Roadtrip09

Classroom in Prague

360 image made by Willy Kaemena 

visit www.360cities.net for more panoramic images

Classroom May 2009 in Prague

uploaded by Hyo Kim

Rome Through Maps

Professor Ponti, an enthusiastic archeologist of IES Italy, lead a lecture on the history of the city of Rome through maps. Armed with an undergrad in North Carolina Chapel-Hill, graduate in University of Rome, and an interest in marble architecture, he was able to capture the imagination and spirits of twenty-four college students.

The multi-part lecture started with "How Many Cities? - The complexities of a city as an encyclopedia". While most people think of every location in a city as a page in book, Ponti suggested that for Rome every location is a volume in an encyclopedia collection, due to its rich history. Rome is a city that not only builds on top of itself in order to use older building's infrastructure, it is a city that keeps expanding into the countryside.

Ponti stated that Rome was founded on its current due to it's perfect location. Its high cliffs made it strategic to create a settlement, since the natural landscape would protect the city from invaders. The marshes, which where on the other side of the river, allowed citizens an area away from the settlement to bury the dead. Being in the middle of Greek and Etruskins trade routes guaranteed Rome to be a geopolitical power.

"Rome is like an onion, and we have to peel each layer" Ponti proudly stated as he showed his powerpoint map.  By looking at ruins, archeologists have to reconstruct what they believe the city looked like. The only issue is that any archeological site in Rome is littered with millions of pieces from five different time periods in Roman history.

What makes it harder, according to Ponti, is that Romans built in a half-hazzard matter. They knew how to build grid-like cities, like what they did with Pompei, it was just the issue of older historical buildings. Romans did not want to demolish important buildings, so they just built around them.

When Romans did build, they always had a political reason. After Nero ordered to have the city burned to build his palace (a point which Ponti felt very confident to state without hesitation), his successors decided to destroy Nero's palace and in the heart of the palace build the greatest public space, the Colosseum. 

After much construction, the medieval era fell upon Rome. After Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople, the great city turned into a city of fortresses, churches, and one based around the river. Pagan temples where turned into churches, to show "what used to persecute Christians is now conquered by the papacy and the glory of Christ". The population of the city went from one million to one thousand. Great sites, like the Roman Forum, became goat and cow grace fields. As Ponti stated, Ancient central Rome became the boonies.

During the Renaissance Era, the Papal took power of Rome. A great collection spree of ancient sculptures and rediscover of antiquity started. Villas dotted the Rome, while Sixtus V ordered urban development to the East, in order to fend of invasion, and the Trident was constructed in the Campus Martius. Valuable material used during the Roman Empire and left by the barbarians, marble and bronze, was scrapped and reused for new buildings and sculptures. As Ponti boastfully stated, "What was not done by the barbarians was done by Barberini".

- Ezra Velazquez '10

Psychogeography

Friday May 1, 2009  Labor Day

Sunrise over Rome

The term psychogeography originated in Paris in the 1950s with Guy Debord and the Situationists and has been used to describe many ideas from alternate urban experiences to avant-garde experimentation.  It is rooted in the work of the Dadaists and surrealists and focuses on getting outside of the self and the effects of the geographical environment.  There are many words to describe a psychogeographer—walker, wanderer, stroller, stalker, drifter or flâneur.  The act of walking with this perspective can not only be personally transformative, but also be a form of political radicalism.  Many cities are increasingly hostile towards pedestrians and taking the time to walk and truly look at the city can be a subversive act.

Friday we all took to the streets.  Every individual or group had a different route or concept for their walk.  The walks could be anything from being guided by your shadow to following a map made by tracing a route from New York City onto a map of Rome.  The walks helped us lose ourselves in the city—its movement, darkness, light, form, shape, detail and energy.  The altered experience created a hyperawareness and a new perspective.  We are in the process of creating a book detailing these psychogeographic experiences.

