Attention and awareness are strange things that are guided by the physics of observation, the serendipity of interaction, and our personal choices. The awareness of synchrony has a magic to it. It may even be one of the primary sub-conscious or conscious seductions of art and science.
When one pays conscious attention to a certain thing or set of things, those things become omnipresent in one’s awareness and life—one notices them more because one has shifted one’s attention to them.
This project is an exploration of my personal convergence with two or more independent occurrences of similar or complementary colors within a moment in time. I am interested in exploring the science and action of serendipity in life, and color is an excellent tool of artistic amplification.
This is a self-published, 80 page photography book with a three page description of the project. It is published in a 7" square format to keep the retail cost low. One can see a preview of the book online by visiting www.blurb.com and searching for NokomisAman or the title of the book. I tried to have a permalink, but apparently blurb changes their link addresses.
The price of my print version of this book were excessive even for me, so thanks to contemporary offerings in electronic publishing, my research can now be purchased for $4.95 through Barnes & Noble.
I have re-arranged the work to be clearer. I also added a new preface. The title has changed as well, but only by a couple words. Click on the title below and it will take you to the purchase page.
A recent photography project under development is my impressionistic landscape imagery. These images are photographic deconstructions of landscapes created to break images down to their basest patches of light, shadow, and color. While technically not an art-science project, I had considered shooting this type of imagery for a many years, but only recently embraced it. I needed to build a sufficient library of traditionally-made imagery before I could confidently make this change. It has been liberating.
These images are distinctly disadvantaged in the online and electronic world—they suggest no distinct place, no product, no activity, not even defined landscapes. These images actually look much better printed on paper than they do online—an uncommon and welcomed trait for this project indeed. The locations are ambiguous and could exist anywhere. They tap into anyone’s memories of virtually any landscape within the same visual language subset. They pick at our basic recognition of shape and color combinations but also contain subtlety of form to create their mutable reality.
It is this expressly non-digital feel, and non-traditional use of the camera that is so attractive to me in this age where the general public expects the camera to face-detect, autofocus, expose, color enhance, and correct their photos. My images oppose the expected results provided by technological crutches.
While there is an indication of subject matter, there aren’t areas of sharp definable spaces beyond the impression of transitions between color areas. I use digital technology, but the basis of the final product is visually non-digital, non-commercial, non-stock, non camera-enabled.
I started to call these impressionistic landscapes, but in reality, they are the diffusion of landscapes into component colors, shades, and tonalities. The images emphasize the importance of composition in photography. The camera becomes, once again, a tool for artistry, rather than just a crutch for the masses to use in surveillance, online auction sales, social networking, “citizen journalism,” or stock imagery.
While it sounds like I am a Luddite, I am actually the opposite. I sell stock imagery, have an online presence, and have several blogs. I use image editing technology, scanners, digital asset management programs, and digital camera technology. I feel, however, that the reflection on, and the exploration of progress requires a nostalgia for the artistry it originally supported. This type of grounding experience can provide necessary real-world footholds for transitions in thought creation and better use of existing technologies. It is a means of exposing what is really important and useful in technology in opposition to that which creates false confidences and uncommon results. This project both embraces the imaging technology and simultaneously deconstructs the intent and commonly embraced visual language of the imagery. If nothing else, I hope you enjoy it as a departure from the daily bombardment of traditionally created online imagery.
Like the images in my recent Art-science Photography project called: Photographer-centered Non-linear Temporal Networks as Expressed through Street Portraits? Please vote for them on the PDN Faces Contest People's Choice awards. It can be reached by going to http://facesphotocontest.com and then typing "Aaron J. Fahrmann" in the Search Photographer Name box or, this link will take you there directly. Please vote soon--the contest is going on right now!
Artist’s Statement (as posted in the 2007 installation)
Linear, or chronological time, is something that we have been conditioned to think that we experience daily. Time can be a second-by-second obsession for some and a second thought for others. We often let it go unnoticed until we have scheduled a meeting with someone else, at which point time becomes all that we can think about. We try to control the universal rhythms of synchrony with other events by rushing to get somewhere “on-time.” We get angry when we can’t move through space at the pace that we desire to reach our destination on-time, often only to find out that our rush was unnecessary.
But what is time? How do we really experience it? Just because the clock says that time moves in one direction doesn’t make it necessarily so. This project is designed to show a new way of moving through time, one that is based on networks, synchrony, chaos and complexity and ultimately human choices and movements within it—not necessarily through it. This is a physical installation designed to mimic the realm of my theory of Personal Bubble Universes. This project looks at time as existing in all directions simultaneously and each of us as centers of our own individual bubble universes. Our birth, in this new idea of time, is a small “Big Bang” into which our universe begins expanding outward in all directions similar to the traditional scientific concept of the larger universe. Our death similarly is the contraction of this universe gradually, beyond our passing. The universe, in my opinion, is made up of an infinite number of Bubble-verses and each of us occupies one, or potentially even more than one of these personal universes.
