Stars, 2014 explores my desire to find some balance between a relationship with the wild places of my youth, and a pervasive sense of disconnectedness with the natural world.

The Western landscape tradition embodies a pairing that James Elkins calls ‘the subject-object relationship’.  Typified by the ‘scenic viewpoint’ or tourist panoramic overlook, we gaze, often through binoculars or telescopes, at wide vistas and dramatic seascapes, awed and overwhelmed.  But this landscape experience often alienates the viewer from the scene and, just as the landscape itself becomes an object, a separation arises between them.

Today the majority of people live in urban or semi-urban environments, experiencing the landscape from a distanced position mediated through various media and technology.  From this viewpoint the notion of the landscape in all its sensuous materiality, our being within it rather than outside it, seems beyond reach.

Stars, 2014 addresses this distancing by drawing the viewer right into the heart of a forest which still holds mystery, and offers the potential for discovery and exploration.  The series considers the fragility of our relationship with the natural world, and the temporal and finite nature of landscape as a human construct.

Mature and ancient forest landscapes are interposed with images of the Milky Way, Omega Centauri, the Norma Galaxy and Embryonic stars in the Nebula NGC 346 captured by the Hubble Telescope. Each image links forest landscapes with the intangible and unknown universe creating a juxtaposition that reflects my personal experiences of the forest; its physicality and tactility set against a profound and fundamental otherness, an alienation that separates us from a truly immersive relationship with the natural world.

^{(Source Material Credit: STScI/Hubble & NASA)}

Stars, 2014 explores my desire to find some balance between a relationship with the wild places of my youth, and a pervasive sense of disconnectedness with the natural world.

The Western landscape tradition embodies a pairing that James Elkins calls ‘the subject-object relationship’.  Typified by the ‘scenic viewpoint’ or tourist panoramic overlook, we gaze, often through binoculars or telescopes, at wide vistas and dramatic seascapes, awed and overwhelmed.  But this landscape experience often alienates the viewer from the scene and, just as the landscape itself becomes an object, a separation arises between them.

Today the majority of people live in urban or semi-urban environments, experiencing the landscape from a distanced position mediated through various media and technology.  From this viewpoint the notion of the landscape in all its sensuous materiality, our being within it rather than outside it, seems beyond reach.

Stars, 2014 addresses this distancing by drawing the viewer right into the heart of a forest which still holds mystery, and offers the potential for discovery and exploration.  The series considers the fragility of our relationship with the natural world, and the temporal and finite nature of landscape as a human construct.

Mature and ancient forest landscapes are interposed with images of the Milky Way, Omega Centauri, the Norma Galaxy and Embryonic stars in the Nebula NGC 346 captured by the Hubble Telescope. Each image links forest landscapes with the intangible and unknown universe creating a juxtaposition that reflects my personal experiences of the forest; its physicality and tactility set against a profound and fundamental otherness, an alienation that separates us from a truly immersive relationship with the natural world.

^{(Source Material Credit: STScI/Hubble & NASA)}

Surveillance Landscapes interrogates how surveillance technology has changed our relationship and understanding of landscape and place in our increasingly intrusive electronic culture. I hack into surveillance cameras, public webcams, and CCTV feeds in a pursuit for the classical picturesque landscape, dislocating the visual product from its automated origins while searching for a conversation between land, borders, and power. The very act of surveying a site through these photographic systems implies a dominating  relationship between man and place. Ultimately, I hope to undermine these schemes of social control through the obfuscated melancholic images found while exploiting the technological mechanisms of power in our surveillance society.

Surveillance Landscapes interrogates how surveillance technology has changed our relationship and understanding of landscape and place in our increasingly intrusive electronic culture. I hack into surveillance cameras, public webcams, and CCTV feeds in a pursuit for the classical picturesque landscape, dislocating the visual product from its automated origins while searching for a conversation between land, borders, and power. The very act of surveying a site through these photographic systems implies a dominating  relationship between man and place. Ultimately, I hope to undermine these schemes of social control through the obfuscated melancholic images found while exploiting the technological mechanisms of power in our surveillance society.

When we are celebrating 400 years of Dhaka City, River Buriganga is fighting to survive. Today, it is nearly dead, can’t run on its natural way. It seems that people of Dhaka are killing the river for their insensitivity.

In Dhaka, people are growing day by day. Working places and various factories are booming constantly. Buriganga River is the one of the most popular way to communicate with another part of the country. Millions of people use the river everyday for bearing their various goods.

