Background

(above: Portrait of "Keetowah")

Since this is my first post, I think it will serve everyone well that I give some background information. I have been in communication with Ron Saito in the Art Department of California State University, Northridge, consulting with him on the usage of sound in addition to photography in my show. Below is the copy of the email which lists many of the germane ideas of the sound and imagery of "Our House."

**********email copy**********

Hi, Ron. Since you’ll be listening to the sample audio I gave you today, it occurred to me that it would help (both you and me) if I gave you a “statement”, so you know what I’m trying to do. So you can listen with that perspective and give me the feedback from there as well. (BTW, as I’ve finished writing this, I’m finding it is a pretty long email. Just a pre-warning…)

Firstly, I want the audio to have the same character as my photographs. My photography reacts rather strongly against the traditional expectation of photography that the works be immaculate, flawlessly produced and presented, and to have an easily perceived surface style/treatment that is seen as cohesive. As a result, my photographs are not mounted traditionally nor framed under glass. Some might be color, some black-and-white, some toned, some in matt surface, some gloss… on and on. The cohesiveness is under the surface. For me, the focused theme is the intent, and substance, and subject of the work: Which is people, and the texture of life, presented without gloss. The images are sometimes blurred, sometimes choppy; the overall feeling is of roughness (as opposed to smooth)--just like the lives we live.

So as far as the feeling of the audio is concerned, one of the goals is to have the same feeling as my photographs.

Beyond that, the interviews, to me, are actually more important that the photography of the people. The goal of what I do is for me to learn about life (I’m telling everything, knowing that I will finally censor what is politically unacceptable in the art arena) in its varied, unbelievable forms. I somehow believe that if I ask the right questions to the right people, they will unknowingly reveal to me some facet to the deeper answer to the “mystery”. I cannot verbalize this mystery I’m feeling, I just am sure of the feeling of mystery in a non-verbal sense. So, in what I do, I’m in a constant search for people who will talk, and in a constant search to match up the correct questions for these people. It is a search that never arrives in a resolution, but the quest is amazingly meaningful and truthful in its traveling.

I tell a lot of my subjects the truth of my work, and that is the order of importance of the three facets of what I do: Most important is for me to meet the person and engage in a personal and deep “story-telling”. (Not in those exact words, because that would scare them off.) Second in importance is the recorded interview. Third is the photography. Really, the work, for me, is complete if the discussion takes place, even without the recording or photography. (For some subjects, I let them think the latter two are what I’m after.)

Anyways, the other goal of the audio is to give the lives of the subjects more texture than just the visual.

Yet another goal is to give the viewer aural/verbal clues to stimulate the visual imagination (or internal visualization) of the viewer in terms of the people in the portraits.

The final goal would be, I guess, to create a gestalt that reflects how I see this world of people (not places). As you said, the final show should give the viewers a good inkling of the “model of my head”.

OH, as for LISTENING VOLUME: The volume should be at a level just high enough to hear the exposition and sonic effects easily, but not as loud or overwhelming like a movie theatre soundtrack. The average person would call the volume level: “… a tad soft, but just loud enough to hear everything okay.”