To demonstrate the grander universal need to synchronize, I have placed a number of blinking metronomes on a pedestal with clear plastic. If they are not synchronized, just wait a few hours—they will. One can see that the metronomes are not connected by any wires and their only common ground is the clear plastic surface on which they are mounted, yet after enough time has passed, these metronomes will begin to synchronize. They will blink either opposite of each other, in a progressive circle, or all in unison. This is not a construct of anything that I have done to them; this is just a mysterious organizational quality in the universe that creates this synchronization. The metronomes are set to similar time frames (beats per minute,) but they will eventually synchronize to some distinctive blinking pattern even if they were set to random time frames—the synchronization would just be more obscure in its pattern. There is even the potential that the digital photo frames will synchronize as well. These frames are also unconnected with the exception that they share a power bar and a single extension cord.
The metronomes are just one element of synchrony to discover in this space—and they are but one feature of the universe demonstrated. Watch the pedestals for ideas on time, dimensionality and directionality. Think about the path through which you traveled the installation and how your choices affect your experience of the space. Think about the relevance of the words you see on the paper pyramids and how they relate to your life. If your attention is drawn to something, especially if it occurs more than once, acknowledge it and it may make sense to you either now or later.
I invite you to move through this space and lose track of linear time. Use the finger labyrinths placed in the space to aid your mind in letting go of linear time. Watch the water movies and try to determine which way time is moving in the video (some are backward, some are forward, and some are mirrored. Attune your mind to the experiences in this space and notice everything as a component of the whole experience. Ask questions of yourself and see if your movement through the space starts to synchronize to the answers.
This is an Art-science Installation project. The creation of this project is the culmination of my interest in the sciences and passion for the arts. Its conceptual nature is designed to provide you with an experience of a new idea of time which I call Personal Bubble Universes. Time and space have always been an area of interest for me since I first read of the strange and wonderful occurrences that are a part of Einstein’s theory of relativity and the resulting odd quantum world that has emerged in its wake.
My hope is that in working your way through the installation that these choice points will become clearer. I have designed this environment to amplify one’s experience of synchronistic events. Chaos theory is involved in many ways, but the most direct and observable influence is on the movement of the paper pyramids. Each of our movements within and around the space of the installation affects the air currents in the installation. Further affects are observable when a ventilation system turns on. The pyramids contain words which change orientation with these air currents. Your location and choices within the installation affect the words and experiences you have in the installation. In order for the installation to work, you need to be involved in it.
Defying Time and Space: Photographer-centered Non-Linear Temporal Networks
I have been interested in street photography since my initial introduction to Garry Winogrand’s photography, but only began my artistic practice of it in 2003. Street photography connects well with my interest in the effects of science on our everyday lives. I am interested in the serendipity of the moment, the camera’s as a tool of dimensional compression, and the synchronistic convergence of personal time-space bubbles.
Several years ago as part of a larger state fair street photography project, I began visually isolating individuals with the camera from the crowds at the state fair. This type of street portraiture acts to isolate the subject even further from the street by limiting ambiguous visual context. The subjects often aren’t aware that they are the subject of the street portrait. Their faces express their emotions of the moment. Other subjects are cognizant that they may be the subject of the portrait and either have a look of surprise, annoyance, or pleasure associated with their expression. In the grand scheme of events happening in the world, their presence converged with my creative intent to create this image.
My images are made in part to understand the nature of serendipity in the act of being photographed in a public setting. I use spatial compression and foreshortened optical depth to isolate the subject from the crowd and most of its context. The resulting images, however, allow the viewing audience to interpret a stranger without the interactive social filters we use in public interaction. The viewers advantage is that they are not restricted by norms of bi-directional social conduct which limit one’s stare to a brief glance. Some viewers may interact with the images much as they would within a crowd, others will create a story or judgment based on their own experiential context. These are public persona portraits of people—with few game changers other than the crowd itself.
To demonstrate the effects of implied spatially and temporally dynamic networks, synchrony, and serendipity in the installation, the images can be mounted to posts and displayed together, spread out, but as a representation of time compression and the serendipity of the moment in which my time converged with their time. The empty space in between them is a metaphorical connection made up of non-linear time, geographic convergence and spatial separation, but with the primary connection of me, the photographer, in this case acting as a hub of the nodal network. The people (nodes) are removed from their respective times in a specific space. They were photographed in different areas, times of day and possibly even different days. The people come from a wide ranging geographical areas and converged on this one event over a two week period. They coincidentally merged their time with mine in the vast number of possible choices they could have made. What set of circumstances brought these particular people to my lens? What serendipity placed them and me at the same place within a shared moment? Chaos? Emergence? Synchrony? Predetermination? Will? These are some of the questions I am posing with my photographs.
Every wonder why time can feel like it drags on forever or passes quickly? Or why a series of coincidences can line up to make interesting changes in our lives? This book is an exploration of time in a slightly different manner than has ever been considered. It looks at how we experience time relative to ourselves based on many scientific theories and a theory of my own. We are the center of our own personal bubble universe. Time doesn't move as the clock would indicate in our personal bubbleverse. Our choices create our experience of time and the opportunities that surround us.
This book was written partially before the Art-science installation was exhibited, and partially after it was taken down. It was designed as a thesis/creative project, but was written for a broad audience of readers.
Enjoy it--if nothing else, I hope it proves a thought provoking read!
