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The Idea: The concept that "art" can be created by anyone has been a central theme of my projects over the past few years. I've been to too many exhibitions, met too many artists, and read too many reviews, where the actual work seemed shrouded in this cloud of fuzzy logic, long-winded statements and pretentious concept elevation. And all of it was largely unnecessary, serving to do little more than alienate a type of audience that wasn't really interested in the supposed-aura of the art world. So the projects I've worked on recently have tried to focus more on the process than on the final outcome. I'm happy to question the work I do, whether or not it works, what I could change, and where it fails. I've always believed that what I do, and what you do, isn't fundamentally better or worse than what anyone else could do. Bringing those ideas together, and finding the medium to do it, took a couple of years. The idea for a cell phone exhibit emerged in September 2005, but it took a while to get the photo process down. A debate in May 2007 on "defining art" really helped me decide to go ahead and put this all together. ____ The Technology: Cell phone cameras are now almost ubiquitous. But as modern a device as they are, they mostly remind me of a very primitive type of camera: the Holga. The Holga is typically a very cheap, Chinese-made camera that is constructed entirely out of plastic. The lens is plastic, the camera body is plastic, the buttons are plastic. You cannot be precise with a Holga — focus and exposure are estimated, and part of the fun is never quite knowing what the result will be. Some very serious artists are making amazing images with these "toy" cameras. The most recent generation of cell phone cameras strike me as very similar to the Holga. It's mostly estimated focus and fuzzy images; the quality is improving but not great; you're never quite sure how the picture will turn out. Both the Holga and the cell phone camera require giving up some control, and being more spontaneous. You cannot be fussy with either camera. And because they seem to be everywhere these days, the most democratic of image-capture technology, the cell phone camera seemed like the perfect medium to bring this idea together. ____
The Photographer: If you have any questions or
comments about the project, I'm always interested. You can email me at
robert@teamwetdog.com, and you can find more of my work at
www.TeamWetDog.com. |
