Risque Internet Photos - Thomas Ruff

A classmate suggested I take a look at the work of contemporary German photographer Thomas Ruff for the purpose of this blog.

Ruff has been testing and extending the limits of photography for more than two decades, completing a dozen series of photographs that range from seemingly banal images of streets and buildings to computer-generated prints of sensuous psychedelic colour fields.

In 2003 as part of his exploration of the Internet and the "parallel visual universe" Ruff published a photographic collection titled "Nudes" that were based on borrowed images of Internet pornography, which were then digitally manipulated, processed and obscured to give them an abstract feel that often masked their erotic content. Here is one of the less risque images from this series:

While this series was received with much ambivalence in the art community and departs greatly from his earlier portrait work that highlights every pore and detail of his subject. This series of Ruff's work really underscores the belief that in our virtual age, that each photograph is a part of an ever changing whole that we all have the opportunity to participate in and change.