08.15.07
I think of you as a painter who occasionally makes sculpture and sometimes takes photographs. How did you come to use photography?
In the late ’70s, while an undergraduate at the University of Arizona in Tucson, I saw David Lynch’s film, Eraserhead. The film is shot in black and white—very dark, atmospheric and surreal. At the time this was a huge inspiration to me, and shortly afterward I began setting up my own darkroom and shooting 35mm black-and-white film.
A number of your works reference sound and recording(s). Did working with sound usher in the use of the camera?
No, it may have been the other way around. Shortly after beginning to use the 35mm camera, I began making Super 8 films and recording sound. While primarily painting and drawing, I was definitely seduced by the ability of the camera and the sound recorder to capture and manipulate visual and acoustic events.
What’s your interest in spinning and the circle?
These elements have popped up in my work since the very beginning and probably derive from a childhood fascination with spinning tops and spinning oneself dizzy.
Cameras are made for stationary use, isolating and dissecting a section from something. You set the camera into motion and record a short film within a static moment. How did this perversion begin? Was there some one or thing that specifically inspired it?
I first built the rotating mount for a 16mm movie camera after rotating the camera by hand and deciding that a more precise circular motion was needed. The movie films shot with this technique were almost, but not completely, abstract. This suggested to me the possibility of using a still camera with its longer exposure time to completely abstract the subject.
Do you select a subject based on knowing or making a reasonably guess about the end result?
I have only a limited notion of what the outcome of an exposure will be. It is very difficult, before setting the camera in motion, to look at a subject and attempt to visualize the end result.
What’s the success to failure rate of your photos?
Only a very few images turn out successfully, sometimes one or two images per roll and sometimes none.
Art photography has developed technologically in the last few decades in terms of color quality, extra large scale, and a myriad of rather invisible postproduction techniques, yet we recently find you using a 35mm camera, photographing in black and white, printing on old-fashioned paper, matting your photographs, and using the sizes equated with traditional photography. Why look back?
The look of my photos could be approximated with a computer and photo-editing software. However, I’m intent on including my body and hand in the process so that the image has a sense of corporeal truth. The decisions that follow from this about the type of printing paper etc. seem consistent with my desire to maintain a human scale and touch. The trend in art photography you describe could also describe the practice of commercial photography. Is this really looking forward?
Frequently technology and the hand are pitted against each other. Your work most always exhibits a sense of hand yet often also introduces aspects of technology. How do you see the relationship of the organic / corporeal to the synthetic / technological?
In a general sense, all technology is an expression of the body. Even if not always built by hand, a complex piece of technology is designed by human minds. The question of the relationship between the two becomes one of motive – why things are designed and how they are used. I’ve decided to use very basic mechanical means for my photographs because this seems most physically connected to the action of capturing an image with a camera.