008

Brief: Find words or text that appeal to you anywhere in your environment. Wait for “something interesting” to happen, with pedestrians, with light, with framing, with angles! Anything creative that strikes you.

In photo challenge #7, we asked you to find things that were “not quite right”. We were amazed by the various submissions that we received and began to think of how our project offers this amazing opportunity for street-level exposure to so many urban centres around the world. Photo challenge #8 has further exploration of this topic at it’s objective.

Street photography became possible in the early 20th century when advancements in technology made it possible to carry a hand-held camera on one’s body. There was much excitement in the ability to capture “everyday life” as the common man experienced it. Street photography allows us to consider how what we see everyday impacts what we know about the world. Considering text as a common thread in urban life adds a common thread from which to view many street photographers’ works.

In the photography of Walker Evans, the visuality of urban life reveals important cultural information about his early 20th century work. At the time of his black and white street photography, capitalism was very much changing the appearance of city streets as the ability to mass produce goods brought about consumerist culture. As we readily recognize, urban street signage dots the landscape:

New Orleans Street Corner, 1935

What does this photo tell us about the urban setting in which it was taken? We can extract a lot just through a quick glance: what language is spoken there, what kinds of products are consumed there, what kind of cars are driven there etc. etc.. Objectively, it’s also relevant to look at the scene as a whole and consider how drastic the advertising really is in relation to the entire scene. Only the fruits and vegetables in the shop window remind us of the natural world and the resources that many of our products are created from.

Later, Fred Herzog mostly documented the changing streets of Vancouver, a city on the west coast of Canada, revealing again, the almost-overwhelming presence of street signs and advertisements, as the city moved from “backwater town” to a world-class city with many desirable goods and services for its inhabitants.

The above photo, taken in Vancouver in 1968, brings colour into the visual spectrum of street photography. The viewer is bombarded by brightly coloured neon and back-lit signage, “games, guns, movies,” “western gym,” “washington.”  

Most street photographers at this time were still using black and white, while Herzog preferred to work in Kodachrome, and shot on slide film. Although unnoticed for years, his work is now recognized as an important body of historical photographs.  Today, the colours, font and designs of those streets signs are associated with forgotten signage in dilapidated and run-down neighbourhoods. The fact that his slide films were just recently developed into prints for exhibitions provides an extraordinary opportunity to look at “new” prints that contain outdated cultural information, including fonts and colours that we no longer associate with contemporary  city scenes.

Arcade, 1968

Herzog also created some interesting use of text in his street photography. One word in the photo below hangs in the frame of a very theatrical San-Francisco moment. What is it about the word “only” that continually piques our curiosity each time we look at it? Here, Herzog has selected a moment in time, well aware of the text that lingers in the top of the frame, something we’re hoping our photo challenge participants will consider as they go out looking for inspiration.

Vercruz 96

Photo Challenge #5: Photo within a Photo

Ends: Monday, September 15th, 2008

Brief: Pick a photo in the Glocal flickr pool, print it out and create a new image by superimposing your chosen image on top of a backdrop that you have created. You can decide how to manipulate or interpret that backdrop, but please provide a link to the original image in your images’ description. 

Instructions: Tag your photo with “glocalproject” and “photochallenge5″ and add it to our flickr pool. Need help? Email us.

Our photo challenge topic this week was borne out of comparing historical references from the modernist photo movement with cool web art references. We’ve been inspired by the work of Kenneth Josephson  and the always entertaining web art of sleeveface.com. The contrast between the historical art reference and the web art reference seems to be a relevant challenge for Glocal, given that the project examines the history of photography while experimenting with the potential for mass collaboration on the web. We also like the concept of superimposition as a means to think critically about the uses to which photography is applied, both artistically and in popular culture.

Kenneth Josephson’s photos-within-photos create visual statements that prompt the viewer to think critically of photography, both as an art form and as a representation of reality.

This simple photo of a boat, held against the backdrop of the ocean, reminds us that an image is little more than a representation of reality and never reality itself.

On sleeveface.com, the concept is similar and repeatable. Contributing photographers select an album sleeve of their choice and re-create the scene outside of the borders of the album sleeve:

This beautifully positioned album sleeve lines up nicely with the newly created backdrop. It creates a new image that alters the original context of the album art. Like the Josephson image, the arm holding up the album both adds humour, and suggests that we are supposed to be aware of the layers between the images.

Unlike photographic re-creation (Photo challenge # 3 (re) Create), where the new image is a single layer and a re-interpretation of an earlier image, superimposing an image creates a new narrative that reminds us of the distance from reality that we experience as viewers.

Have fun!

This screenshot from Glocal’s Motion Sequence Application (MSA) is an anonymous portrait of a tree in Holland Park – one of the many trees that were being showcased at Surrey’s Fusion Festival!

 Hello Glocal Blog Readers!

This Summer season has become an extremely prolific one for the info-crew at Glocal… 

In addition to the Canada Day festivities, the Glocal project was also represented by the Fusion Festival in Surrey (July 19-20, 2008), another Cultural Capitals of Canada initiative.

Computers in the tent were used to allow visitors to get creative with a web-cam. An additional computer provided access to the glocal website and blog so that visitors could see first hand how to download the software applications and contribute to the project.

Here are some more pictures from this culturally diverse summer blockbuster event…

(Read more…)

The above image is an example of a participants’ response to exploring colour and motion using the Motion Sequence Application (MSA).

Hello Glocal Blog Readers!

Glocal just held a week-long intensive Digital Summer Camp that was hosted by both Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology and the Surrey Art Gallery.

22 Youth from Surrey were selected to take part in this free digital summer camp from July 14-18, 2008. (Read more…)

Canada Day

This is one of my favourite images from Canada Day. These beautiful Persian girls came into the tent and quite naturally made stunning images.

To view more Canada Day images, check out the new posts on our flickr pool.

Glocal ( working title ) is a large scale contributive artwork being developed for community collaboration and authoring by M. Simon Levin, Sylvia Grace Borda, and Jer Thorp at the Surrey Art Gallery’s Tech Lab. This long-term project will involve workshops, school and community outreach at a local and international arena, in addition, to engaging online participants to examine how to explore a technology-affected world.