Trainscape #1. Notes on "The New Topographics"

Notes on "The New Topographics" exhibit in Linz (Austria)

So I went to Linz (Austria) to visit the “New Topographics” exhibit just landed in Europe (on the 10 of November). Under a heavy snow in a pastel colored town I could not resist to recall a memory from “The Man Without Qualities” by Robert Musil where Ulrich’s cousin, Diotima, caught in a romantic afflatus points to a tree over a peak and raves something like “oh little tree who planted thee there” … “The Imperial Agronomist” is Urlich’s dreary answer (Forgive me for the large aproximation due to the circa 25 years separating me from the reading).
Just to start I cannot praise more the LandesMuseum for the bold initiative, the popular price (the lowest I’ve seen in several years) and wish them a good success even if, as you may recall from the previous post the outcome is not totally guaranteed.
Unfortunately due to my total lack of comprehension of the German language, the only available option in the exhibit, I could not read the rather long intro. I have no idea, neither I've found the option, if what I’ve seen is exactly as it was and what may have changed either in number either in quality of the prints. A man altered exhibit ? It’s reasonable to think that in so many years some prints have been replaced or sold or whatever. Given that the value of the exhibit is mainly historical I think that a couple of notes about the criteria of conservation and composition where due (in English too as an integral part of the exhibit instead of those, dusty museum like, display cabinets).
The media form of the exhibit allows for differences in size and in sequence otherwise conformed in the rigid book format. That sheds a slightly different light on each separate work. Joe Deal’s wide views acquire readability in the subtle composition and careful positioning of the elements in the landscape, remembered me that Paul Klee affirmed that “trees are the actors of the landscape” where I would add: pylons of various use.
Shott’s route 66 Motels series displays the photographer’s intentions. In actual landscape photography I think that compulsion is a required conceptual gadget.
Instead I’ve found that Robert Adam’s work is better rendered in the book (think that it is his ideal media), at first his pictures are a bit disappointing. I was expecting a larger size and a better readability to fully appreciate his Ansel Adamesque well tempered b&w, but at a closer look, and after a change in glasses, the glorious distribution of silver was there in its, rather small, beauty.
An then there is the clear feeling of the times being and passed, something that makes the exhibit look as the Velociraptor of photography, partly bird partly dinosaur. Partly in the “Epater le bourgeois” side, partly looking for a wage in the photographic industry, albeit as “Artists” ending up in choosing to lock up themselves in the less than ideal, for the circulation of ideas, world of the art collectors. Internet is a pivotal point in this regard as I have already written.
To be continued ...

Trainscapes

About the pictures: I started with the idea of trainscapes in recent times. Mainly its a collection of spare views taken from the running train along the connection between Tirano (Valtellina) and Milan. In the last year, having had enough of the heavy congestion the road taking there was suffering with times of 3 to 4 hours for just 152km (roughly a hundred miles), I decided to start using the train again as I was used to in my youth. Out of the train wind shield the landscape unfolds as a continuum with spots coming to memory and difference in what I’m seeing and what I remember. This makes an intense psychogeographic experience. However it cannot be considered a detour in the full sense. The starting and ending point is prefixed, nothing to discover there. However the experience of taking frames and view of a continuum, albeit finite, has strict connections with our every day partiality.


Italiano / Italian

Note sulla mostra  "The New Topographics"

Come da programma sono andato a Linz a vedere la mostra "New Topographics" appena sbarcata in Europa. Sotto una pesante nevicata in una città dai colori pastello non ho potuto resistere nel richiamare una memoria da "L'uomo senza qualità" di Robert Musil dove la cugina di Ulrich, Diotima, presa da un afflatto romantico indica un albero su un picco e declama "Oh alberello chi ti ha piantato lassù" ... "L'agronomo imperiale" è la grigia risposta di Ulrich (mi si perdoni l'imprecisione dovuta ai 25 anni che mi separano dalla lettura). Con quello in mente sono andato alla mostra "The New Topographics".
Per iniziare non posso che ringraziare il LandesMuseen per l'iniziativa coraggiosa, il prezzo, 6 EURO, il più basso degli ultimi anni. Auguro loro un buon successo anche se, come dal post precedente, il risultato non è del tutto garantito.

