Free-write–Dadaist Photomontage in Motion: Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out Music Video

 If a Dadaist photograph moved, what would it look like? Alternative rock band, Franz Ferdinand, offers an almost four minute answer to that question. The 2004 music video heavily borrows from the dadaist imagery. Sometimes the video references specific images. One example is Moholy-Nagy’s Composition Z VIII:

 

 

Still from the music video.

There were obvious connections to the cultural period the song references. One being the band naming themselves after the Duke whose assassination tipped off WWI. I thought there was no other connection to that time besides the song title and the lyrics. After learning about photomontage, I’ll never see this video the same again.

 As mentioned in the textbook, the montage was realized in film. The purpose was the same– there were strong politics behind the aesthetics of the technique. Sergei Eisenstein, a Soviet montage filmmaker, saw in montage the potential because it did not present ideas in the traditional format. The haphazard cut and pasting of photos of Dada is one way to describe the filmic montage style. Instead of magazine and newspaper images the medium was found film or film shot by the filmmaker themselves. The film was then edited in a way that defied forms of film narrativity—scenes appearing to begin and end like we expect them to. Montage filmmakers created meaning in film by editing alone–it was the juxtaposition of different film’s together. No meaning was in a lone film still.

The Dadaists were also about altering perception through non-traditional image production. How well does Ferdanand’s video realize the Dadaist intent through their filmic presentation of 2D photomontages?  Personally, I feel—although it’s a worthy attempt—the video could have tried to recreate the fast cut-and-paste film editing reminiscent of the Soviet Montage. But no one is trying to make a political statement. Instead what we have here is just a darn good music video.

 

Grosz and Heartfield’s photomontage

I studied George Grosz and John Heartfield’s photomontage technique. They were a part of the avant-garde Dada movement. Post-WWI art movements rejected the lofty materials and formal properties of painting traditions. The Dada saw mass media like newspaper and magazine images as a legitimate medium to portray their ideas heralding the rapid modernity seeping into everyday life. Their work together showed obvious blocking of shapes with line going every which of way. But I focused my project on Heartfieild’s brand of photomontage where the cut-and-paste look was downplayed, creating an even image.

            I tried to achieve that blending effect. I wanted to lessen the appearance of the images being separate photos. I wanted my montage to look like all the photos were one image, all equally lying flat. What I did was scan the original collage and copied it onto computer paper. I would re-scan the paper print along with the original to add in parts that I missed the first time. For example the legs under the “paradise” banner were the result of a second scan-copy job. Afterwards I cut out the areas I thought were extraneous to my intent. I wanted to capture the playful cynicism of Heartfield’s work.

Challenges did arise. I didn’t have the materials to achieve the effect I wanted. Heartfield and Grosz were mindful of the kind of lines and forms that resulted from joining separate photos together. A jagged line would imply one meaning while a mechanical cut would imply another. Lines and forms that result from ripping and tearing versus hand-held scissor or a straightedge. If I redid the project, I’d be sensitive to the various meanings based on the lines and forms that result from different cutting/pasting techniques.

Click here for more of Heartfield’s photomontages.

Man Ray

The photographer our groups was assigned was Man Ray. Working in the early 20th Century, Man Ray was involved in a group know as the surrealists. In his compositions or Rayographs, which he named after himself, Man Ray would create a composition out of ordinary, recognizable objects. His works were also subject to a reversal of tones due to the process, which was later cleverly dubbed “photography inside out.”

 . This was my attempt to create a Rayograph. I thought that using a negative effect on the digital camera we were using I could accomplish this “inside out” effect. I also thought the use of puzzle pieces only further lent to the enigmatic imagery of the surrealist vision.

Free Write– Banksy and Photography

I’m sure at this point at least some of you are familiar with the works of the street artist Banksy. While his work can now be seen in cities across the world, the only way I have ever had the opportunity to experience his work is through photographs. This got me thinking about the transience of street art itself and how it survives through photography and also about some of Banksy’s subjects themselves and their relation to photography.   This first picture is a billboard that Banksy had graced with his artistic prowess on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. . Haha. Fortunately the good folks at CBS had it taken down within hours of its first appearance. However without the presence of a lens to capture the fleeting presence of a work of art like this, it would be lost before it could be appreciated by the world at large.