Tannery chemical, Mans wastage of whole Dhaka City and Industrial Wastage chemicals directly go down in Buriganga River. Nearly 700 brickfields on the riverside, dockyards and Barn oil from the boats and steamers are the causes of pollution.

This 41 km long river once blessed us with hope and dream to build a new city. But today, the city itself is a cause for the death of Buriganga. We, the Citizens of Dhaka are going to destroy our own river!

As a photographer, I see my role in my engagement with own city. I have an intrinsic relationship with this city and river as I spent most of my life in and around them. As a documentary photographer, my approach was to show the river and its rapidly changing landscape in every possible angle. I explored several corners of the river to have a big picture on people’s destructive involvement. At the same time, divine water of the river, stands alone with its new wave of hope. I just tried to capture all the aspects for a greater concern.

When we are celebrating 400 years of Dhaka City, River Buriganga is fighting to survive. Today, it is nearly dead, can’t run on its natural way. It seems that people of Dhaka are killing the river for their insensitivity.

In Dhaka, people are growing day by day. Working places and various factories are booming constantly. Buriganga River is the one of the most popular way to communicate with another part of the country. Millions of people use the river everyday for bearing their various goods.

Tannery chemical, Mans wastage of whole Dhaka City and Industrial Wastage chemicals directly go down in Buriganga River. Nearly 700 brickfields on the riverside, dockyards and Barn oil from the boats and steamers are the causes of pollution.

This 41 km long river once blessed us with hope and dream to build a new city. But today, the city itself is a cause for the death of Buriganga. We, the Citizens of Dhaka are going to destroy our own river!

As a photographer, I see my role in my engagement with own city. I have an intrinsic relationship with this city and river as I spent most of my life in and around them. As a documentary photographer, my approach was to show the river and its rapidly changing landscape in every possible angle. I explored several corners of the river to have a big picture on people’s destructive involvement. At the same time, divine water of the river, stands alone with its new wave of hope. I just tried to capture all the aspects for a greater concern.

Brazil is facing the largest environmental disaster in its history. Due the lack of specific regulations and low inspection, a mining company’s dam broke throwing 10.5 billion gallons of mud on one of the countries most important rivers and water sheds, covering a whole town and leaving many cities without water.

That breakage served as a groundbreaking for me. While flying over the area I was impressed by the landscape damaged that has been caused by the highly intensive mining activity in the state. Many of the open air mines, are hidden between the state of Minas Gerais’ “mountain” chains , therefore, local population has no sight of its extension. Most of the photographs were taken in a forbidden aerial space, with the plane’s transponder being off.

It is a very delicate subject, mining is the main industry in the state and it is so deeply routed that it is on it’s name. Everyone has a relation to the activity. My family had an iron processing company, one of the multiple stages on the mining commercial chain.

There is a mining regulation bill currently being discussed by Brazilian congressman. 20 out of the 27 congressman responsible for the project received money from mining companies to their campaigns.

This ongoing project is a landscape investigation both of the disaster, the unbounded and poorly regulated use of the soil.

Brazil is facing the largest environmental disaster in its history. Due the lack of specific regulations and low inspection, a mining company’s dam broke throwing 10.5 billion gallons of mud on one of the countries most important rivers and water sheds, covering a whole town and leaving many cities without water.

That breakage served as a groundbreaking for me. While flying over the area I was impressed by the landscape damaged that has been caused by the highly intensive mining activity in the state. Many of the open air mines, are hidden between the state of Minas Gerais’ “mountain” chains , therefore, local population has no sight of its extension. Most of the photographs were taken in a forbidden aerial space, with the plane’s transponder being off.

It is a very delicate subject, mining is the main industry in the state and it is so deeply routed that it is on it’s name. Everyone has a relation to the activity. My family had an iron processing company, one of the multiple stages on the mining commercial chain.

There is a mining regulation bill currently being discussed by Brazilian congressman. 20 out of the 27 congressman responsible for the project received money from mining companies to their campaigns.

This ongoing project is a landscape investigation both of the disaster, the unbounded and poorly regulated use of the soil.

Most of my career has focused on our relationship with nature. I’m interested in how we find ways to accommodate nature, and how it accommodates us. As with most bodies of work, the pictures define my intent. But in the end, I make the pictures I do because of the conversation that occurs between the subject and myself - and this always depends on the light, the weather, how I'm feeling and what I am open to seeing at the moment. It's the moment all things come together for me. 

