Inside Analog Photo, a radio program that focuses on traditional photographic processes, recently featured my Polaroid work for one of their segments. The feature included an interview about the project and the process. The segment can be downloaded from iTunes, here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=291806626
If you’re a literature critic, you have so many tools to work with. All the different paradigms you can put a text through, all the different tools that a writer uses to fix their points to a sentence. Tone, rhythm, diction, word choice, structure, metaphor, analogy, dialogue, denotation, connotation, imagery, personification, allusion, metonymy, meter –the list is bottomless. These subtle devices impact meaning and allow the writer a sense of sophistication and nuance that is so important to how they present their message.
Sometimes, if you look at too much of the daily pulp, it’s hard to believe that this same level of sophistication is possible in the visual sense. At its worst, story gets mistaken for a children’s book, taking on the rote structure used to relay information to eight year-olds: beginning, middle, end, climax, resolution. The photographs follow the same, clunky pattern: wide, medium, tight, rinse, repeat. And, perhaps, someone chops the layers out of a photo to make a headshot, turning the photographer’s crafted statement into a rough, ham-fisted mallet. ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… ” becomes ‘they were alright times.’
The thing that I appreciate most about Jim Lo Scalzo’s recent work is that it doesn’t succumb to formula, delivering emotive nuance with the directness that the photograph is most suited for. His multimedia pieces capture sentiment, bringing the viewer into his frames and playing on the less-obtuse sense of place evoked by his subjects. Needless to say, I’m a huge fan. If you’re headed out to catch the new G.I. Joe movie, don’t bother looking. But if you want to see the best of what our craft has to offer, check out Lo Scalzo’s Vimeo page here: http://www.vimeo.com/5653709
The anonymous folks curating the Multimedia Muse blog seem plugged in enough to uncover the still-to-be-officially-announced url to Luceo’s collaborative entry into this year’s Look3 festival and they’re featuring it front-and-center on their blog. Have a look for yourself. Whoever handles that blog most certainly has a good ear to the ground and I’m excited to have our work be their feature du jour.
I just got an audio recorder for some projects I’m working on and I’m starting to see some of the hidden potential in this little toy. This turned up on my voicemail this morning, made it to the blog by evening. Ah, the speed of technology. I tend to hang on to these kinds of messages and have a good twenty of them saved on my cellphone. Another dozen on my landline. Looks like I’ll finally be able to archive them away and free up voicemail space.
Jeremy, hope you get your sasquatch, you effin’ weirdo.