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna

Situated in the quiet, lush greenery of the Villa Borghese, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna is a grand, white, columned building preceded by a modern art sculpture inviting visitors to its haven of contemporary art. Founded in 1883, the present Galleria's home was built in 1911 as a Greek-like temple dedicated to the art it holds, following on the 20th century notion of the museum as a place of authority and an institution in which to view art. Committed to the archiving and exhibition of 19th and 20th century Italian aritists and international contemporary art, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna continues to look to the present and uphold its mission to "represent 'living' art."

Museum curator Matilda and museum intern Allie were our hosts and guides to the Galleria's exhibitions. The 19th century Italian artists' exhibitions began with the Salone dell'Ercole, of which the centerpiece is Antonio Canova's Neo-Classical sculpture Ercole e Lica (Hercules and Lica) (1815). The surrounding rooms are arranged regionally by the different schools of art, in accordance with Italy's political situation in 1893: La Sala della Psiche, named for Pietro Tenerani's La Psiche Svenuto, holds the works of 19th century academic painters who were inspired by the Roman ruins, marking a shift towards Romanticism in Italian painting. La Sala della Saffo on the other hand, is dedicated to works from the Macchiaioli school of painting which focused more on style than content, shifting into Impressionism and everyday subject matter, thus creating the first modern art.

Our tour of the 20th century art commenced with works by Alberto Burri, who concentrated on the materiality of the canvas as a work of art in itself [Grande Sacco (1952), Grande Legno G59 (1959), Grande Rosso P n. 18 (1964)]. Le Tre Eta (1905) by Gustav Klimt, and a lesson in Futurism with works by Giacomo Balla followed. Interested in illness, madness, social issues, and people in the streets, Balla's I Malati (1903) is the first painting of electric shock therapy. Next, we were introduced to Avant-Garde art, which encompasses artistic movements such as Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. A pair of Cubist paintings by Gino Severini and Georges Braque showed the juxtaposition of the Italian (more Romantic color and composition) and French (more scientific and geometric) Cubist styles respectively.

The tour ended with a look at the Galleria's tribute to American artist Cy Twombly, a "neo-Dadaist" who creates works in an Abstract Expressionist style, using dramatic brush strokes to create Post-Modern representations of the four seasons in the four part  Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) (1994). Our three hours in the museum was a lavishly-illustrated walk through art history of the 19th and 20th century, which gave us a small but rich taste of Italian modern art.

Elizabeth Tan

Farewell, NYC: Party at Henry's

       On a perfect 70 degrees and sunny Friday (4/17), our very own Henry Moskowitz ’11 invited the entire group to his apartment on Broadway to celebrate the success of our three weeks in NYC.  As the time approached 7PM, guests gradually arrived in small groups filled with curiosity and excitement to see Henry’s place and to meet his parents! Once we arrived at the main entrance of the building, we were greeted by an old-fashioned arched entrance and Henry’s friendly voice projected through the call box. The building continued to excite us with its vintage elevators that have manual doors and gates. 
                As soon as we arrived on his floor, we were immediately greeted by Henry and his father at the door.   Their hospitality made the already tastefully decorated apartment more charming and welcoming :) While his father, Seth, a Carleton alumnus, was sharing fond memory from college and funny stories of baby Henry with us, Henry’s mother, Julie, stepped out from her busy preparation in the kitchen and greeted us warmly. Julie also introduced to us a college student interning at her music education foundation, who helped her to prepare the food for the party.  The dishes prepared for us that night were definitely some of the best food we tasted in NYC.  The most popular dish would have to be the Indian spring roll, which was devoured in no time.

                Henry had thoughtfully put together a slide show of the pictures taken by the class in Coney Island and a few street shots to keep us entertained. We all had a good time appreciating and criticizing each other’s pictures on a 34-inches TV screen.

But the highlight of the night would undoubtedly be when the whole room crowded around the TV, waiting for our shot to show up on the recording of the NBC Today’s show online.  I do not even remember how many times we paused and rewound at our shots. We were like a bunch of crazy fans waiting to catch a glimpse of movie stars. It really was quite a hilarious moment. See it for yourself in the video below, or click here to start from Part 1.

              In the end, we toasted to the Moskowitz’s for such a lovely party, to Julie and Caleb for their birthdays, which were on that same night and, of course, to a splendid ending to the first chapter of our new media journey. Bye, bye, NYC!   Roma, are you ready for us?