Rooftop draws poetic attention to celebrate and proliferate new ideas in design showing the inventiveness in architecture and accommodating our need for nature. Green roofs reduce our carbon footprint by countering heat island effect and improve storm water control, but they do far more. These pictures symbolize the allure of nature in the face of our continuing urban sprawl. By securely situating the gardens within the steel, stone, and glass rectangularity of urban and industrial buildings, I ask viewers to revel in the far more open patterns, colors, and connection to the sky; and how they become part of a new landscape as well as a framework for positive change. Our ingenuity and grace continues to impress me. It makes me more optimistic about humanity.

Most of my career has focused on our relationship with nature. I’m interested in how we find ways to accommodate nature, and how it accommodates us. As with most bodies of work, the pictures define my intent. But in the end, I make the pictures I do because of the conversation that occurs between the subject and myself - and this always depends on the light, the weather, how I'm feeling and what I am open to seeing at the moment. It's the moment all things come together for me. 

Rooftop draws poetic attention to celebrate and proliferate new ideas in design showing the inventiveness in architecture and accommodating our need for nature. Green roofs reduce our carbon footprint by countering heat island effect and improve storm water control, but they do far more. These pictures symbolize the allure of nature in the face of our continuing urban sprawl. By securely situating the gardens within the steel, stone, and glass rectangularity of urban and industrial buildings, I ask viewers to revel in the far more open patterns, colors, and connection to the sky; and how they become part of a new landscape as well as a framework for positive change. Our ingenuity and grace continues to impress me. It makes me more optimistic about humanity.

Brazillian country side is being filled with eucalyptus.

The accelerated industrial development and the overtuned importance of steel exportation, lead by sucessive governments, are one of the reasons of the deforestation of the Cerrado, the Brazillian savana, the Atlantic Forest, and even the Amazon.

Several international steel companies, established by the country, buys large portions of land and substitutes the natural vegetation by transgenic eucalyptus trees, a fast growing kind of wood, used to make vegetal coal, an important ingredient in the tranformation of the iron ore to steel.

The eucalyptus charges high the environment for it’s fast growing speed: it consumes too much water and nutrients, leaving the soil exhausted and dry.

I’m working in some regions affected by these monocrops since my beginning as a photographer. The extensive and visually growing areas of the eucaliptus fields always concerned me, because of the environmental and also social impact it brings, changing the landscape as a whole, the geographical references, the natural resources, the economical activities, and the amount of water, now a global issue. I’ve ridden, and walked, a lot inside these fields since 2002.

I’ve photographed several situations trying to discuss this question in the last 13 years. But when, in a recent travel, I passed by road swallowed by an enormous eucaliptus field, I faced one of this hybrid scenes and saw the opportunity to make a representative image of the situation, a straight photograph containing: the past, a native tree, something that is desappearing of those landscapes, the future: those supra-vegetal, eucaliptus clones, in the present of the photography.

Besides this documentary facet, that is being effective to sensibilize people of the problem of the extensive growing of this and other kinds of monocrops, a basic Brazillian problem, I also see this work in a simbolic way. I note that people feel something beyond the direct meaning of these photographs, something like a direct identification with these encaged lifes, struggling to survive in an artificial, oppressive and vanishing world.

Brazillian country side is being filled with eucalyptus.

The accelerated industrial development and the overtuned importance of steel exportation, lead by sucessive governments, are one of the reasons of the deforestation of the Cerrado, the Brazillian savana, the Atlantic Forest, and even the Amazon.

Several international steel companies, established by the country, buys large portions of land and substitutes the natural vegetation by transgenic eucalyptus trees, a fast growing kind of wood, used to make vegetal coal, an important ingredient in the tranformation of the iron ore to steel.

The eucalyptus charges high the environment for it’s fast growing speed: it consumes too much water and nutrients, leaving the soil exhausted and dry.

I’m working in some regions affected by these monocrops since my beginning as a photographer. The extensive and visually growing areas of the eucaliptus fields always concerned me, because of the environmental and also social impact it brings, changing the landscape as a whole, the geographical references, the natural resources, the economical activities, and the amount of water, now a global issue. I’ve ridden, and walked, a lot inside these fields since 2002.

I’ve photographed several situations trying to discuss this question in the last 13 years. But when, in a recent travel, I passed by road swallowed by an enormous eucaliptus field, I faced one of this hybrid scenes and saw the opportunity to make a representative image of the situation, a straight photograph containing: the past, a native tree, something that is desappearing of those landscapes, the future: those supra-vegetal, eucaliptus clones, in the present of the photography.

