False Mirrors - Jacob Kassay

Jacob Kassay's electroplated silver canvases look a lot like old worn mirrors but use today's technology to attain their appearance. If, like me, you have no idea what electroplating is, its a super cool process of plating that uses electrical current to reduce cations (positively charged ions) of a desired material to coat an object with a thin layer of the material, such as a metal. While electroplating dates back to the 1800s its a pretty new and inventive concept for art.

The plating concept burns the unpainted canvas, so at times the pieces look black and burnt on the corners. In several of Kassay's pieces the burn marks extend into the shiny faces of the panels giving them a mirror like appearance.

Joseph Wolin notes "The way that these thin silver surfaces delicately capture the traces of whatever stands before them evokes photography, with its light-sensitive emulsions of metal salts. But film photography as a technology has now been surpassed by digital—just as photography itself once usurped the province of painting—making Kassay's metal coatings feel like bronzed baby shoes, elegies to an unrecoverable past."

Insane Image Technology

My last post reminded me of a Microsoft image technology that was presented at the 2007 TED conference.

Some call this technology mind blowing, I find it insane and amazing. Essentially this Microsoft technology can change the landscape of photo sharing. Here is the video of Blaise Aguera demo-ing it at the conference:

Basically you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your photo is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail and clarity impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.
Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos. Bonkers right?

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.

Wierd Web - Explain this Photo

Ok so maybe this site has less to do with art and technology than anything I've posted on before but I couldn't resist. I stumbled across this site this morning and just started laughing to myself.

The webs weirdest photos now have a home where you can comment on and provide captions for them: explainthisimage.com . Images range from mildly touching (an Asian child in a grocery bag with the caption "Angelina I'm back from the mall") to the completely absurd and mildly perverted where you just have to ask yourself really?

I guess without the web and the proliferation of image sharing sites like this wouldn't exist. Thanks Al Gore ;).

Instant Fame & Gratification

As the accelerated pace of the digital age reaches full velocity, Rankin, a photographer, publisher and most recently a director is pairing up with the British magazine Dazed for an ever-changing exhibit, Rankin Live. Selected participants - 1,000 members of the general public get a chance to have their portraits shot, framed and exhibited alongside British icons of the 21st century in record time - 15 minutes after the shutter closes to be exact. Amazing, groundbreaking, instant gratification!

The exhibit is slated to take place in August.

For more information and a preview of the project visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/feb/12/rankin-live-preview-photographs?picture=343063473