Banksy has often chosen to appropriate elements from other artists and photographers works into his own. One of hist most famous works entitled Napalm borrows the subject of photographer Nick Ut’s photo Children Fleeing From A Napalm Strike. By coupling this little girl with these childhood favorites, Banksy is making a statement about the effect of corporate culture and consumerism on children in our society today. 

A Photo That In Some Way Changed My Life

Starting in February of 2010 I had the opportunity to spend four months in South Africa. It was not until after touching down in Jo’burg after 20 some hours of traveling that i realized that my camera had failed to make the journey with me. This unfortunately came as a huge disappointment and for the next sixteen weeks I had to resort to using disposable cameras to capture my experiences. Although I have been fortunate enough to travel a decent bit so far in my life, I have yet to encounter a place that is naturally as beautiful as South Africa. That being said, it only enforces how foolish I felt for forgetting my camera.

While we worked every day of the week, we had the weekends free to do with as we pleased. Usually this meant trying to spend the next forty-eight hours scrambling to see as much of the country as we could before having to return to work on Monday. On my fifth weekend in country a group of six of us decided to make our way up to a small town 125 kilometers up the Western Cape from Cape Town called Langebaan. Located on the southern Atlantic ocean, this town was a popular destination for locals to simply just get away. It was here that I had the opportunity to take the picture that I think some way changed my life…at least in regards to photography.

As the sun was going down on the first day, we were all hanging out on the beach prior to heading to dinner. When suddenly I turned around and noticed this cat sitting above one of the houses behind us. I instantly felt captivated to take a picture and capture this scene. Its not that I have an unusual affinity for cats or anything like that…. It was just the first time I really felt the urge to take a picture of something. So I borrowed a friend’s camera and got to it. After coming back, she finally sent me a copy of the image and I have to say that I am quite proud with the end result. 

Andrew Doherty – Albert Renger-Patzch

The avant garde photographer that I researched was Albert Renger-Patzsch. Particularly, Renger-Patzch was an early 20^th century photographer who was associated with the avant garde artistic movement known as new objectivity.

His art work was known for the way in which he captured extreme close ups. These close ups consisted of interesting patterns that would seem to pop out from his photographs, easily catching his audience’s attention. His art work was also noted for the extreme art work at which he took his pictures. His snap shots were either taken from extremely high above or extremely far below his subjects, catching an interesting, not so obvious view of the item he was trying to capture.

When I took my photograph that tried to portray Renger-Patzch’s photos, I tried to capture each of the three aspects I listed above, each well known features of his photographs. I chose to take a picture of the stairs in the main hallway of the Old College building because I found the patters of each step interesting. To further imitate Renger-Patzch’s photography style by taking an extreme close up of the steps at an angle that would seem interesting to the viewers, going below the bottom step all the way up to the top step

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Into the vortex…

Vorticism was an early 20th century modernist movement in British Art. The style was a departure from traditional mainstream landscapes, instead featuring abstract arrangements of geometric forms. The American expatriate poet Ezra Pound attributed the name Vorticism to the artistic movement.

Vorticism entered into photography when Ezra Pound introduced the style to Boston native Alvin Langdon Coburn. Coburn began his experimentation in Vorticism with portraits of Ezra Pound.

Coburn achieved a kaleidoscopic appearance in his photographs by attaching a configuration of three mirrors to the camera lens. The result is a refraction of the original subject into multiple visual planes. Ezra Pound identified Coburn’s mirror contraption as a vortoscope, and he called the photographs that Coburn created with this technique vortographs. Aside from the initial portraiture, Coburn also featured cityscapes and interesting geometric subjects in his experimentation with the vortoscope. Several of his vortographs resemble reflected prismatic or crystalline imagery. Although the vortograph technique is unique and interesting, Coburn produced fewer than twenty images in this style over the course of about a month before moving on to other avenues in his life.

Absent an actual vortoscope, it is difficult to mimic this photographic style. At first, I attempted to produce vortographic images by setting a slow shutter speed and rotating the camera during exposure. While this method produces a repeating image in different positions, it does not quite achieve the angular reflected or refracted effect seen in Coburn’s vortographs. Seeking a better method, I manufactured a configuration of “mirrors” by inserting aluminum foil into compact disc jewel cases. I placed the “mirrors” in a triangular arrangement and photographed through them from above at a variety of angles. I used a Scrabble game board as my subject because I felt that would achieve at least an approximation of the geometric look to Coburn’s vortographs. In each case, I set a slow shutter speed in order to maximize the amount of reflected light entering the camera during the exposure time. Sometimes I rotated the camera as well to add a blur effect. For a few of the images, I photographed in a black and white mode with the digital camera, while others I changed to black and white with photo editing software. I also adjusted the contrast for my final images.