Besides this documentary facet, that is being effective to sensibilize people of the problem of the extensive growing of this and other kinds of monocrops, a basic Brazillian problem, I also see this work in a simbolic way. I note that people feel something beyond the direct meaning of these photographs, something like a direct identification with these encaged lifes, struggling to survive in an artificial, oppressive and vanishing world.

As a photographic artist, I am interested in the fraught relationship between photography and memory that creates a new reality in the gradual process of shifting and distortion. This project explores how memory appropriates history through photography and how it changes our perceptions of the past.

I document World War II reenactments in Texas. This war, which has become part of the foundational myth of the contemporary United States, has remained one of the few unquestioned sources of national identity, justice and masculinity today. Yet even though considered “the good war” that doesn’t need to be embellished in the public consciousness, the past is being constantly reinterpreted and changed through the reenactment movement. Photography plays a significant role in this process as participants recreate historic photographs in their roleplay and then use newly taken pictures of themselves to present their made-up historic persona. This distortion of recreating and personification of history is then reflected in the acid-bath mordancage process through its degradation, toxicity, unpredictability, physicality and surreal final result.

As a process, this project goes against the grain of what photography is. I use it as an ideological reaction to the noncommittal pull of digital culture. Instead of fixing the moment forever, it erases the image and alters the emulsion. Instead of endless multiples, it produces unique, unrepeatable prints. Instead of an objective optic capture, it is a physical object that shows the hand of the artist in its tactile recreation. It is toxic, unpredictable and shifts over time. Just like memory, it reflects the constant battle between preservation and ephemerality.

As a photographic artist, I am interested in the fraught relationship between photography and memory that creates a new reality in the gradual process of shifting and distortion. This project explores how memory appropriates history through photography and how it changes our perceptions of the past.

I document World War II reenactments in Texas. This war, which has become part of the foundational myth of the contemporary United States, has remained one of the few unquestioned sources of national identity, justice and masculinity today. Yet even though considered “the good war” that doesn’t need to be embellished in the public consciousness, the past is being constantly reinterpreted and changed through the reenactment movement. Photography plays a significant role in this process as participants recreate historic photographs in their roleplay and then use newly taken pictures of themselves to present their made-up historic persona. This distortion of recreating and personification of history is then reflected in the acid-bath mordancage process through its degradation, toxicity, unpredictability, physicality and surreal final result.

As a process, this project goes against the grain of what photography is. I use it as an ideological reaction to the noncommittal pull of digital culture. Instead of fixing the moment forever, it erases the image and alters the emulsion. Instead of endless multiples, it produces unique, unrepeatable prints. Instead of an objective optic capture, it is a physical object that shows the hand of the artist in its tactile recreation. It is toxic, unpredictable and shifts over time. Just like memory, it reflects the constant battle between preservation and ephemerality.

Processed Views interprets the frontier of industrial food production: the seductive and alarming intersection of nature and technology. As we move further away from the sources of our food, we head into uncharted territory replete with unintended consequences for the environment and for our health.

In our commentary on the landscape of processed foods, we reference the work of photographer, Carleton Watkins (1829-1916). His sublime views framed the American West as a land of endless possibilities and significantly influenced the creation of the first national parks. However, many of Watkins’ photographs were commissioned by the corporate interests of the day; the railroad, mining, lumber and milling companies. His commissions served as both documentation of and advertisement for the American West. Watkins’ views expessed the popular 19th century notion of Manifest Destiny – America’s bountiful land, inevitably and justifiably utilized by its citizens.
We built these views to examine consumption, progress and the changing landscape.

Processed Views interprets the frontier of industrial food production: the seductive and alarming intersection of nature and technology. As we move further away from the sources of our food, we head into uncharted territory replete with unintended consequences for the environment and for our health.

In our commentary on the landscape of processed foods, we reference the work of photographer, Carleton Watkins (1829-1916). His sublime views framed the American West as a land of endless possibilities and significantly influenced the creation of the first national parks. However, many of Watkins’ photographs were commissioned by the corporate interests of the day; the railroad, mining, lumber and milling companies. His commissions served as both documentation of and advertisement for the American West. Watkins’ views expessed the popular 19th century notion of Manifest Destiny – America’s bountiful land, inevitably and justifiably utilized by its citizens.
We built these views to examine consumption, progress and the changing landscape.

In my Ground Waters series I create miniature worlds where both natural and urban environments are overgrown by strange crystal formations. The colorful tableaux are playful in their materials, but they also allude to our environment being saturated by pollution.