Here is a slideshow of pictures from the party. Enjoy!

Garbo Loo

Proffiti

Saturday (4/18) was the last day in New York City, which meant it was our last chance to hold a proffiti exhibition in the subway system. Armed with a MacBook Pro, the roadtrip projector, and an extension cord, we took the train to the 42nd Street (Times Square) station and started looking for a power source. After a fruitless search and rejections from various vendors, we finally located an outlet. It was unclear whether or not this outlet was intended for our use, but we took advantage of the ambiguity and set up our equipment, and fired up the projector courtesy of the MTA. We then spent several anxious minutes with a hand cupped over the projector, waiting for a train to arrive in the station.

Finally, we heard the number three roaring down the tracks and got ready for the big moment. Ezra was the official photographer, while Kate adjusted, aimed, and focused the projector. We got some great pictures, didn't get in trouble, and invented a form of new media. We're going to attempt similar exhibitions in Rome and Prague, which might be difficult and or impossible because of our dependency on an electrical outlet. Check back for more updates and exhibitions!

Proffiti has been officially entered in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Here's the link: Proffiti

- Kate Trenerry & Ezra Velazquez

NBC

Our highly anticipated trip to NBC started at the break of dawn. With heavy eyes and caffeine-craved bodies, we promptly left the International House at 5:45AM. The metro ride was silent as people slowly adjusted to the early-morning activity. The group arrived to Rockefeller Plaza, just outside the NBC Studio at 6:30AM. After a quick pit stop to fill our empty stomachs with pastries and coffee we met Carleton alum, John Jewczyn, who is now a cameraman for NBC. John bent over backwards for us, meeting with NBC staff and planning whatever necessary to make sure our visit was wonderful. He showed us to our VIP pen outside the studio, an area reserved exclusively for notable persons with class, intelligence and edgy swagger-- clearly we were in the right place. Though it was a cold wait outside, it was well worth it; the CAMS group (along with all of our cameras) made it on television twice and we all saw Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Al Roker reporting live on the Plaza.

In small groups, we were taken inside for tours of the studio. There were multiple sets for different shows, all of which used natural light and scenery from Rockefeller Plaza. The control rooms were very technical-- there were multiple computer and television monitors showing different camera feeds, as well as shows airing on competing networks. The directors like to know what other channels are broadcasting to keep up with last-minute news breaks and to keep an eye on the competition.

While on our tours, we were fortunate enough to be on set while Meredith interviewed Kathy Lee Gifford and while Matt interviewed Russell Crowe. Though everyone was very efficient and professional, there was a casual and friendly ambiance in the studio-- producers and cameramen joined in small talk, and anchors joked with interviewees during commercial breaks. After the show, the group of 25 made our way up to Meredith's office-- it was a cozy squeeze. Though her 5 inch heels and heavily made-up face were somewhat intimidating, the on-air personality welcomed us generously and was more than willing to talk with us. Meredith, we found out, wakes up every morning at 2:00AM to allow herself enough time to get ready and read over her stories. Though she tries to get to bed around 10:00PM, sometimes it's just not possible, "I'm a night person," she explained, "I always have been. You can't change who you are." If she was going off only a few hours of sleep from the night before, she certainly fooled us. Our meeting was brief, yet pleasant and fulfilling.

After a reluctant farewell to our new friends at NBC, John lead us across the street to 30 Rock, the other NBC and MSNBC Studio. MSNBC, we discovered, is owned 50% by Microsoft, hence MSNBC. Once we passed through security, our group met a manager who showed us around the NBC News Studio and sets. Because of the economy, she explained, NBC relies upon national and foreign news bureaus for incoming news and information (and vice versa). We learned about a new technology, Liveview, which NBC has exclusive access to for one month. Liveview is a laptop with around eight cell phone feeds that allows for live access anywhere; and so far, it has been a very successful resource. Next week, competing networks will have access to the technology. Our tour continued to Studio 8H, the set of Saturday Night Live. The set was small, with only two stages and seating for an audience of around 150-200 people. It was amazing to experience the set that has produced so many fabulous comedies and hosted such wonderful stars. 