Sfortunatamente la mia totale ignoranza del Tedesco mi ha impedito di leggere la relativamente lunga introduzione. Non ho alcuna idea, e nemmeno ne ho avuto l'opportunità, che quanto ho visto corrisponda in qualche modo a come fosse in orgine (1975) e di cosa possa essere cambiato sia nel numero sia nella qualità delle stampe. E' ragionevole pensare che in così tanto tempo alcune stampe siano state cambiate o vendute o altro. Considerando che il valore della mostra è eminentemente storico credo che qualche nota in proposito alla conservazione e composizione fosse dovuta (in Inglese come parte integrante invece delle teche polverosamente museali).

La forma mediatica della mostra permette differenze in dimensione e sequenza altrimenti omologate (appiatite) dalla forma Libro. Questo getta una luce leggermente diversa su ciascun corpus fotografico separato. Le larghe visioni di Joe Deal acquistano in leggibilità nella sottile composizione e accuraro posizionamento degli elementi nel paesaggio raffigurato, mi hanno ricordato che Paul Klee ha affermato che gli alberi sono gli attori del paesaggio, cui aggiungerei i piloni di uso vario.

La serie dei Motel sulla Route 66 di Shott mostra le intenzioni del fotografo. Nel paesaggio contemporaneo la compulsione risulta essere un gadget indispensabile.

Al contrario trovo che il lavoro di Robert Adams renda meglio nel libro (penso sia il suo media ideale), sulle prime le sue immagini sono un pò deludenti. Mi aspettavo una maggiore dimensione per poter apprezzare al massimo il suo Bianco e Nero ben temperato alla Ansel Adams. Ma dopo un esame attento, ed un cambio di occhiali, la gloriosa distribuzione di argento era lì con la sua, seppur piccola, bellezza.
E poi c'è la chiara sensazione dei tempi che erano e che sono passati, qualcosa che rende la mostra simile al velociraptor della fotografia di paesaggio, in parte uccello in parte dinosauro. In parte sulla sponda dello “Epater le bourgeois” e in parte alla ricerca di una entrata dall'industria fotografica, seppur come artisti; finendo per chiudere se stessi nel meno che ideale, per la circolazione delle idee, mondo del collezionismo fotografico. L'internet svolge un ruolo di pivot a questo proposito come ho gia scritto altrove.


continua ...

Trainscapes ... il paesaggio dal  treno

In merito alle foto: Ho cominciato da poco con l'idea dei trainscapes. Primariamente si tratta di una collezione di singole viste prese dal treno in corsa sulla tratta da Tirano (Valtellina) a Milano. Nell'anno scorso, dopo averne avuto abbastanza della pesante congestione di cui soffre la strada che porta lì con tempi dalle 3 alle quattro ore per percorrere 152 chilometri ho deciso di ricominciare ad usare il treno come facevo da giovane. Fuori dal finestrino del treno il paesaggio si apre come un continuum con punti che ritornano alla memoria e differenze tra quanto vedo e quanto ricordo. Questo ne fa una intensa esperienza psicogeografica. Non può tuttavia essere considerato un detour a tutti gli effetti. Il punto di partenza e di inizio sono prefissati, nulla scoprire in ciò. Tuttavia l'esperienza del prendere frammenti e viste da un continuum, seppur finito, abbia una stretta connessione con la nostra parzialità quotidiana.

Alpine Pastorals #9 -- Perfect setups. A monument celebrating Pantani

Mortirolo, Mazzo in Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

Man altered landscape ?

A few posts ago I've started what it may be, from my perspective, an embryo of a critique to the “new topographics exhibit” and the following outcomes. By the way I’m going to Linz (Austria) to have the, long awaited, chance to study the exhibit in its first appearance in Europe. The interesting thing is this happens, more or less, 35 years after the exhibit was opened to the public for the first time. But in the end the question is: Am I going to look at the same thing ? I do not think that there is an easy “yes” here. While I can understand the operation under the marketing umbrella there is now something that it is not easy to grasp that positions the exhibit either in the past either in the now. As they would have said at the time “Between nothingness and eternety”. In recent times the “Guardian” approached the exhibit with a try to a critique. I do not totally agree with the writer however the article points out some aspects that may be questioned and along the lines several issues worth discussing come out. Certainly for an European to speak of the man altered landscape sounds a bit like a tautology per se.

Paesaggio alterato dall'uomo ?