I assemble and combine various elements, like a science experiment, and then I flood the scene with a liquid crystal solution. Over the course of a few hours, days, or weeks, the crystals re-form, permeating the small model. I enjoy the conflicting processes of control and lack thereof.

In my Ground Waters series I create miniature worlds where both natural and urban environments are overgrown by strange crystal formations. The colorful tableaux are playful in their materials, but they also allude to our environment being saturated by pollution.

I assemble and combine various elements, like a science experiment, and then I flood the scene with a liquid crystal solution. Over the course of a few hours, days, or weeks, the crystals re-form, permeating the small model. I enjoy the conflicting processes of control and lack thereof.

_{The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and the water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass. —Marjory Stoneman Douglas}

I began this series during my AIRIE residency in the Everglades in December 2012. It draws inspiration from a ritual described in The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald. In Holland in the 1600s, during the wake of the deceased, it was customary to cover all mirrors, landscape paintings and portraits in the home with cloths. It was believed this would make it easier for the soul to leave the body and subdue any temptations for it to stay in this world.

The ritual seemed, by extension, to be a confirmation of the deeply moving experience that one often feels in the natural environment, and thus provided both a literal and contextual frame within which to shoot the landscape, a portal from the domestic into the wilderness. The curtains, all purchased from Goodwill and Salvation Army stores in south Florida and Utah, represent a ‘social fabric’ with a history already attached to them. In our increasingly urban existence that ever distances us from the wilderness experience, the drapes serve as visual connectors to the familiar.

Images from the Marjory's World series will be on show in the exhibition 'Mise en Scene' opening March 16th at Hazan Projects in New York City. 

_{The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and the water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass. —Marjory Stoneman Douglas}

I began this series during my AIRIE residency in the Everglades in December 2012. It draws inspiration from a ritual described in The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald. In Holland in the 1600s, during the wake of the deceased, it was customary to cover all mirrors, landscape paintings and portraits in the home with cloths. It was believed this would make it easier for the soul to leave the body and subdue any temptations for it to stay in this world.

The ritual seemed, by extension, to be a confirmation of the deeply moving experience that one often feels in the natural environment, and thus provided both a literal and contextual frame within which to shoot the landscape, a portal from the domestic into the wilderness. The curtains, all purchased from Goodwill and Salvation Army stores in south Florida and Utah, represent a ‘social fabric’ with a history already attached to them. In our increasingly urban existence that ever distances us from the wilderness experience, the drapes serve as visual connectors to the familiar.

Images from the Marjory's World series will be on show in the exhibition 'Mise en Scene' opening March 16th at Hazan Projects in New York City. 

We are at a critical juncture in the evolution of our species. How we choose to live on Earth in the next few decades, with a rapidly growing human population and expanding consumption patterns, may determine not only our prospects for survival, but also the ultimate viability of Earth’s ecosystem.

I have long been intrigued by the tension and visual energy created at the nexus of nature and human activity. Uniquely as a species, we modify and use the environment for our perceived needs or enjoyment. Sometimes we consider the future consequences of our actions. More often, we focus myopically on the short-term utility of land and resource use.

Changing Perspectives is the working title for a connected set of photography projects I will engage in over the next five years. Building upon The Evolution of Ivanpah Solar, a new project, Energy in the American West, will expand my examination of utility-scale renewable energy projects in the United States, while selectively documenting domestic coal, oil, and natural gas energy production.

My primary goal, however, is to develop Changing Perspectives into a project of global scale. New renewable energy capacity is being built around the world at a remarkable pace. Projects, in many countries, on several continents, reflect a growing international commitment to transform our cultures and economies away from a dependence on fossil fuels towards a future that taps the extraordinary sustainable energy of the sun, wind, and tides. I will research and document a select group of renewable energy projects, ones that reflect a proactive commitment to future generations, while also striving to reveal the challenges and compromises such transformations frequently entail.

We are at a critical juncture in the evolution of our species. How we choose to live on Earth in the next few decades, with a rapidly growing human population and expanding consumption patterns, may determine not only our prospects for survival, but also the ultimate viability of Earth’s ecosystem.

I have long been intrigued by the tension and visual energy created at the nexus of nature and human activity. Uniquely as a species, we modify and use the environment for our perceived needs or enjoyment. Sometimes we consider the future consequences of our actions. More often, we focus myopically on the short-term utility of land and resource use.

