Città Irreale

 ...more photos from the trip to Venice in summer 2015.

  

Vivid Memories

  

Città Irreale 

 Water That' s Not Moving

 Driving Round In Circles

 Stairway To The Sea

 

 

 All Good Things Must Come To An End 

Vienna - Grand Rapids

About a year ago it struck me that I might have given this blog a somewhat inaccurate title.  After all, the pictures displayed were not images of the human subconscious in general but rather images of my subconscious.  But then, last year in November my friend James Li suggested I take analogue pictures and send him the cartridge to Michigan so that he can take overlapping photos on the film.

Here are the results.

Inside Out

 She's Watching Over You

  

 Sinking City

 

 There Once Was A River

Singing Pages Of Wisdom

 

 

The Colours Of Sound 1

  The Colours Of Sound 2

Austria Through My Michigan Window

 Midday Sunset 

 

Arrival

 

  

arrival
(by nicola gold)
 
the excitement
the curiosity
 the beating heart

 
the joy



with sharpened senses i

bathe in unfamiliar sounds

float in the fragrant ambience


let strangers 
look into the eyes of strangers



i smile



 abandoning myself to the unknown
i throw myself into this strange rhythm 

  

i let myself melt into this place until
everything falls into place and
i become someone new

 happily
i set out to explore her and
embrace her transience

The pictures in this post blend stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia with images of the Biennale, a speedboat or plain blackness.  A big "thank you" goes out to Nicola Gold for her wonderful poetic contribution to this blog post. 

Reality TV

Photos taken at the Lido di Venezia in July 2015 blend with television screens displayed at the 56. Biennale di Venezia.

Reality TV #1

 Reality TV #2

 Reality TV #3

Reality TV #4

EXPO versus Biennale

It's been a while since I last published a blog post featuring new "images of the subconscious".  But I've nevertheless been busy with various other analogue experiments like caleidoscopedia, fotocubism or the usage of Revolog-films (as in this album). 

Visiting the EXPO 2015 in Milano and the 72nd Biennale in Venice within only 72 hours seemed like the perfect occasion to resume my favourite project "Images Of The Subconscious".   

 Breathe In The Art

 The Austrian pavilion versus paintings by (if I remember correctly) various Swedish artists.

 Seeking Asylum In Africa

The Brazilian pavilion versus "She’s Got The Whole World In Her" by Kenias artist Wangechi Mutu.

 Give Us (Today) Our Bread

The pavilion of the Vatican versus "Latent images / Diary of a photographer" by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige.

N'Est

 The pavilion of Angola versus "Latent images / Diary of a photographer"

 Selfie

And finally reflections of myself in the ENEL-pavilion versus "Latent images / Diary of a photographer".

Psychedelic Vienna (Part One)

I've published these images before on other websites.  Today I thought it was the right time to put them on this blog and use the opportunity to add captions.

 Psychedelic Vienna #1

Karlskirche (St. Charles's Church) blends with Schoenbrunn Palace.

+

 Psychedelic Vienna #2

Twice the Donaukanal ("Danube Canal") and once the Rossauer Kaserne ("Rossauer Barracks").  This image is the result of me spending a whole afternoon in one certain area of Vienna and exposing one cartridge two times with pictures of (more or less) the same motif, thus reducing to the absolute minimum what I consider the two main dimensions of organic random photography - namely
a) time elapsed between the two "takes" and
b) variations in motif.

 Psychedelic Vienna #3 / L'Empire Des Lumières #3

Same story as with #2. I certainly stole the title from Magritte.  Just in case you wondered why this is not only "#3" of a series of slightly surrealistic images taken in Vienna but also of a series of "empires of light": please allow me to enlighten you right here and right now :-)  

Psychedelic Vienna #4 - Painting Dreams

A colleague at work becomes part of a graffito that is just being sprayed.

 Psychedelic Vienna #5 - Night & Day

Once more the Danube Canal times two, once in bright daylight and once at night.

Psychedelic Vienna #6 - The Escape

Thomas and the famous "Riesenrad".

 Psychedelic Vienna #7 - The Sound Of "Musik" 

Schoenbrunn Palace and a "zither" which I found at Vienna' s biggest flea market (the "Naschmarkt") make their way into the same image.  The name is actually the song title of one of the few modern Austrian artists that enjoy(ed) global success: Falco.

 Psychedelic Vienna #8 - Wiener Ringelspiel

 Ringel... what???  

 Psychedelic Vienna #9 - The Real Wiener Ringelspiel ?

 This Carousel (or "Ringelspiel") can be found in the "Prater".  Judging from the green dots I can tell that the film I used was a "Revolog Volvox".

 Psychedelic Vienna #10 - The Cucumbers Strike Back

 Yet another Volvox...

 Psychedelic Vienna #11 - Norma Jeane Mortenson

Marilyn in Vienna?  Yup, at the Viennese Madame Tussaud`s.

Psychedelic Vienna #12 - Smash Fascism

...and neo-nazism.

Psychedelic Vienna #13 - Faces

A couple of Falcos as well as my wife Nina and some unknown woman.

 

Psychedelic Vienna #14 - Drowning In The Sea Of Absurdity

The entrance door to one of the most legendary cafes of Vienna - the "Hawelka" - gets flooded by "Riesenrad" bouncing balls. 

Psychedelic Vienna #15 - Walking In Space

Tourists at the "Burggarten".

 Psychedelic Vienna #16 - Face In The Trees

Danny from my previous blog post vogues right into one of the trees in "Burggarten".

Vogue!

Enough of philosophising - let's have some fun!

A few months back Nina and I hung out with dance artist Danny "Hakan" Red.  It was with great interest that I listened to Danny's first-hand stories from the world of dancing, something I know very little about despite my great love for music.

My interest in listening turned into curiosity when he spoke the word: "vogueing".

 

"Vogueing?  What's vogueing?", I asked.

(The dancers among you will probably ask now: "Hey Robert, where have you been living over the last 20 years - behind the moon?"

  

Vogue magazine (from which the dance style got its name, as you guessed) defines vogueing [ˈvəʊgɪŋ] as "a dance style of the late 1980s, in which a fashion model's movements and postures are imitated in a highly stylized manner." 

In other words: the dancers take on model-like poses integrated with angular, linear, and rigid arm, leg, and body movements.

 

Egyptian hieroglyphs and fashion poses serve as the original inspirations.

I learned from Danny that there currently are three styles of vogueing:

1. old way (pre-1990)
2. new way (post-1990) and
3. vogue femme (circa 1995).   

Old way is characterized by the formation of lines, symmetry, and precision in the execution of formations with graceful, fluid-like action.  It's the style that Danny, Nina and I decided upon for the photo shoot. 

Vogueing gained mainstream exposure when it was featured in Madonna's song and video "Vogue" (1990).

Many thanks to Danny "Hakan" Red for agreeing on this photo shoot during a very busy schedule here in Vienna!

Thanks also to the people who put all that extremely helpful information about "vogueing" on Wikipedia :-)