Alcuni "post" fa ho cominciato quella che, dal mio punto di vista, considero come un approccio critico alla mostra chiamata "New topographics". Incidentalmente sto partendo per Linz (Austria) per avere la possibilità, molto attesa, di studiare l'esibizione nella sua prima Europea. La cosa interessante è che ciò accade circa 35 anni dopo la prima apertura al pubblico della mostra. Alla fin fine la domanda è: Sto andando a vedere la stessa cosa ? Non credo che ci sia una facile risposta puramente affermativa. Mentre posso capire l'operazione sotto l'ombrello di marketing c'è un qualcosa che non è facile da cogliere che posizione la mostra tra il passato e l'adesso. Come avrebbero detto al tempo "Between Nothingness and Eternity" (tra il Nulla e l'Eternità). In tempi recenti il “Guardian” ha approcciato la mostra con un tentativo critico. Non sono del tutto d'accordo con lo scrivente tuttavia l'articolo ne mostra alcuni aspetti discutibili e tra le righe escono diversi argomenti di cui varebbe la pena discutere. Certo che per un Europeo parlare di Paesaggio alterato dall'uomo suona un pò, di per se, come una tautologia.

Alpine Pastorals #8 -- Perfect setups. Arianrhod and cow

Mortirolo, Mazzo in Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

See here for an intro to the place and landscape for this small series. For the record this is the place where at age of 10 I met my first living viper: a short black one. Still remember how freezing up felt.

Per una introduzione al luogo trovate qui alcuni riferimenti relati al paesaggio di questa piccola serie fotografica. Un inciso nella mia storia personale. Questo è il luogo dove ho incontrato la mia prima vipera vivente a 10 anni, una corta e nera. Mi ricordo distintamente la sensazione di gelo.

Alpine Pastorals #7 -- Perfect setups. Rest and Picnic at 6076 feet

Mortirolo, Mazzo in Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

The pictures in this and some forthcoming posts where taken last year (2009). The place in object is of great interest for my analytic landscape photography for several reason. To begin with it is a place that is part of my former Italian youth (starting from the age of six). In all this time, 42 years (yes I know! that is also the "answer" in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), I've seen it change in dramatical ways, from a semi abandoned place to the theatre of one of the most popular stages in the road bicycle race named "Giro D'Italia". But the place also carries memories from the last two world wars with trenches still visible and ad memoriam plaques. Recently the place received the attentions of a "landscape architect" willing to celebrate the Giro's heroic gestures and to prepare it as a receptacle of the ongoing "naturalistic tourism" demand. The "fortunate" circumstance is that most of the public coming here also happens to have a high density of "Lega Nord" voters, an Italian party that in the last decade worked hard to establish an identity connected with "memoires" and mythologies from the pre Roman past in a truly post modern fashion.

Le immagini di questo e in alcuni post a venire sono state scattate l'anno scorso (2009). Il luogo in oggetto è di grande interesse per la mia fotografia analitica di paesaggio per molte ragioni. Per cominciare questo luogo è fa parte della mia prima infanzia Italiana (a partire da sei anni). I tutto questo tempo, 42 anni (si lo so questa è anche la "risposta" nella "guida galattica per autostoppisti"), l'ho vista cambiare in modo drammatico, da un luogo semi abbandonato a teatro di una delle tappe del "Giro D'Italia". Il luogo, però, porta anche il ricordo delle due guerre mondiali con trincee e lapidi a memoria. Recentemente ha ricevuto le attenzioni di un "architetto paesaggista" desideroso di celebrare le gesta eroiche del giro e di preparare il luogo per rispondere alla domanda di "turismo naturalistico". La circostanza "fortunata" è che la gran parte del pubblico che frequenta l'area risulta avere una alta densità di votanti della "Lega Nord", che nell'ultima decade si è data molto da fare a costruire una identità connessa con memorie e mitologie del passato pre Romano con uno stile squisitamente post moderno.

Alpine Pastorals #6 -- Perfect setups. Belvedere.

La Mota, Tovo S. Agata, Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

The recent rarefied posting is mainly due to some doubts about the function of this blog. In the beginning I meant it to be a container of my sparse thinkings on photography (visual ones included), progressively I've started looking for something more appropriate for the kind of media (the blog). I'm still not sure if this really works, but the use of series of successive views, sometimes reordered in editing, lends me to a twofold evaluation. On one side I really like the way this strategy lets me tell about a place, on the other the time span taken by the publication of the entire selection takes a cumbersome dimension given the post intervals; as an example consider that I still have four months left in the "Porta Garibaldi" series of urban landscape detours.