Changing Perspectives is the working title for a connected set of photography projects I will engage in over the next five years. Building upon The Evolution of Ivanpah Solar, a new project, Energy in the American West, will expand my examination of utility-scale renewable energy projects in the United States, while selectively documenting domestic coal, oil, and natural gas energy production.

My primary goal, however, is to develop Changing Perspectives into a project of global scale. New renewable energy capacity is being built around the world at a remarkable pace. Projects, in many countries, on several continents, reflect a growing international commitment to transform our cultures and economies away from a dependence on fossil fuels towards a future that taps the extraordinary sustainable energy of the sun, wind, and tides. I will research and document a select group of renewable energy projects, ones that reflect a proactive commitment to future generations, while also striving to reveal the challenges and compromises such transformations frequently entail.

Since 1991 I have con­verted rooms into Cam­era Obscuras in order to pho­to­graph the strange and delight­ful meet­ing of the out­side world with the room’s inte­rior.

In an effort to find new ways to use this tech­nique, I have worked with my assis­tant, C.J. Heyliger, on design­ing a light proof tent which can project views of the sur­round­ing land­scape, via periscope type optics, onto the sur­face of the ground inside the tent. Inside this space I pho­to­graph the sand­wich of these two out­door real­i­ties meet­ing on the ground. Depend­ing on the qual­ity of the sur­face, these views can take on a vari­ety of painterly effects. The added use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy on my cam­era lets me record visual moments in a much shorter time frame– for instance I can now get clouds and peo­ple to show up in some of the photographs.

This way of observ­ing the land­scape with spe­cially equipped tents was prac­ticed by some artists in the 19th cen­tury in order to trace on paper what they saw in the land­scape. Inter­est­ingly, this approach to pic­tur­ing the land was done even before the inven­tion of photography.

Since 1991 I have con­verted rooms into Cam­era Obscuras in order to pho­to­graph the strange and delight­ful meet­ing of the out­side world with the room’s inte­rior.

In an effort to find new ways to use this tech­nique, I have worked with my assis­tant, C.J. Heyliger, on design­ing a light proof tent which can project views of the sur­round­ing land­scape, via periscope type optics, onto the sur­face of the ground inside the tent. Inside this space I pho­to­graph the sand­wich of these two out­door real­i­ties meet­ing on the ground. Depend­ing on the qual­ity of the sur­face, these views can take on a vari­ety of painterly effects. The added use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy on my cam­era lets me record visual moments in a much shorter time frame– for instance I can now get clouds and peo­ple to show up in some of the photographs.

This way of observ­ing the land­scape with spe­cially equipped tents was prac­ticed by some artists in the 19th cen­tury in order to trace on paper what they saw in the land­scape. Inter­est­ingly, this approach to pic­tur­ing the land was done even before the inven­tion of photography.

In Positives (2002-2003) famous historical press photos are re-staged, repeating the original in terms of composition, but changing the characters and the general meaning of the captured events, making a positive version of them. Libera comments: "The series is another attempt at playing with trauma. We are always dealing with memorized objects, not the objects themselves. I wanted to employ this mechanism of seeing and remembering and touch upon the phenomenon of memory's afterimages. This is how we actually perceive those photographs  [the series "Positives"] - the harmless scenes trigger flashbacks of the brutal originals. I have picked the "negatives" from my own memory, from among the images I remembered from the childhood"

In Positives (2002-2003) famous historical press photos are re-staged, repeating the original in terms of composition, but changing the characters and the general meaning of the captured events, making a positive version of them. Libera comments: "The series is another attempt at playing with trauma. We are always dealing with memorized objects, not the objects themselves. I wanted to employ this mechanism of seeing and remembering and touch upon the phenomenon of memory's afterimages. This is how we actually perceive those photographs  [the series "Positives"] - the harmless scenes trigger flashbacks of the brutal originals. I have picked the "negatives" from my own memory, from among the images I remembered from the childhood"

Since 1993, Peter Steinhauer has been documenting the many facets of Asian culture.

Upon his first visit to Hong Kong in January of 1994, arriving at the old Kai Tak International Airport, Steinhauer noticed a very large structure that was caged in bamboo and swathed in yellow material. He was amazed by this monumental structure, standing out beneath a canopy of clouds as it glowed against the monochromatic, urban skyline. Thus began Steinhauers fascination with these multicolored structures.

Once a practice throughout Asia, Hong Kong is the final stronghold of the bamboo scaffolders. The title Cocoon for this body of work was a natural choice. The framework; a metamorphosis; like caterpillars to butterflies. Colored material unveiled ceremoniously reveals a brand new façade, as in a cocoon revealing itself for the first time.

