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!

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

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

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…

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.

At the front door of the prefectural government practice hall, a security guard stood and stared at me from inside his booth, blinking a few times as I smiled at him.

“Pa-to-ri-ku-ri-do-n”. I hadn’t been practicing my Japanese lately, so my name in Japanese syllables was all I could come up with.

The guard looked at his clipboard and scratched his head for a moment before his nearly-closed eyes popped to life. The short, cute, elderly man hurried out from behind his glass barrier and bowed, quickly, slightly, pointing down a set of stairs.

“Yoko-kyo? o-lukey-stula?” He nodded at me.

A few seconds of gears turning and I responded “hai,” bowed awkwardly, and hurried down the stairs, taking a seat in the very back of the rehearsal room, past the last row of violins and french horns.

I observed.

From the back of the room, Maestro Kazuhiro stood waist-deep in a sea of black hair; his own short, lanky body and strong cut, yet drooping facial features were topped with a magnificent unwieldy mess of silver hair. I think, If you were to see him outside of this room — perhaps in a subway train filled with other black-suited, briefcase-toting salary men — he might look somehow out of place. Admittedly, his attire would be the same as any other man; it was his face that was perhaps overly bitter in its relaxed state. I pictured Kazuhiro san walking along the streets of Yokohama, vulnerable to those who did not understand his artform. During most waking hours, the inhabitants of the city moved like the wind and I could see them striking him, hard, crisp, and sufficiently chilled, wrapping around his body, through his black wool overcoat, penetrating him to the bone.

In the rehearsal room however, downstairs in the basement of a Kanagawa governmental building, he was Kazuhiro san the Maestro and his face and body came alive: grimacing, winking, flailing, eyes sparkling as he waved his baton fiercely and rapidly.

Up! Down! Out! The motion would go, each time with more and more urgency as the orchestra surged, layered, grew out in every way. His motions seemed to pull sound outward, and then he would reach, delicately stretch, and flick it back. It’s as if the sounds were a pulsing bubble, growing, ever more magnificent, his job to expand it yet make sure it didn’t… POP! went a sound and the whole ensemble stopped abruptly. The black sea of heads tilted up to meet his critical, if now slightly sleepy gaze.

Something had gone wrong in the piece, the bubble had burst. It was apparent that Kazuhiro-san held himself partially responsible. In fact, it may be said that all of the orchestra members, mistake or not, held themselves responsible too. There was immediate tension and subsequent attention.

“DeeeDaaDeeeDaa” he mimicked the phrase the orchestra has just played, cocking his head to one side, he added a slew of Japanese, none of which I understood.

Straightening his head and raising his chin, Kazuhiro fixed his gaze on the imaginary point where the bubble had been. He repeated his musical mimicry, although slightly different this time “DeeeDADeeeDA” he said.

The sea of black heads nodded in agreement.

His baton came up.

The sea of black heads tilted down.

They began the section over.

DeeeDADeeeDA, it went.

A metal shaft protrudes from the far side of  his profile, it’s connected to a tiny suitcase; a pet dwarf next to its master. His free hand, big, beefy, is clenched into a meatball fist at his chest. Around his forearm, a black Steve Madden tote bag overflows with some essential items: papers, books, a U.S. passport, boarding pass, a beef log, and chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate.

His head whips around, and it stops in the same fashion as his body did moments ago, an extra few jello-like motions before it comes to rest. He stares at nothing in particular, eyes seemingly fixed on some liminal place between here and reality, then finally, they blink, surprising in their rapidity,  the first sharp movement he’s made yet.

Head turning around to front, he sends his body forward once more, speed steadily increasing with each slow locomotive chug.

Chug… chug… chug.. chug.. chug. chug.chugchug.

Inertia is back at work, head bobbing slightly, steadily decreasing in size as it moves away. Soon, it’s indistinguishable from the rest.

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

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

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