I'm evaluating two possible exit strategies: the first one is to downscale the subject size, it substantially consists in a reduction of the size of the space of interest so to produce a shorter presentation cycle, this short sequence on the "belvedere" is an attempt at it. The second one, not necessarily in opposition to the former, is to start making stronger selections at the cost of loosing the succession of my movements in the targeted landscape. The selection may be more on the photographic side, to the artefact side so to say. This summer I've made a lot of thinking about the opportunity to compress an experience like a drift/dèrive, in a set of autonomous pictures that could stand by themselves alone, but to rely on a single a picture feels unnatural at the moment.

An area where photography really differs from the other kinds of imaging is in the sequence, or better, the relatively easiness, and convenience, to repeat the take. It is not a case, I think, that one of the first significant contribution to the general knowledge coming from photography have been the sequences from Eadweard Muybridge on the Galloping Question

From this post I'm also starting to post an Italian rendering of the text.

La recente rarefazine dei post è in parte dovuta ad alcuni dubbi sulla funzione di questo blog. Inialmente ho inteso il blog come un contenitore di mie riflessioni, disordinate, sulla fotografia,e specificatamente sulla fotografia di paesaggio (espresse anche in forma visiva). Progressivamente ho cercato qualcosa di più adatto al media (il blog). Non sono ancora sicuro che funzioni, ma l'uso di serie di viste in successione, a volte riordinate durante l'editing, mi porta a una doppia valutazione. Da un lato mi piace molto il modo di raccontare un luogo che questa strategia mi consente, dall'altra l'intervalo di tempo richiesto per la pubblicazione diventa ingombrante posto l'attuale frequenza di post; come esempio si consideri che ho ancora quattro mesi di detours nel paesaggio urbano di "Porta Garibaldi".

Sto valutando due strategie possibili per uscire dal problema: la prima consiste nello scalare la dimensione del soggetto, sostanzialmente si tratta di diminuire lo spazio di interesse in modo di ridurre la lunghezza del ciclo di presentazione, questa breve sequenza sul "belvedere" ne costituisce un esempio. La seconda, non necessariamente opposta alla prima, consiste nel fare selezioni molto più stringenti al prezzo di perdere la mia successione di movimenti nello spazio del paesaggistico prescelto. La selezione avverrebbe più sul piano fotografico, sul lato, per cosi dire, del manufatto. Quest'estate ho sovente pensato all'opportunità di concentrare, in un insieme di immagini con una loro autonomia individuale, l'esperienza di una dèrive situazionista, ma basarmi su una singola immagine mi pare, al momento, innaturale. Credo che una delle differenze significative della fotografia rispetto ad altre forme di produzione immaginifica sia nella sequenza. Non è un caso che uno dei primi apporti alla conoscenza generale sia venuto dalle sequenze di Eadweard Muybridge sul Galoppo

Alpine Pastorals #5 -- Perfect setups. Belvedere.

La Mota, Tovo S. Agata, Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

Alpine Pastorals #4 -- Perfect setups. Belvedere.

La Mota, Tovo S. Agata, Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

Carrying on my digression on specialism, started with the previous post, I'd like to point out some considerations on what generally goes under the “New topographics” umbrella.

As many of you already knew “New Topographics” is the name of a collective photographic exhibit, that established, along with several other similar tendencies in Europe, a new horizon in the “photographable” in landscape imaging. Socio economically speaking there's no wonder, in such a perspective, that “Kodak”, back in the seventies of the past century, was interested in.

The exhibit however did not present an univocal concept or a unified view, even less some model to follow. While this is what makes it interesting, and in retrospect, forty years later, anticipatory, it is also one the reasons that limited the reach to a very restricted photographic realm. A simple measure may be derived by searching “New Topographics” in flickr and compare it to some other search key of your choice, try “landscape” itself to have a reference.

The exhibit is said to have had an impact in promoting photography as a general form of art. I'm not sure of that, and even if that was true that of contemporary art may be an even smaller domain.

Alpine Pastorals #3 -- Perfect setups. A hand of paint.

Guspessa, Sernio, Valtellina. Click the images to enlarge

And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over this bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again and again, and said at last: "That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!" I looked still more attentively- and actually there did move under the ear something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk- the stalk, however, was a man! A person putting a glass to his eyes, could even recognise further a small envious countenance, and also that a bloated soullet dangled at the stalk. The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when they spake of great men- and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Just a short quote while thinking about the ghettoes of photography. I'm not a great fan of Magnum but I have been really interested by some passages from the interview with Martin Parr linked in the last post.