Since 1993, Peter Steinhauer has been documenting the many facets of Asian culture.

Upon his first visit to Hong Kong in January of 1994, arriving at the old Kai Tak International Airport, Steinhauer noticed a very large structure that was caged in bamboo and swathed in yellow material. He was amazed by this monumental structure, standing out beneath a canopy of clouds as it glowed against the monochromatic, urban skyline. Thus began Steinhauers fascination with these multicolored structures.

Once a practice throughout Asia, Hong Kong is the final stronghold of the bamboo scaffolders. The title Cocoon for this body of work was a natural choice. The framework; a metamorphosis; like caterpillars to butterflies. Colored material unveiled ceremoniously reveals a brand new façade, as in a cocoon revealing itself for the first time.

Does a portrait tell something about the person photographed? Does text help us to read a photograph more clearly?

"To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft” said John Szarkowski in his The Photographer's Eye.

I downloaded portraits of famous photographers and opened them with the program TextEdit. Then I added some of the thoughts of these photographers to the code of their portraits, causing a “literary glitch” that helps us look cautiously at the medium and its relationship with words. The process of elaborating the photos is not coincidental, but a procedure carried out in accordance with the knowledge of the medium, despite the random results.

William Eggleston:

A picture is what it is and I’ve never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn’t make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they’re right there, whatever they are.

Walker Evans:

The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative.

Annie Leibovitz:

In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative.

Susan Sontag:

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

Thomas Struth:

For me, making a photograph is mostly an intellectual process of understanding people or cities and their historical and phenomenological connections. At that point the photo is almost made, and all that remains is the mechanical process.

Does a portrait tell something about the person photographed? Does text help us to read a photograph more clearly?

"To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft” said John Szarkowski in his The Photographer's Eye.

I downloaded portraits of famous photographers and opened them with the program TextEdit. Then I added some of the thoughts of these photographers to the code of their portraits, causing a “literary glitch” that helps us look cautiously at the medium and its relationship with words. The process of elaborating the photos is not coincidental, but a procedure carried out in accordance with the knowledge of the medium, despite the random results.

William Eggleston:

A picture is what it is and I’ve never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn’t make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they’re right there, whatever they are.

Walker Evans:

The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative.

Annie Leibovitz:

In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative.

Susan Sontag:

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.

Thomas Struth:

For me, making a photograph is mostly an intellectual process of understanding people or cities and their historical and phenomenological connections. At that point the photo is almost made, and all that remains is the mechanical process.

Expeditions into the 3D World of Apple Maps

Since September 2012, Apple has offered a mapping service application developed for its iOS6 operating system. Using a new form of 3D imaging, it displays the centers of mainly American cities. The application’s renderings of buildings and streets have elicited criticism and mockery, since the maps and the corresponding images are not without errors... It is these “errors” that provide the point of departure for the project The Rendering Eye. […]

The Apple Maps program produces cityscapes that are the pure invention of ceaselessly calculating image-generating machines and that show real places even so. These places are simultaneously strange and familiar. Familiar, because they are streets we can walk on, houses we can live in, and intersections we can stand at; yet also strange, because we are denied the pedestrian’s perspective. […]

The fact that Apple is currently working on improving the database of its renderings already heralds the end of the special quality of these images: soon […] the algorithms will have been refined and the visualizations of reality so perfected that these cartographic images will turn into simulated immediacy, and thereby become artlessly mimetic. At that point the 3D renderings will no longer produce a picture, but rather a flat image that will be indistinguishable from a photograph – a photograph which, for its part, will no longer be distinguishable from a rendered image. In light of this anticipated development, the screen shots […] are already a memory of a future past, when computer-generated cityscapes were still “picturesque.” ¹

^{1. For the complete text, see:
http://www.renderingeye.net/projects_content.php?project_id=999&typ=project}

Expeditions into the 3D World of Apple Maps

Since September 2012, Apple has offered a mapping service application developed for its iOS6 operating system. Using a new form of 3D imaging, it displays the centers of mainly American cities. The application’s renderings of buildings and streets have elicited criticism and mockery, since the maps and the corresponding images are not without errors... It is these “errors” that provide the point of departure for the project The Rendering Eye. […]

The Apple Maps program produces cityscapes that are the pure invention of ceaselessly calculating image-generating machines and that show real places even so. These places are simultaneously strange and familiar. Familiar, because they are streets we can walk on, houses we can live in, and intersections we can stand at; yet also strange, because we are denied the pedestrian’s perspective. […]