Next, we met with the associate producer of MSNBC.com, Victor. MSNBC.com is the number one news sight-- more popular that CBS.com and abcnews.com combined. Part of the success can be attributed to the fact that MSNBC is owned by both Microsoft and NBC. MSN, the default homepage for PCs has a direct link to the news sight, it is part original journalism, part news aggregator. Victor explained where online news and digital journalism is headed; because technology is getting smaller and more compact, producers can more easily shoot and edit their own footage. Because of this, cameramen and editors are learning how to shoot-- as platforms are expanding, skills are needed. Victor then showed us some of his work, an online segment from Making a Difference, Running from trouble. As online competition rises, Victor stressed that "content is king." In opposition to news broadcasts on television that use teases to capture the attention of viewers, online new stories use headlines to nab viewers' interest. Our talk with Victor was right up our alley, he suggested getting our hands on the latest technology and internet trends: blogging, twittering, etc. It was great to see new medias emerging role in the news and broadcasting industry.

Our tour concluded in the control headquarters. The control area was enormous-- workers, lights, monitors, computers, headsets, and gadgets everywhere you turned. Some of the head editors talked to us and explained how intense the control room could be. "Only some people have the stomach for this kind of work," they explained, "It's like the emergency room of the news world." This was an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at just how everything works. People were scrambling to get stories cut and edited on time, other people were reviewing previously aired segments and programs of competing networks, some were giving executive directions about how and what should be put on air. The atmosphere was overwhelming and enthralling. A new appreciation was certainly gained for every minute detail that goes into a successful broadcast and television production. Everything we view on television goes through the hands of these people and this technology. It was amazing.

Ally Weaver 

**A slideshow containing more pictures from the day will be added to this post shortly.

International Center of Photography (ICP)

After our intense (and early!) day visiting NBC studios, we dragged ourselves a couple of blocks away to visit the International Center of Photography, or ICP. ICP is a small graduate school in the middle of Manhattan that focuses exclusively on higher-level photography degrees. The school, while small with only 80 students, is incredibly diverse (nearly fifty percent of the student body is made up of international students) and owns a state-of-the-art underground darkroom and classroom facility as well as a large gallery in midtown Manhattan.

We began our investigation of ICP by visiting their gallery, the primary exhibition of which was a show of contemporary fashion photography. Unfortunately, photographs in the museum were prohibited, so I cannot share any examples. A quote from Paris Vogue at the beginning of the showing described fashion photography as an art that tried to peel away the layers of societal norms to reveal something that was "monsterously human." Many of the pictures shown certainly conformed to that definition: the odd exaggerations of form and color in many photographs served less to flaunt the clothes that the models were wearing and more to emphasize oddities and social quirks. Put into this context, fashion photography immediately became much more interesting than my previous assumptions of its being a strictly commercial endeavor allowed. In addition to the contemporary fashion exhibit, which took up the entire first floor, there was a plethora of fine-art and older fashion photographs to be found in the lower level.

After visiting the gallery we continued to the ICP classroom center. We began by getting a brusque introduction to the facility and its programs by one of the administrators, and then proceeded to be led on a tour of the underground complex by a Carleton alum who works there as an assistant. ICP has an incredible amount of photography equipment, with darkrooms, studios, computer labs, and room-sized printers appearing at every turn. For such a small facility, I was amazed at the quality and quantity of the resources the students had available. Based on our brief visit, I think that this institution is ideal for someone who is attracted to the vibrant New York lifestyle and who wishes to take advantage of the photographic possibilities of the city.

