MOVING ON UP… THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce a momentous technical and logistical triumph. My blog has officially been moved and is now integrated into lydonphoto.com. Okay, it wasn’t that much of a triumph, but it’s nice to have everything in one place now.

The new blog address is www.lydonphoto.com/theblog/

 
All of the new blog posts will be there from now on, as well as the archived material.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Train

It’s funny

How free it feels to be on a train

The tracks always go to the same places

Trains keep on their schedules

Passengers have no control over their destination

save for the ticket they purchased

and the train car they board

But they have freedom

to sit and read

to watch traffic sit still as they pass by

to wave at children standing with their parents

“Hi train! So big and powerful you are!

Where are you going today?

Who are you carrying?”

How free it feels

It’s funny

 

Hell Froze Over?

It was 70 degrees F here in Houston yesterday… as you can see, today was just a tad bit cooler.

Depending on your view of Houston, you might nearly literally say that today is the day ‘hell froze over.’

Water Tower and Bacon Dog

Afternoon Water Tower View

There’s something every so slightly poetic about afternoons in a former fruit packing plant. But then, I suppose you could make any moment poetic with the right lighting.

The last few weeks here in my little studio have been productive, processing, arranging, cutting, yelling,  smiling, debating, and otherwise figuring out just what to make of my most recent crop of images for the Transport Me project. I think I’ve come up with a good solution for putting about 700 photographs of train and subway stations into perspective. It’s just, now I need to do more shooting, of course.

That, and I could still really go for a Bacon Dog…

Oh Los Angeles…

On approach to Los Angeles International Airport

Perfectly gridded streets, stretching farther than a soft blanket of smog allows one to see, difficult to move amongst the traffic, but at least easy to navigate.

Brown lawns lining every street are a sign of poor planning perhaps, but also of good water conservation.

Trees, placed ever so sparsely along sidewalks provide no shade for homes, but do offer some for the cars parked atop patches of asphalt.

If there ever were a place for an anti-urban-density movement, perhaps the dusty, largely infertile ground of a desert would be that place.

Los Angeles, CA seemingly endless street grid from the air.

A Woman and her Islands

Nova Jiang’s “Archipelagos” Project at the 01SJ Biennial

Nova Jiang and her Archipelagos

Often incorporating works of technological marvel, but never forgetting the merit of old-fashioned mechanical devices, Los Angeles-based artist Nova Jiang has been busy since earning her MFA from UCLA in 2009. In the past year, she has exhibited works in California, Japan, Netherlands, Italy, and Mexico. Her most recent piece, titled Archipelagos, was commissioned for the 01SJ Biennial of Art and Technology in San Jose, California.

Jiang’s bright green, three-wheeled, metal and wood islands which roamed the streets of San Jose during the biennial are interactive, public expressions of struggle and isolation, and in many ways represent a somewhat personal agenda for the artist.

But the islands aren’t just a personal refuge for Jiang; they represent feelings that each of us have from time to time, and by the artist’s design, they call for us to address these issues with interaction. Each asymmetrically shaped mobile island is fitted with it’s very own sand dune, out of which stick pens, and corked glass bottles with empty papers inside.

These tools are provided to the public with the hope of obtaining messages in bottles, which Jiang is using in a web-based format that allows the public to view and respond to the anonymous messages.

As Jiang sat inside of her artwork on South First Street during the nighttime Absolute Zero street festival, her head seemed to float – sometimes happily, sometimes broodingly – atop her island, and under her fabricated plywood palm tree, which spun slowly with each brisk gust of early-autumn wind. It was here that she offered a chance for the public to envision themselves the same way… and hundreds took her up on the opportunity.

Archipelagos during the "Absolute Zero" street festival in San Jose, California

Jiang also gave me the opportunity to pilot one of the three islands during the street festival. The interactive element of her artwork put the Archipelagos pilots and the public in close contact with one another, perhaps belying the lonely island theme and even making it an island party of sorts. It was revealing to witness thousands of passers-by stopping in their tracks, at first to smile, gawk, ponder, or criticize Jiang’s works as they floated gently amongst the tides of people.

The few hundred who stopped to interact with the particular island I piloted seemed to have an instant connection with the piece, yet they were often confused about what to do.

The simple line of “fill out a message in a bottle” seemed to start some rusty, forgotten, gears turning in the heads of most people.

“OH! I get it! Clever!” quipped a few participants, while others simply gestured with smiles, wrinkled foreheads, bit lips, blank stares, or a combination of such looks as they filled out a piece of paper, placed it in one of the bottles, and sent it down a PVC tube, into the rear collection unit of the Archipelagos. Not everyone appreciated the rather innocent notion Miss Jiang was attempting to convey however; a handful of visitors, perhaps not ready to envision themselves as an island, let out a grumpy “humph!” at me as they spun around and stomped off to the adjacent food lot, burning man vehicles, or concert stages.

Biennial attendees interact with Archipelagos during the "Absolute Zero" street festival in San Jose, California

In a general sense though, Jiang’s roaming artwork connected with a good number of 01SJ biennial visitors who wanted to touch, see, connect, or take a joy ride themselves. Whether these visitors were artists or computer programmers, Archipelagos communicated with each one on common ground, giving them at the very least a tactile opportunity for interaction both in public and private senses.

We may not have our own green plywood islands to drive around town, but for a short few days in downtown San Jose, California, Jiang’s Archipelagos gave us an opportunity to reach out from the seemingly omnipresent bubbles we construct around ourselves … even if it was only in the form of a message in a bottle.