Specialism in photography has several declinations. It may be an interesting study tracing them back to the origins.

An interesting case is the one that, conventionally, goes under the umbrella of the "New Topographics". To be honest the thing is so specialized that it is even impossible to circumscribe it without resorting to a rather long sequel of caveats, too many for a blog, partially covered by the never enough praised recent re edition of the exhibit catalog: "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, held in 1975 at the International Museum of Photography" edited by Steidl.

Alpine Pastorals #2 -- Suggested views

Riserva Naturale di Pian di Gembro. Valtellina

Rhetorics

I have already written about the question of the subjectivity pervading any kind of picture making. Objectivity is, in this conceptual frame, a kind of rhetoric artifice, obtained following some rules in the making and reinforced by a normative set of rules derived by an external, to the image, context by some authority as it is the case of a jury for a contest.

One of the rhetoric artifices, in this area, is the placing, inside of the image, of an ersatz viewer. This create a short circuit between the (real) viewer and the place holding one. I think that it operates exactly on the relation between the viewer and photographer, a relation based on substitution.

An other artifice, that I recently encountered studying XVII and XVIII century Dutch painters, is the placement of a curtain over an inner frame that is supposed to be the real image. There are some nice tales about competitions among painters where the game was to paint an extremely realistic curtain so that the viewer was tempted to remove it.

But to close this post let me point you to this interesting interview with Martin Parr that made me think a lot about the whys and whats of photographic expression.

Alpine Pastorals #1 -- Little Red Cap

Riserva Naturale di Pian di Gembro. Valtellina

A kind of ruin

A ruin, in our common knowledge, is any building that, lost its original function, lays in a state of abandonment and decay. But, as it was the case of the "Parco Agricolo Sud Milano", the built environment goes far beyond the sphere of the constructions to embrace the larger category of any man made or shaped environment.
Recently, looking at the book "Tree line" by Robert Adams, this idea hit me in a clear way. In his book Adams presents several pictures of remnants of environmental works, such as wind barriers, made by living trees instead of bricks, rocks and adobe. At first this may sound a bit disorienting but how would you call them if not "ruins" ?
It is the case of almost all the Alpine landscapes. Far from retaining their original function most of the Alpine landscapes now have been frozen to the present into something more like a wax museum either by nature conservationist either by tourism promoters.

A first attempt on blurb.com: AMNESIA

AMNESIA by Mauro Thon Giudici

A few months ago I have pointed out my will to exploit the opportunities that on line book publishing is offering. In planning the first attempt, just to see how things worked, I had been looking for something simple and concise with a few pictures just to keep down the time needed to rework every thing several times.

The idea was to get ready in time for the participation to the “Photography book now” (PBN) contest on hosted by blurb with a more demanding work.

Along the way several factors intervened disrupting the road map that I figured out and the PBN project became the testing bed for the first book.

As a move it was not so smart as a way to participate to a contest. I ended up doing everything in a hurry and without the time to rework several things in the book composition that I do not like and I certainly need to do a more thorough photo editing. In the printed version the images lack of contrast, the rendering of the printed photos was one of my main concerns given the not so close resemblance of the preview available in photoshop via the blurb CMYK profile. I do not print either as a choice either cause I am really not interested in prints, even the ones in the galleries do not tell me that much if compared to the ones in a book. So with a very little experience in printing relying only on the photoshop simulation via the blurb profile is not so realistic, and it could not have been otherwise given the different media. The main problem is to catch the proper black point, as for colour, I think that all of us who publish in a blog or rely entirely upon online appreciation have already adopted the habit of not being worried to much by colour inconsistency or shifts. Unfortunately, I suspect, there is little to do except to pick up some experience with the usual "try / test / redo" routine.

But even with all the defects I'm quite happy with it as a first result and certainly to participate gave me a deadline to meet. Let me know what you think about it and in case you like it vote for it.

Refrain from buying :-D I am going to update it with a new and corrected release just after the end of the contest.

By the way I'm back from the vacancies from the Alps. The blog vacancy however lasted a bit more. Trouble is that my vision on the use of the media are still confused. Sometimes I think about the blog as a device to display some ongoing work sometimes, instead, I feel that it has its own peculiar traits. I'm trying to sort this out.

Blog vacation

I'm entering a fifteen days blog vacation in the Alps. See you soon.