NYC Public Library Map Room

As the group entered the beautifully ornate Map Room of the New York City Public Library, we were greeted by Matt Knutzen, our guide to their collection of historical maps of Manhattan and the evolution of the city through documentation in maps. We began with a map from the 1700’s where the “city” was concentrated almost entirely around the City Hall area. The rest of the island was mostly divided into plots of farmland, which is somewhat hard to fathom nowadays. As the city grew and developed, it eventually resorted to a grid system that aligned with the island of Manhattan and not north and south. In order for this to be achieved, the natural topography of the land had to be flattened. One of the traces of pre-developed Manhattan is Broadway, which used to be an old Indian trail traversing the island. Matt showed us a map where the old divisions of farmland had been placed over the developed landscape to show where points would correlate between the old and new Manhattan. Once the island was almost entirely developed and the shoreline had turned into shipyards, the city decided that it needed some green-space to hold onto some pastoral ideal. Frederick Law Olmsted’s firm was hired to create the “natural” landscape of Central Park in the middle of an urban jungle. To go along with one of our themes, the last representation of our world that we looked at was Google Earth. Not only does this amazing technology have the ability to tag information to a geographical location, some of its newest software allows the Map Room to lay historical maps on top of Google Earth’s satellite information. Wow.

Casey Wolf

Coney Island

On April 5th, Sunday, we went to Coney Island for an individual photo shooting. Even for those who have never been here, Coney Island would be placed in their memories since it has been featured in numerous movies. The first time I knew about this place was through the movie “He got game(1998, Spike Lee film).”
The weather was great, and the amusement park and the beach were filled with couples, families, and friends who came to celebrate the beginning of spring.

< This is a pictorial map of the amusement park in Coney Island I found there. The ratio and exact distance is somewhat inaccurate, but the value of this map is that it provides the important topographic information of the place it represents. To see it bigger, click on the image. 

(Photograph by Casey Wolf)

In Tim Cresswell's book, "Place: a short introduction", amusement park is introduced as representing the notion of placelessness. "Places such as Disneyworld are not real places but 'placeless' places or 'psuedo-places' with no real history and no sense of belonging"(Cresswell, P.46). However, after taking pictures of the buildings, people, landscape, and their relationship to each other, Coney Island came to me as a place with history and memory. The rusty buildings and outdated game machines evoked a sense of past and historical value. Needless to say, Nathan's hotdog played a big role in forming memory and authenticity to this place. 

Take a look at the slideshow of the Coney Island picture.

After the photo shoot in Coney Island, we headed for the pizza place called “Spumoni Garden” in 86th Street, Brooklyn. The pizza was absolutely delicious, and we had a huge ice cream for free thanks to the nice Brooklyn man working for the restaurant. 

(Left: Professor John Schott with the ice cream)

Hyo Kim 

Visit by Alexis Bhagat

Today in class we had the pleasure of welcoming Alexis Bhagat to show and discuss the revolutionary, eye-popping, and socially conscious maps from his book, An Atlas of Radical Cartography.  He chose the word “radical”, he said, because the maps are meant to provoke new understanding of the world and “radical” provided a larger umbrella than some of his other choices.  Among these was a map of the Routes of Least Surveillance created for Manhattan after 9/11.  It denoted surveillance cameras with red dots and mapped routes for several characters wishing to elude the eye of Big Brother.  Alexis also showed us a mash-up map done by his colleague Lize Mogel that melded the forms of San Francisco, the Panama Canal, and the Northwest Passage to show the interdependency of these areas with regard to trade and prosperity.  In the atlas is a U.S.-centric map of the sources of America’s oil consumption.  Because all the arrows of the map point to an outline of the United States at the center of the map, it does not share any information about oil trade as a global system.  Another image of North and South America labeled “Latino/a America” was given to people crossing the U.S./Mexico border.  It is now displayed in the atlas including the coffee marks, folds, and dirt of their travels.  Not only is this map a spiritual reminder of a world without borders it is also a record of their journey.  

When asked where he (or one) would draw the line between a map and a diagram, he replied, “I hate that question”.  Like Bob Stein said at our visit to The Future of the Book, Alexis believes that the future of the map is something that we will not be able to recognize.

Casey Wolf

The Institute for the Future of the Book

The Institute for the Future of the Book is a think-tank studying the impact of the shift from print media to networked screen-based media. According to founder Bob Stein, this shift is redefining what we think of as a book, as text becomes a social process. “Unlike the printed book,” say members of the Institute, “the networked book is not bound by time or space. It is an evolving entity within an ecology of readers, authors and texts. Unlike the printed book, the networked book is never finished: it is always a work in progress.”

