Lassitude and Longitude

—–Original Message—–
From: d’Autremont <ktda@excite.com>
To: Fotographicmail@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:33:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: RE: ok i’ll stop

paul,

okay so it seems to be kind of hard
to have a real conversation during class

but i want to know what you where asking about perfection
do i strive for it , or wish for it?
those are very different things

i don’t strive for it
i know i am sloppy
always have been
wondering if that may actually be my strong suit
rather than something to be avoided

i am not sure
but it is part of my personality to want the perfect
to wish i spoke 7 languages
and that my mom kept me in ballet when i was 8
those sorts of things

and i am hard on my images the same way
but not actually sure how to go about changing them
well we all know how
but actually doing it is different, right….

anyway so the question goes to you
do you want perfection?
is it connected to beauty?
can you make a really ugly image?

i was also trying to think to answer your question about a favorite
i think i have been trying to look for a picture that appeals to me
in the appealing sense
but i realize i am mistaken
because in way i (sorry if this is wrong) think they really are grotesque
they are not meant to be apealling

they aren’t gross but there is something that is asking the audience
to look away
maybe that is connected to the sense of voyeurism

and also that we relate
sort of what you said about everyone pulling on their own experiences
i think you are asking your audience
to think of what they look like in the mirror

and maybe most people dont want to….

okay talk to you tomorrow

-katrina

Katrina, bear with me as I attempt to do my best to field all of your recent questions.

I began shooting ’street photography’ the day after my arrival in Rochester in late July 2005. I forced myself to shoot at least one person I did not know or feel comfortable approaching every single day. I suppose I’m a bit of an oddity that way. As a photographer, I like to place myself into uncomfortable situations as much as possible.

I possess an exquisite fear when it comes to shooting ‘street photography’, and at the same time – it’s what I love most. My images are my ‘babies’ as you put it – they are the descriptive artifice and record of my experience/s. They corroborate my existence and my vision – they are indeed close to me… every last one of them.

However, I should warn I am an awful hypocrite and feel passionately about many things that clash and contradict, even ideas and issues that seem so inseparable to who I am. There are many ideas and beliefs, which I take full responsibility for – but by nature I am a skeptic. By this I mean that I have never believed or trusted anyone but myself. I am incredulous and weary of all things born of consciousness. I am most skeptical of myself – my perceptions, interpretations, etc.

Some days photography is only a mechanical process, on other days, it is an experience unparalleled by any other. Some days, it is my most passionate lover and on other days it is vacuous void or vacancy if you will; something I feel entirely dispassionate and resigned towards.

Going back to what I said earlier, about believing only in myself (my experiences) – such skepticism may seem unwarranted or unwise (at the very least, inconvenient), but it is the defining characteristic of the photographic process. In fact, it is so enmeshed in my own personal experience with photography that the two have coalesced and become indistinguishable from one another.

I have always been most suspicious of images. In that sense, I have never accepted that photographs possess truths. But, I will not deny or refuted their ability to reference or serve as resource in the dialectical apprehension of truth.

I am a deconstructionist at heart and my process involves using still image to study relationships. Within these relationship I always find something more valuable than meaning; I find more questions; questions, which ultimately shape my character and contribute to my identity.

Often times, questions that are much bigger than me and beyond the scope of my intellect and understanding. For me, photography allows me meditate on thoughts that would otherwise escape me, much like a dream. It’s the only way I am able to reconcile my world. But, then again, tomorrow it just might be a clever contraption made of metal sent here to destroy all of mankind?

My photographs are the distillates of a process that occurs only once and is unrepeatable. That’s not to say that an individual image can’t be recreated, it’s the experience specific to the image that can never be duplicated.

As for perfection – I asked if you sought it in your work. I once did but found only emptiness in that achievement. Beauty to me is a fallacy; it’s a bullshit word, an idea that doesn’t exist or one that if it did exist – would collapse without consensus to support it. I believe that beauty is where the language of art became illiterate and has struggling to resurrect itself from the banality and wastelands of ‘beauty’.

To me, fuck it… if it doesn’t have something to say it’s not important. Pretty things are just that… pretty; they are empty objects of distraction. It’s not unlike like the affliction of poets and writers. They love and covet their own words and eventually forget what those words meant; its vanity and conceit. There’s no message in beauty.

HOWEVER, the importance of beauty, its seduction and allure, should never be overlooked or underestimated. Beauty is perhaps the most reliable and effective way to captivate the fleeting and fickle interests of an audience. Beauty is only a bait.

-Paul

ps. same questions back to you…?