Coburn vortograph portraits of Ezra Pound courtesy of:

Los Angeles County Museum of Art – http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=112519;type=101

and Grahame Putland Gallery – http://www.grahameputlandgallery.com/platinum/02coburn.04.html

-Matt

 

Alvin Coburn – Vortograph

The photographer that my group was assigned to was Alvin Coburn. Speicfically, we examined the brief period that he was interested in a technique known as Vorticism. This technique was part of the modernist movement and it used a device that involved many different mirrors attached the the lens of a camera in order to create a kaleidoscope-like effect.

This type of image was the first true abstract photograph that was taken. Coburn’s experimentation with this technique was brief. He later would end up rejecting modernism entirely and adopt the druidic religion.

It was rather difficult for me to replicate this type of image without using photo editing software or special equipment like the original vortographs were created with. However, I did use my DSLR to slow the shutter speed and turn the camera while the shutter was open. This allowed me to create an effect that seemed to have the geometric and repeated shapes that are characteristic of the vortograph.

Here’s the result I came up with. This is an image of the checkered floor that was taken in the manner described above. My disappointment with this image lies in the speck inside the lens, the camera obviously had gotten dirty when changing lenses at some point. Overall, however, I enjoyed this exercise as it provided a useful insight into how the pictures we study were created and what was involved in the process of their creation.
Vortograph image was taken from MoMA’s website : http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A1164&page_number=15&template_id=1&sort_order=1

Alvin Langdon Coburn – Vorticism

Alvin Langdon Coburn was an early twentieth century photographer. He is most well known for his abstract type of photography known as vorticism. He is credited with creating the first truly abstract photograph. Although Coburn is most well known for his use of vorticism, he only spent a few months out of his entire career using the technique.

Vorticism is a technique in photography that uses multiple mirrors attached to the lens to create a kaleidoscope effect. The mirrors cause light to reflect off of each other and create a truly abstract feel.

The top image is an image by Alvin Langdon Coburn titled Bicycle Wheel Vortograph. The bottom image was taken by me to attempt to replicate the vortocist technique that Coburn used.

In order to obtain the image that I did, I slowed the shutter speed down and closed the aperture a bit.While taking the photograph, I quickly turned the camera ninety degrees to try and replicate the effects of the mirrors that created the vortograph. After The photograph was taken, I edited it on the computer by turning it in to a black and white image. It was difficult to recreate the images that Coburn used because I did not have mirrors attached to my lens. I also did not have many geometrical options to choose from, like Coburn preferred to photograph when using the vortocisim technique. Overall, the learning experience of trying to recreate the techniques was fun.

 

Here is where you can access the information I used to create this post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Langdon_Coburn

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425820620/141083/alvin-langdon-coburn-bicycle-wheel-vortograph.html

My surrealistic work

My photo is about Man Ray. He is a surrealist photographer who activated during the early 20 century. Since what he believed in is about the subconscious, all he works are deep into human’s subconscious. The strong difference between dark and white makes viewer gets influence by his work. The day after I saw his picture on the Google images, I cannot sleep. When I close my eye, this picture will show up in my mind, which scared me. In my opinion, this shows how man ray got succeed. At least, he can make people get shock by his work.

For my own picture, I took a negative picture from the balcony of our class room. It is a regular view of the old college. I saw the same view at the first day I have been to Newark in 2009. However, when I change the view into a negative picture, it gives me a whole novelty experience. Trees were not familiar with anymore. The fence and the road were totally different from what they should be. By taking a so-called X-ray picture, I want to make people notice that even everyday’s view can be a band new landscape if being presented in a different way. What we are familiar with in the daily life also may means another different thing. The process of taking views that being familiar by the people into different is also a process of shaking people’s subconscious. In the common sense, people understand that the picture is just about what they have seen thousand time. However, it is not in the subconscious. It is my version of surrealist.