Future books, the Institute suggests, will provide greater interactivity between readers and writers, as exemplified by online “book clubs” in which a selected panel of readers creates a dialogue about the text. Authors and readers will occupy the same (digital) space, and both reading and writing become collaborative exercises similar to a role-playing game in terms of development. Future readers will pay for the pleasure of social interaction (in the form of membership to groups), suggests Stein, rather than for a physical object. Interestingly, the interactivity the future of the book would actually return the book to the collaborative processes of ages past, in which it was the norm for a book to be the product of many inputs.

The Institute for the Future of the Book brings up questions more complicated than what a book is and will be. What is driving these changes to the way we read: technology, the market, or desire? Is digitality an inherently social experience or an individualized one? What will we gain from a social or interactive reading of a text? What will we lose? The Institute believes “it is crucial to consider [the] social and political consequences, both today and in the long term” of the future of the book.

Music Archive

The tour of the music archive was quite the memorable experience. When we arrived B. George, the collections curator, was eager to give us a tour of his facility. The collection contains primarily vinyl records however they obtain at least two copies of every album released in America, and as a result, are frequently upgrading their pseudo-warehouse which contains row after row of 10-foot racks of boxes of vinyls. The Archive is not open to the public which is somewhat baffling, so it's maintained by its numerous contributors including Martin Scorsese, Keith Richards, and David Bowie. Even more baffling was the fact that B. George was entirely willing to donate the 35 million dollar archive to any institution willing to receive it, so long as he was allowed to continue maintaining it. As of yet he has no takers.

Condé Nast

Thursday Morning, April 2, 2009

Condé Nast Publications is home to many top magazines including Vogue, W, GQ, Bon Appetit, Wired and The New Yorker.  The media giant is headquartered in a 48-story building designed by Fox & Fowle Architects.  This “green” skyscraper uses passive design for heating, cooling and ventilating.  Many movies were shot here including How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and The Devil Wears Prada.  Aaron Colussi, a Carleton College alumnus, is an Associate Production Manager at Condé Nast and he organized a tour for the group.  He took the group to multiple professional photography studios including the studio and test kitchens for Gourmet.   Mr. Colussi also demonstrated product photography using a shoe and a tabletop set.

After the tour the group had an informal discussion with Mr. Colussi over lunch in Bryant Park.  Aaron’s interest in photography grew during the first CAMS Road Trip in 2006.  He graduated from Carleton as a Studio Art major and then got an internship in New York photographing art.  Working at Condé Nast offers many comforts and looks great on a resume, but Aaron is looking forward to working completely independently and focusing on his own projects.

www.vicecoulter.com

Museum of the Moving Image

Created with flickr slideshow.

Thursday's agenda brought us to the Museum of the Moving image in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.  Located on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios, which once produced a number of television classics such as Sesame Street, The Cosby Show and Law & Order, the Museum of the Moving Image was opened in 1997 with the intention of creating an institution that would serve to expand public understanding and appreciation for all forms of time-based visual media.Thursday's agenda brought us to the Museum of the Moving image in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.  Located on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios, which once produced a number of television classics such as Sesame Street, The Cosby Show and Law & Order, the Museum of the Moving Image was opened in 1997 with the intention of creating an institution that would serve to expand public understanding and appreciation for all forms of time-based visual media.

Thursday's agenda brought us to the Museum of the Moving image in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.  Located on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios, which once produced a number of television classics such as Sesame Street, The Cosby Show and Law & Order, the Museum of the Moving Image was opened in 1997 with the intention of creating an institution that would serve to expand public understanding and appreciation for all forms of time-based visual media.Thursday's agenda brought us to the Museum of the Moving image in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.  Located on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios, which once produced a number of television classics such as Sesame Street, The Cosby Show and Law & Order, the Museum of the Moving Image was opened in 1997 with the intention of creating an institution that would serve to expand public understanding and appreciation for all forms of time-based visual media.