Milan ordinary landscapes. Giardino Robert Baden-Powell #7

Milano Giardini (gardens) Robert Baden-Powell

A separate reality

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

Taken from "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

In the last post I've made some remarks about the status of a picture with regard to its genesis. Looking back I think that I need to make some adjustments to what may seem, otherwise taken, a gigantic naivete.

A picture, or a photo, has its own reality as an artefact. Itself a picture defines a space. Its own, the one enclosed in its boundaries. As such a photo may be considered an endpoint to a process of production. At least this is what is implied by “having a purpose” or being “finalized”. A photo, however, is not exactly a finite object, it is, so to say, only one half of it. What remains is to be supplied by the viewer along the different, implied, reading axis. More, in our times, the support is no longer needed to have some very large circulation. Loosing its body has photography lost its finalization ? I'm not sure of this. Browsing trough photography blogs there seems to be a recognizable nostalgia of the print on one side and “a not totally clear” onto the other, but the line is starting to get clearer demarcating the former photographer's approach to the Internet as a device to point to something else living outside (the prints) from the ones that are interested in exploiting directly the media as a transport device for the, now incorporeal, exchange of little pieces of space.

But just to divagate from a theme ways too hot for this summer there is an other interesting question rising up laterally. Once we start to consider that of a picture a space of its own we are opening the possibility to explore it visually. This metalevel has been achieved in the early times of photography itself. The Alinari where among the first to make a successful and profitable use of photography in representing pictorial spaces. In recent times Richard Prince had a vast media exposure on the question of reuse (aka explorations, or appropriation) of ready made visual artefacts. Back in the seventies, when conceptual art was made, many photographers worked on the theme of reuse and exploration of the two dimensional world of past or utilitarian imaging. I suppose that each of those in my age has got some kind of inspiration from that. The “not Art” applied to photography at the time, however, relegated those quests to the oblivion.

So it is with great appreciation that I salute a bold move from a small Italian Art Gallery: “The Studio Glenda Cinquegrana”, based in Milan, that is trying to promote, not without merits, the works from a young Artist who is focusing, mainly, for my knowledge, on the “flatlands” of past landscape painting.

Milan ordinary landscapes. Giardino Robert Baden-Powell #6

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Milano Giardini (gardens) Robert Baden-Powell

"When the real world changes into simple images, simple images become real beings and effective motivations of a hypnotic behavior. The spectacle as a tendency to make one see the world by means of various specialized mediations (it can no longer be grasped directly), naturally finds vision to be the privileged human sense which the sense of touch was for other epochs; the most abstract, the most mystifiable sense corresponds to the generalized abstraction of present day society," Guy Debord “The Society of the Spectacle”.

A picture, it does not matter that much how produced, is itself an object. For a lot of people it may be even an object of desire. The desire to make something similarly spectacular, or beautiful or so. For others the need to have it is the most "natural" consequence. Purpose may be a good practical key for interpreting the meaning coming from the match between the photographers intentions and the addressee, as Mike Chisolm pointed out in an interesting post. To transform real things into objects of desire is an ancient wanna be dating back to Midas' King myth. The consumerist society give us only this opportunity of expression ?

Since I'm a strong, and somewhat masochistic, idealist (or if you are better a giant egocentric) I firmly believe that there may be other ways or purposes. One of them is certainly, as much as cicadas do, to mark my place in this world, as a viewer. In this case photographs are, for me, simply an outcome of a stream of conscious viewing.

Landscape photography, among other genres, has lots of roots in the need to transform places in something that can be sold. It's not a case that one of the most celebrated, Ansel Adams, landscapists started exactly from that point as he points out in his biography; certainly he succeeded. But on the darker side he also succeeded in the production of that unhappiness that may be subsumed under the “Vacation blues”, that subtle depression that takes in when the place you desired so much does not match with the projection build upon the encountered images.

It seems to me that this may be the zeitgeist of landscape photography, a profound tension among the need to built up objects of desire and the need to communicate the experience, not always positive, of looking at our world.

But getting to more amusing things, the strict followers of this blog certainly know of my personal interest in the Situationist International. Recently I've been amused by what I would call “Born Again Situationism” that seems to pop up every where, even in suspicious academic contexts. I do not have any shareable key to understand why except to read it in a postmodern light as pointed out by this paper.

Milan ordinary landscapes. Giardino Robert Baden-Powell #5

Milano Giardini (gardens) Robert Baden-Powell