The fact that Apple is currently working on improving the database of its renderings already heralds the end of the special quality of these images: soon […] the algorithms will have been refined and the visualizations of reality so perfected that these cartographic images will turn into simulated immediacy, and thereby become artlessly mimetic. At that point the 3D renderings will no longer produce a picture, but rather a flat image that will be indistinguishable from a photograph – a photograph which, for its part, will no longer be distinguishable from a rendered image. In light of this anticipated development, the screen shots […] are already a memory of a future past, when computer-generated cityscapes were still “picturesque.” ¹

^{1. For the complete text, see:
http://www.renderingeye.net/projects_content.php?project_id=999&typ=project}

After a period of decline comes the turning point.

The intense light that had been driven away returns.

There is movement, but not caused by violence... The movement is natural, developing spontaneously.

Thus, transformation of the old becomes easy.

The old is discarded and replaced with the new.

Both actions are in keeping with the time; thereby causing no damage.

After a period of decline comes the turning point.

The intense light that had been driven away returns.

There is movement, but not caused by violence... The movement is natural, developing spontaneously.

Thus, transformation of the old becomes easy.

The old is discarded and replaced with the new.

Both actions are in keeping with the time; thereby causing no damage.

Where are we?

Night… luminous traces, maybe celestial vaults, an oniric world full of mystery.

Hidden in what seems like a dream is a reality which is closer to a nightmare:

These traces are vestiges of the civil war in Darfour; abuse performed by the Janjawids (The Knights of the Devil), who raped the women, killed the children and slaughtered the population, before burning down the villages – leaving nothing but the ash of homes and fences.

For the first time in his career, Jacques Pugin, artist photographer, has chosen to work on images which are not his own, using clichés borrowed from the internet. These satellite images are actually extracted from Google Earth, taken from millions of kilometers above Darfour.

In their original state, these images are dead, black traces of archived history, as seen by the eye of the satellite. They are simply echoes of events. As archeologists would say: “This happened here”.

Jacques Pugin has chosen to work on these images by applying a double treatment. Firstly by draining all colour, making them black and white, and secondly by inverting them, pointing to the symbolic and fundamentally dark, negative nature of the barbarity which they witness. Turning the stills to negative also transforms all black lines into white traces, filling them with light – the light of the passage of fire.

On a first reading, the decidedly graphic yet seemingly obscure nature of these images stimulates our curiosity, yet it is upon deeper observation that the captured photographs reveal their intrinsic meaning, their violence.

If this work can be said to belong to the photographer’s continued research on traces, started in 1979 with the Graffiti Greffés (Grafted Graffiti) series, this time, Jacques Pugin’s drive is primarily a political one.

Conscious of journalists’ lack of access into the Darfour region, the artist questions the role of the internet by indirectly transforming Google Earth into a reporting tool that witnesses from high above.

Where are we?

Night… luminous traces, maybe celestial vaults, an oniric world full of mystery.

Hidden in what seems like a dream is a reality which is closer to a nightmare:

These traces are vestiges of the civil war in Darfour; abuse performed by the Janjawids (The Knights of the Devil), who raped the women, killed the children and slaughtered the population, before burning down the villages – leaving nothing but the ash of homes and fences.

For the first time in his career, Jacques Pugin, artist photographer, has chosen to work on images which are not his own, using clichés borrowed from the internet. These satellite images are actually extracted from Google Earth, taken from millions of kilometers above Darfour.

In their original state, these images are dead, black traces of archived history, as seen by the eye of the satellite. They are simply echoes of events. As archeologists would say: “This happened here”.

Jacques Pugin has chosen to work on these images by applying a double treatment. Firstly by draining all colour, making them black and white, and secondly by inverting them, pointing to the symbolic and fundamentally dark, negative nature of the barbarity which they witness. Turning the stills to negative also transforms all black lines into white traces, filling them with light – the light of the passage of fire.

On a first reading, the decidedly graphic yet seemingly obscure nature of these images stimulates our curiosity, yet it is upon deeper observation that the captured photographs reveal their intrinsic meaning, their violence.

If this work can be said to belong to the photographer’s continued research on traces, started in 1979 with the Graffiti Greffés (Grafted Graffiti) series, this time, Jacques Pugin’s drive is primarily a political one.

Conscious of journalists’ lack of access into the Darfour region, the artist questions the role of the internet by indirectly transforming Google Earth into a reporting tool that witnesses from high above.