Film, television and animation are all welcome within the exhibits of the building, which showcases a wide variety of both the notable persons and technologies that have served to advance these new art forms from the earliest illusions of the zoetroppe to the digital wonders that modern audiences enjoy today.  In addition to providing the traditional experience of viewing curiosities behind sheets of glass, the Museum also offered a number of hands on, educational activities that were designed to teach visitors about the processes that go into creating and enhancing the illusion of the moving image.

The museum was curated with the agenda of informing the public about the constructed nature of cinema via a fly-through of its history.  We saw portraits of Hollywood stars and discussed the importance that these still images had in the promotion of studios' stars.  We saw lifeless animatronic doubles for actors and hairpieces. There were a number of optical toys on display and for use including a thaumatrope, a zoetrope, and mutoscopes.  Additionally, everyone had an opportunity to experiment with basic stop motion animation and to create a flip-book of themselves.  Thematically, the collection emphasized the stillness behind the moving image, an excellent perspective for a group of cinema conscious students working in photography.

Peter Clough

On Friday we were given the opportunity to observe the work of Peter Clough, a student at New York University’s MFA Program in Studio Art.  Peter’s art exhibits an interest in the power of light and its effect on environment as well as a fascination with the power of the camera as an autonomous recorder of places.

Much of Peter’s work focused on the power of light.  His piece, A Wall Evenly Flooded with Gray Light, for instance, flooded the space with soft light that was alarmingly soporific.  This light exhibited a duality as well, as the light bulb itself was a normal studio light.  It was only the filter the artist applied that changed the nature of the light.  Mysterious lasers were also prevalent in this exhibit.  Their light would be pointed at a certain point in the wall, and the viewers had to discern for themselves where the light had originated.

As Peter explained to us, he has a love/hate relationship with film and the power that the artist has over it.  To come to terms with this, Peter has stressed the nature of the camera as an object with a certain level of agency because of its ability to automatically focus.  To show this, Peter wandered in Carleton College’s own arboretum, an environment that exhibits a great amount of depth and texture, without paying attention to where the camera was pointing.  The camera, then, not the cameraman, was effectively making the art, which was displayed on television screens.  One work such as this one appeared in A Room Hung with White Muslin, which made the wandering, disorienting, and oftentimes confused camera angles all the more disorienting because of the alien environment in which they viewer watched them from.

These works reflect Peter’s desire to question basic assumptions regarding light, video, and the place of the artist and the viewer in their creation and observation.

            

Street Photography

Class April 13 was spiced up by the arrival of guest speaker, Markus Hartel a street photographer.  A native of North West Germany, Hartel works as a photo re-toucher/graphic designer during the workday and a street photographer in his free time.  Walking the streets of New York City for at least an hour every day, he has a keen eye for fascinating scenes, situations and people.  A successful photographer, Hartel has produced an effective website appearing in publications around the world.  For examples of his work visit www.markushartel.com.  

Hartel prepared an informational slideshow chronicling iconic photographers of the past.  At the end of the images, he included examples of his own work.  With each example he explained how he got the shot, where it was, what his mindset was and the basic settings on his camera.  For example, his standard sunlight setting has an ISO of 1600 with an F value of 8.  He said that he works hard to capture images with meaning, constantly questioning, "what is that about?"  He also told us his philosophy for catching memorable street photos.  "I do whatever is necessary to make my pictures shine... get close!"  A firm believer in never taking a posed photograph, Hartel sees the possibility in a setting or a person and expresses it in three or four frames.

One of the big topics of discussion was how Hartel deals with the subjects in is pictures; whether or not he asks for permission to take their photo and how he interacts with them.  He replied that he never engages his subjects but simply puts the camera in their face, takes the shot and walks away.  Never aggressive or obnoxious, Hartel maintains a low profile and for that reason does not attract any trouble.  Warning the class to be smart photographers, Hartel exclaimed, "I wouldn't take the picture of a guy I couldn't outrun!"

Although street photography is difficult and completely uncertain Hartel approaches his shots with his brain.  "I don't rely on luck—I am conscious of my surroundings and environment."  With this attitude Hartel uses his trained eye to discern an interesting scene and capture it.

