Post and News

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. It has been a bit of a clumsy April. A few days of convalescing from a thrown out back (who knew a sneeze could take one out so quickly), a few days visit from the parents, and another few days vacation. I just realized that it's nearly May already - hot days ahead - and I've lacked keeping you up-to-date on this blog. Posting on Facebook is sometimes a bit easier as we are always on, and lengthier posts, well, they take more time.
That said, a couple of things:
1). This article is awesome and a must read. I love hearing that portraiture is making a comeback and is "cool" again. It makes all our efforts that much more worthwhile.

2). Status Update, an exhibition that explores the use of emerging social networking technologies, featuring works by Kevin Van Aelst, Cat Balco, Sharon Butler, Heather Freeman, Greg Garvey, Matt Held, Keith Johnson, Katie Ring, Jeremiah Teipen, Lee Walton, Rachel Perry Welty and An Xiao, curated by Debbie Hesse and Donna Ruff, will be having the opening reception on Thursday, May 14th from 5-7 at Haskins Lab/ Yale, New Haven, CT. I am psyched to be featured on a panel with Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City, Sharon Kleinman (author of Displacing Place), and An Xiao from That Was Zen and Twartist extraordinare (I believe she will be posting live twitter feeds of the panel discussion for those who can't attend). I hope the local folks came make it. It's a great mix of artists using social networking to look at and analyze the way we communicate and express our "selves" in the digital age.

3). A short documentary of this project, with interviews from a few folks that have been remediated, will be posted in a few weeks on babelgum.com (will send link to the video and more details soon). A special thanks to Alex, Lance and Nick for coming to our house at 3:45 AM on a Saturday morning. I, admittedly, make great coffee (it's a must when getting up at 4:00AM on a regular basis), but I am sure you'd have rather been sleeping!

4). I expect a few features coming in two German zines over the next couple months, and one large US mag in either June or July. Sorry, not giving full details on that one just yet.

5). I've been thinking about posting guest posts over the next couple months. Maybe, thoughts on portraiture from those in the know, and short responses on the history of the photos from those that have been chosen and remediated for this project. We get a lot of requests to see the original photos and I thought this might be a nice way for our members to see them and learn a bit more about them.

6). The weather is going to be taking a turn in the right direction this weekend for us New Yorker's - I hope you all enjoy it while it's here. Happy Spring!

Richard Brilliant

I've been reading a book, Portraiture by Richard Brilliant, and found his ending sentence to be quite relevant to this project and wanted to share...

“Indeed, before long, one may expect that instead of an artist’s profile portrait the future will preserve only complete actuarial files, stored in some omniscient computer, ready to spew forth a different kind of personal profile, beginning with one’s Social Security number. Then, and only then, will portraiture as a distinctive genre of art disappear.”

It's kind of one of those heady books - required reading for a master's class in modern portraiture maybe. You pick it up, read a passage and pull one or two great sentences from it and think about what he's said in terms of what is happening right now in social media and the promotion of a visual self. If you are so inclined to pick something like this up, it may be worth you while.