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For more on the Archipelagos project and Nova Jiang’s other works, visit www.novajiang.com

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Migrations at Santa Clara University

A small, contemplative crowd gathered outside at Santa Clara University this past Sunday, curiously following a wandering, colorfully dressed ‘bag lady’ and her intriguing worldly soundtrack from the Mission Church Gardens to the Library Commons, and finally to the north side of the university campus.

The wanderer figure, performed by Sally Mitchell

At each of the locations, the wandering woman summoned a group of dancers to perform works based on “intersecting motion of migrating humans and animals”, or, at least this is the recount of choreographer David J. Popalisky, SCU Director of Dance and creator of this outdoor dance experience titled Migrations.

David Popalisky thanks Sunday's appreciative audience

Including transit time between each piece, the performance lasted around an hour, snaking its way through the university campus and taking the audience through three movements, each seeming to sight some aspect of duality or juxtaposition of opposing forces, illustrating the beautiful yet often uncertain conundrum that is our existence. That’s some heavy material for a 90+ degree Sunday afternoon, but the crowd never dwindled, and in fact picked up a few curious bystanders along the way.

They were entertained with three dance movements which, while connected in theme, varied in story line. The first two pitted issues of environmental beauty against the danger which inevitably lurks amongst that beauty, posing humans as both cautious hunters and as prey. The third and last dance work offered the audience a completely different — and more personal — tone to the theme of migration, injecting a sobering narrative recounting of a family’s decision to flee from Peru to the U.S.

Mid-way through the wandering performance, the line “The earth turns, we are all passengers” was spoken repeatedly by the wanderer figure, performed by Sally Mitchell. From my view — atop a grassy hill on a scorching hot day, under a barely adequate sliver of shade from one of the newly planted trees at SCU — this line summed up the theme of the show well.

Dancers perform David Popalisky's "Migrations" at Santa Clara University

To an extent, we are all passengers here. Of course, we all make different daily decisions based on our lifestyle and our situational needs at the present time and place, but pulling the microscope away from our face and stepping back a little further for a top-down view, Popalisky pushes us to see a few additional similarities between ourselves, our neighbors, and the wildlife which surround us.

You may have to trick your eyes and ears a bit — and Popalisky can help you there — but from this view, homogeneity can be seen across species and more in terms of simple, unifying core responsibilities (such as migrational patterns). In the right light, on the right day, with the right music, dance, and a barely adequate sliver of shade on your back, it almost seems as if we are all headed in the same direction.

Now, if only I could figure out which direction that was… anyone have an iPhone with the compass app?

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David Popalisky’s Migrations will visit five Silicon Valley schools to provide performances and dance classes. For more information on Migrations, visit http://webpages.scu.edu/migrations

Migrations Slideshow

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01SJ Biennial – Preview

After two weeks of preparation by hundreds of artists from over the globe, the 01SJ Biennial of art and technology is ready to take over downtown San Jose with its theme of “build your own world”. 2010 marks the third Biennial event in San Jose, and the first to have a comprehensive theme.

The event officially runs from Thursday 10/16 – Sunday 10/19, although today (Wednesday) features admission-free sneak peaks for members of the public who wander to the San Jose Convention Center’s South Hall, where artists are still in the process of finishing their works such as a Tomato Quintet, a de-composition-style musical work from farmer/musician Chris Chafe, and OutRun, a vintage SEGA racing arcade game is in the process of being mounted onto a working vehicle by artist Garnet Hertz.

Other interactive events range from a drive-in theater, pre-populated with old junked cars (Todd Chandler, Jeff Stark), to a superman zipline over parking lot wetlands (Natalie Jeremijenko, Fletcher Studio), to roaming islands that encourage you to write your own messages in a bottle (Nova Jiang).

Several public buildings will also become exhibits themselves this week, including a 18-story interactive wall of digital art created by the Rockwell Group LAB, projected onto the San Jose City Hall beginning Friday, and while you’re there, don’t miss out on the musical soundscape of Ken Gregory’s wind, coil, sound, flow filling the City Hall Rotunda.

There are literally hundreds of other interactive artworks around the city as well as other spots in the San Francisco bay area. My guess is that it will take at least the entire weekend to see it all.

For a complete schedule, visit http://01sj.org/

Zipline at 01SJ Biennial

Empire Drive In Exhibit in preparation at the 01SJ Biennial

By The Numbers: Tokyo Metro vs. San Jose Light Rail

It’s slightly unfair to pit the most voluminous metro system in the world against one from a city built largely for individual automotive transportation, but it provides an amazing sense of scale. In this by the numbers, I’ll compare rail transit systems in San Jose / Santa Clara County, vs. rail systems in the Tokyo Metro area.

Tokyo and San Jose urban rail transit systems (P. Lydon, 2010)

Keep in mind the population difference of Tokyo Metropolitan Area (30 million) vs Santa Clara County (2 million).

Tokyo Metro Rail Systems

Riders Per Year: 7.3 Billion
Riders Per Day: 20 Million
Miles of Track: 1,779

Santa Clara County VTA Light Rail

Riders Per Year: 10 Million
Riders Per Day: 22,000
Miles of Track: 42

The Tokyo Metro rail system serves an estimated 20 million people each day. Yes, 20 million, every DAY.

To put that into perspective, they city of San Jose, California’s light rail system serves around 10 million per year. You read that correctly: Tokyo’s metro rail system has twice as many riders per day as San Jose does in an entire year. Of course, it’s an unfair fight, but it is also a good way of showing the immense density of this place called Tokyo, as well as their extreme reliance on public transportation.

I’ll end with this interesting fact: Did you know that San Jose had a comprehensive metro rail system 30 years before Tokyo built their first metro line? More on that next time…