After his fun and fascinating presentation, Hartel challenged the class to take what we learned and apply it.  We journeyed to the heart of New York City, Times Square, to see if we had what it took to be a street photographer.

Kale Zicafoose

Chelsea

Today we ventured to the lower west side of Manhattan to visit some of the Chelsea art galleries.  This relatively small neighborhood, roughly spanning between 19th & 23rd streets, has become a global center for contemporary art.  The neighborhood is filled with a myriad of art galleries that house exhibitions ranging from paintings to cutting edge new media art.

Most of the galleries exhibited works from a single artist, thus making each gallery a unique and exhilarating experience.  Although the recent changes in the economy have very visibly hurt the neighborhood (many of the galleries rely on the sale on incredibly expensive purchases of art, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollar range), there was still a plethora of exhibitions to view, making the selection of which show to look at extremely difficult.

 

On west 19th street, there was a breathtakingly enormous installation by an artist named Adel Abdessemed called “Telle mère, tel fils”.  Adel, hailing from Algeria, created “… a braid of three airplanes, made of their original cockpits and tailfins, while the fuselages are reconstructed in soft felt filled with air.” (chelseaartgalleries.com).  Each extended airplane was about sixty feet long, thus the size of the piece gave the viewer the distinct impression that it could all fall apart at any moment.  The effect was stunning, and truly memorable.

At the end of the day, we had a chance to meet with the artist Vanessa Albury, who was part of a larger exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum.  She gave us a detailed tour of the show she was a part of, entitled “UN-SCR-1325”, which was named after a UN Security Council resolution that “… comprehensively addresses the impact of war and conflict on women and women’s contributions to conflict prevention as well as conflict resolution and sustainable peace efforts.” (from show description).  Vanessa’s work can be found at www.vanessaalbury.com.

-Henry Moskowitz, 2011

Museum of Modern Art

This afternoon, we met at The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan for a few hours of exploration. The museum is so huge that one would be hard-pressed to see it in a day, much less a single afternoon. Knowing that we would have to prioritize in a world with 6 floors of excitement, most of us headed for the photography section on the third floor.

The exhibit took visitors through the chronology of photography, starting with different photographic plates and methods used to develop photos in the mid 1800s. Learning about these processes made me very grateful for the advent of digital cameras! Eventually, we worked our way up to an exhibition called "Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West." The collection spans 150 years of photos that portray "the West" in different ways.

In the media and performance art gallery, one compelling work was by Tehching Hsieh, a controversial artist who voluntarily spent one year inside a cage in his studio. Throughout this time, a friend brought him food, water, disposed of his waste, and took a picture of him every day. The growth of his hair in the pictures are evidence of the passage of time, and line the room. Also included in the exhibition was letters he had written that stated his intent, and the actual cage that he lived in.

It was an exhausting, but exciting visit!

Kate Trenerry

photos by Hyo Kim and Ezra Velazquez

Interactive Telecommunications Program

On April 3rd, the 2009 CAMS Roadtrip stopped at ITP, Interactive Telecommunications Program, a two-year graduate program at the Tisch School of Art within New York University. ITP is a haven. It is an island suspended in the air (four stories up, to be precise), filled with students and professors fascinated by art and computers and working to meld them however they can. Projects range from transformations of Flickr pet portraits into abstraction, a xylophone that plays itself by solar power, a wooden mirror, and a phone booth that takes a photo of its inhabitants whenever they dial zero. Some of these creations may sound impossible, but the combination of arts and programming is extremely well equipped for problem solving, and it seems to enable students to produce anything they can imagine. As is apparent from these examples, the work of students at ITP does not exist exclusively on the computer—instead, it often consumes physical space, moving into the space of others while bombarding them with sound and imagery. This is exemplified by pieces such as a cricket-like device that hides in a soda can, emitting noises until approaching listeners breach a certain distance. These and other invasions of space reflect the fantastic, mystical reality of new media as made possible by today’s technology and programs like ITP. As the artist becomes magician, our inanimate objects are truly imbued with life.

Gabriel Loeb