jo.sch
190724
THE CURRENT PICK
» tl;dr - today's world «
may repeat myself painfully here – at least with this picture which i published in september 2014 on tumblr then titled » the desperate quest for energy «.
later i felt that i had to add the little punchier subline 'we are dickheads'. it remains 'the current pick' as long as it's getting more actual with every day.
230402
DÜSSELDORF
it is not only the geographic proximity that connects me to Düsseldorf, but also memories of my youth, upheaval, subculture, art, architecture and of course music. in his book 'ELECTRI_CITY', Krupps band member Rudi Esch dives into the stunning time of the birth of electronic music with eyewitness interviews. the list of those questioned reads like a who's who of the local music scene at the time and reveals exciting details and sometimes contradictory assessments by those involved, leaving room for your own speculation. Düsseldorf wasn't just 'Kraftwerk' at all.
the book triggers me on almost every page because i experienced the time as a teenager, know and love the music and the places described in ELECTRI_CITY. this is how things come full circle, because Düsseldorf obviously plays a major role in my photographic project 'Traces of human Life'...
230313
CHANGES
my photographic projects will face a major change in the very near future. details will follow in june. spoiler: it's about endings and beginnings...
230128
MICHAEL SCHMIDT
lately, i have come to admire the photographer Michael Schmidt, i love his monumental works 'Waffenruhe' and 'Ein-heit', but also his basic photographic philosophy, which includes his teaching activities at the adult education center [Volkshochschule Kreuzberg, Fachbereich Fotografie] Kreuzberg in the photography department. Schmidt represents an unbelievably deep photographic dimension that the present time needs so much more than any shiny perfection. Alec Soth discussed 'Waffenruhe' very detailed in this video - highly recommended for lovers of photographic-artistic depth!
221014
WRITING
my lust for writing is still there and growing, and i finally launched a corresponding project in blog form and german language. initially, it was intended purely as a practice writing salon, has still a prototypical character and plays with a mixture of fan fiction with exobiographical elements. i think a lot about whether and when i should identify myself as the author...
211204
TRACES OF HUMAN LIFE – OST
the tracks in this spotify playlist
are my personal soundtrack for the 'traces of human life' project.
211121
PROJECT STATUS UPDATE
lately, i reached the 500 posts mark since 2013 and 10 years of running my project 'traces of human life' are firmly targeted. the roadmap
until then (May 30th, 2023) is almost
completed and the sequencing process for it seems an eternal one – there's so much material i can work
with uncompromisingly throughout and probably even not enough space for covering newer work of my catalog.
in other words: as long as the desire remains, i can let this project continue until further notice.
every time i scroll through it, i hope for myself that it is a good, subconsciously inspiring work for people who
develop a consciousness similar to mine, react to a certain stimulus – a very satisfying feeling!
i benefit in so many ways from this project: it starts with the creation of the images, which for me is still the purest
therapy. it continues with editing and post-processing, which in terms of sequencing is always a feast for me.
sequencing the feed within Tumblr takes a lot of time and sometimes 'difficult' decisions – when i have to separate
myself from pictures i wanted to keep for unknown reasons. the fact that the whole thing then forms a kind of mirror of my
personality in which i love to browse around for myself makes this project a very personal adventure helping me to explore
and understand my very own personality in a deeper way.
i don't want to miss it anymore...
'Traces...' project
211113
LUIGI GHIRRI
for me, Luigi Ghirri is one of the most important and inspiring artists when it comes to incorporating the medium 'photography', but you have to engage yourself with his œuvre and spend some patience to look behind his concept. Ghirri offered his work a comfortable bed of theory, which represents no burden for me, but a very liberating outbreak of the partially dulled image consumption of the present time.
the exclamation 'explanation kills art!' in my opinion has become obsolete in some degree, we should learn to select and understand images again – keywords like 'meta-level', 'above view' etc. come into my mind, and a thoughtful written underlay can guide you to an unexpected deepness in understanding the artist's intention. when there is one. and in Luigi's case there definitetly is!
more and more i get the impression that the evolution of the human brain cannot keep up with the speed and amount of today's (digital) media consumption – perhaps still in fleeting perception, but not taking into account satisfactory reception and reflection possibilities.
currently i'm reading Ghirri's book 'The Complete Essays 1973-1991' – and have to admit that i cannot read AND understand more than two of these essays a day. what a magical exercise! i feel very connected to Luigi's philosophy and can only recommend the studies of his work to photography-interested people who want to escape the tempo of the medium.
unfortunately, Luigi Ghirri died way too early in 1992, aged 49.
Link
210827
ART AND ORDER IN TIMES OF THE PLANETARY ENDGAME
‘art is there to destroy order.’
Angélica Liddell, director
in my work, Liddell’s quote turns more into the opposite with every new day. who could have guessed that my deadlocked, grenzautistic love for structure and sequence would become the opposite pole of the heated, histerious and disturbing happenings out in the world? because i just want tranquility and inner peace – which nothing gives me more intensively than the photographic interpretation of the outer world surrounding me ...
190802
JAMES BALDWIN
remembering James Baldwin: american novelist, civil rights activist and social justice warrior, born on august 2nd 1924.
[update 210827: this sadly doesn't get old. such a shame.]
190802
AI AND ART AND LIFE AND WORLD
the question will/must arise: how will we clearly differentiate man made from machine generated content [deep faking!]? will there be a way at all? i think here specifically of the media of my core interest [PHOTO/TEXT] but it will be about areas of human life which are much, much more important.
will it be by implementing some kind of imperfection? machines probably can do even that better than humans. but what does 'better' mean in this context: noticeable or almost imperceptible? triggering a thought avalanche in me ...
190726
RUTGER HAUER, 23 January 1944 – 19 July 2019
»I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like... tears in rain. Time to die.«
'tears in rain' monologue by replicant Roy Batty in the 1982 Ridley Scott film 'Blade Runner'
190723
LUCIA SOTNIKOVA QUOTES
»art is an area where you can research anything that makes you curious for a lifetime.«
... on 'why artist?'
»that which is unpopular.«
... on what her sources of inspiration are
»the evolution of living organisms in a slowly digitizing environment.«
... on what topics she is driven by
from NRW-Forum's magazine 'OHNE TITEL#1'
190723
THE PICTURE FLOOD - A SUBJECTIVE CURATIVE ATTEMPT
there were times when i was searching for *the* picture. tumblr let(s) you reblog stuff, so i started my own panopticon/picture world there. sometimes it's quite interesting browsing this stuff and thinking: »hey, my pictural preferences and topics didn't change at all!«
what i find quite interesting: running a second, passive blog [re-blogs etc.] imitates in some ways a workflow known from the AI/machine learning field: GAN [GENERATIVE ADVERSARIAL NETWORK], consisting of one neural 'GENERATOR' network [creating/active = waidwund] and a second 'DISCRIMINATOR' network [curative judging/half passive = waidwund-reblogs]. in machine learning, these networks finetune their knowledge [=algorithm] about human working methods and preferences by mutual acting/reacting in conjunction with some human input and will probably one day be close to what we call perfection in terms of humanly looking results. for me, my pseudo GAN is only for keeping me on track and inspirated and what's for sure is that the common value of perfection in [my personal] photography is in no way my objective. maybe the perfection/imperfection in times of AI discussion will be topic of a later entry in this section.
Wenn nicht anders genannt, Copyright, Herausgeber und inhaltlich Verantwortlicher gemäß §6 MDStV: Joergen Schlegel
Urheberrecht und andere Schutzrechte Copyright 2023, Joergen Schlegel