Archive for the ‘metaphoto’ tag
Photo versus Metaphoto: Ronosaurus and Omarrr on Instagram
Taking a photograph is not a natural act. We were not born with a compulsion to take pictures and an innate sense of composition. Give a camera to a toddler and many photos will be of strips of sky through blurred, pink fingers. Children must learn how to operate a camera, how to select an interesting subject, and how to frame a picture.
Though it is a common convention in photography to erase the photographer, to pretend he or she does not exist, the photographer is always present. The very act of choosing a subject is a manipulation of reality as it emphasizes a particular object or space above others. This paint spill on the sidewalk was just a paint spill until I took a photograph of it. The act of taking the picture suggests that the paint spill is worth examining as you might an abstract painting and draws attention to shape, color and texture. It changes the spill. A photographer, then, can never capture an unadulterated moment.
(Mural in Lower Haight, San Francisco.)
A Seven-Course Meta-Dinner
In honor of Michelle Okafo (the more or less grown-up version of the wacky poem writer), who is moving to L.A., meta-class participants and I threw a seven-course meta-dinner last week. However, I wasn’t sure whether or not the dinner could honestly be called meta. Ian Latta, I think, has been more careful in the use of “meta-” than I am. I fear I have been too liberal with the term, so I was wondering whether Ian would consider food that repeats itself meta or not. Because of my doubts, I was more inclined to call the event a self-reflective dinner. So, we had silver balloons and I wore my silver shirt and I served the appetizer on a mirror. (I wanted to cover the tables in Mylar, so we could see ourselves eating, but couldn’t find any.)
David Hockney’s Metaphotocollage
The metaphotocollage (how about that word!) by David Hockney, “Luncheon at British Embassy, Tokyo, Feb. 16, 1983,” is meta because it upsets several assumptions about photographs, refers to the photographer, and captures the act of taking photographs.
Metaphotos of a Metasculpture
Omar Rodriguez Rodriguez’s Metaphotos of Josiah McElheny’s Metasculpture Model for Total Reflective Abstraction (after Buckminster Fuller & Isamu Noguchi), 2003.
Blown glass objects, mirrored glass, and wood base.
