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Essay for the Noorderlicht blog: “But I can’t help but connect Agee’s idea that sight “constantly formed by, and as constantly form(s)” the mind to Heidegger’s idea that language speaks us as we speak language, because now I must also conclude that images imagine us as we imagine images.” Read full post
(FOAM Blog repost #10) 10×10 American Photobooks by Ken Schles How to describe the current state of American photobooks? How to talk about its diversity, fecundity and complexity? The goal of 10×10 American Photobooks, a pop-up reading room with an extended publication surveying three hundred of the most significant photobooks from the last twenty-five years … Continue reading
(FOAM Blog repost #9) The Scale of Reality by Ken Schles I can’t help but think the way I see the world is the way the world is. But I know that the world as it appears to me (and fills my senses) is subjective: I perceive it in relation to the way I observe it. … Continue reading
(FOAM Blog repost #8) Images and Emergence by Ken Schles A broadly adopted technology will produce unanticipated effects and outcomes outside its primary function. A car may get us from one place to another, but this simple task of transportation brings with it many unintended consequences. Roads, necessitated by cars and trucks, transformed the very structure … Continue reading
(FOAM Blog repost #7) Representation and Its Double by Ken Schles We abstract the world in order to know it better. Perhaps this sounds counterintuitive, but to understand something one needs to separate oneself from it. The distance we create from the world when we abstract it—when we codify it and model it and … Continue reading
(Update 2/23/2016) I’ve been thinking about the passing of Umberto Eco last week. His writings were an inspiration. In 2010 I wrote a piece quoting his essay on the nature of lists. It’s effortless for me to connect his discussion on the nature of lists to the act of photography itself. “Umberto Eco says we like lists because we don’t want to die; because it … Continue reading
(FOAM Blog reprint #4) In Splendid Isolation by Ken Schles I just got my copy of the new issue of FOAM magazine, “Ref.” “The summer issue of Foam Magazine reflects deeply on relationships between photography and reference. Ref. presents eight portfolios which [sic] refer each in their own way to other photos, a specific visual … Continue reading
(FOAM Blog repost #3) The Look of Love: On Sharing Intimacies and the Limits of Intention by Ken Schles About six weeks ago both my aged parents died. They had a dual funeral. Their coffins were lowered side by side, simultaneously into their grave. After hearing of this, more than one person has asked … Continue reading
FOAM Blog repost #2 A Call from the Wilderness, or What Gets Lost and What Gets Created by Ken Schles Far from it for me to second-guess policy concerning the Eurozone’s economic crisis or make statements on Dutch economic policy or policies that affect regional arts funding in provincial areas. I am not Dutch … Continue reading
FOAM Blog reposting #1 (this is a reposting of an essay that originally appeared on the FOAM online site. Images coming soon as will more essays in this series) Staving Off Infinite Regress By Way of Interpreting Agee. By Ken Schles James Agee, begins his essay, A Way of Seeing (which can be … Continue reading
seeing images, seeing things 