Cheyenne Sophia – flint (2013)

Jaw, meet Floor.Floor, Jaw.

You two get to know each other because if Cheyenne Sophia keeps making work this fucking stellar, you both are going to be seeing a lot more of each other.

…

At first glance this may seem as if it doesn’t belong on this blog. It definitely does but I need to slay some irksome dragons before I get into all that.

First up, FUCKING STOP drawing lazy ass parallels between the work and Wong Kar-Wai or my arch-nemesis Gasper Noé. Cheyenne admits she isn’t familiar with either beyond their use of super saturated color.

Super-saturated color is a TOOL. Insisting there’s overlap between work due to a single prominent feature considered in isolation is like suggesting there’s a parallel between Henry Gaudier-Greene’s and my own work since both of us favor Pentax 67iis.

Secondly, the look associated with Wong Kar-wai is less his and more Christopher Doyle’s invention. Yes, Doyle lets red bleed out everywhere; so in at least one way there is overlap with Cheyenne. However, the overall effect is ENTIRELY different.

Third, Gasper Noé employs a cacophony of colors that sometimes blur but rarely bleed.

Finally, why compare someone whose work is a great deal more interesting than either of these two artists just by virtue of the fact that they predate her and are part of the art establishment?

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Now as to why this belongs here. In an interview with wAsTe magazine Cheyenne speak about the importance of queerness to her work. Her answer is revelatory–not to mention displaying mad strong conceptual game:

Learning about queer culture and feminism has been hugely important in making the work I make and feeling like I have something to stand on. They are both a massive part of my identity and my work is essentially one big self-portrait. Queer work is important because queer people are important.

Whether or not the work she makes fixates on depicting sex there is always an edge to it, an underlying insistence upon “being a feminist artist who is open about sex.”

I CANNOT wait to see more work from this artist. And I am over-the-moon at the prospect of a possible collaboration between Cheyenne & Laurence Philomene.

Misattributed source; proper attribution sought (The furthest I can trace it is TinEye’s entry–dated January 11, 2011 on a now defunct Tumblr.)

Sometime before the October Revolution, filmmaker Lem Kuleshov made a short film. The film consisted of the same shot of Ivan Mousjoukine wearing a blank look interspersed with footage of a bowl of soup, a child in a coffin and a woman splayed on a couch.

Despite there being no difference in the footage of Mousjoukine, the audience was extremely impressed with the depth of his craft–feeling that he was hungry when he saw the soup, grief stricken upon seeing the dead child and highly desirous of the reclining woman.

Today, film studies peeps refer to this projection of the audiences feelings in response to an image onto an actor/surrogate as the Kuleshov Effect.

(I argue this interpretation stops short: that which precedes informs with regard to the nature of the seeing, what follows contextualizes what has preceded.)

In other words: my experiences/prejudices not only color but dictate to a great extent what I see.

For example: one person may read the above as a trite riff on fashion photography voyeurism, giving the finger to prevailing tendencies for female-bodied folk to be openly arranged and displayed.

Someone else could claim it has D/s overtones.

Still another might be triggered due to similarities between the depiction and memories of past abuse.

What I see ties into the emerging trend of referring to physical intimacy as ‘sharing’ your body. To the extent that this phrase functions as sharing something neither party can own, I find it conceptually fulfilling. When it comes across as this is my toy and I am only letting you use out of my heart’s boundless kindness, I begin to have problems.

To me, this toes the line from the side I endorse.

What do you see?

David Jubert Graphistolage – improbable (2011)

What first caught my attention was the splash of what I always call acid green but is probably better termed: pistachio.

It’s one of my favorite colors–commanding visual attention and reminscent of the prevailing color during the second third of Mark Romanek’s brilliantly executed music video for nine inch nails’ The Perfect Drug.

Next, I wondered how a picture from the Montparnasse stop on the Paris Metro ended up on my dashboard since I’m hardly a railfan.

Yes, I confess a vague fondness for trains–especially trains that serve in citywide subterranean mass transit systems. I can’t explain this fondness more than to explain that my ex always insisted that the NYC Subway was ‘magic’.

Maybe not be true magic but there is certainly something magical about descending and depending on the time of day and line, a train pulls into the station. The doors open–people step out, people step in. The doors close. The train follows the tracks and spirits you uptown, downtown, crosstown.

It took me awhile for me to see the nude on the opposite platform visible between the two train cars.

There was something about having my persistent gaze rewarded that appealed to me–at least initially.

With subsequent consideration, I am less impressed.

I do appreciate the rupture this represents with most of Graphistolage’s work. His draughtsman-esque insistence on symmetry and super saturated color–both of which I find cloying, at best–are absent.

The trouble is his approach does not adapt to the situation in which he finds himself. The effort to emphasize symmetry is cursory at best–the camera is not level as well as being panned slightly left.

Further, the figure bisected by the right frame edge fails to completely balance the asymmetry of the man on the left exiting the car through the open door.

Ultimately, the technical shortcomings serve as an elaborate distraction from the one great blight of the image: once you see the naked woman the image offers the viewer no assistance in unraveling the question of why she is standing there so improbably framed.

Source: 500px.com

About two-and-a-half weeks ago this happened; I fan-personed everywhere.

In other news: I swearing to myself I’ll start posting again once shit stabilizes; unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, shit shows no sign of doing more than balancing precariously.

I haven’t completely squandered my time: shelter + food contingencies are pretty much locked in–at least through late spring.

I am still struggling with a lot and I don’t feel equal to the task but it’s time to take a hammer to this seized up engine block, time to get things rolling again.

It will not be smooth sailing, by any means; but I promise to push toward some regaining of momentum.

Thank you all so very, very much for your encouragement and support, for sticking it out; it means more to me than I can express.

Apologia

Dear Followers,

I want to apologize for the inconsistent quality of posts lately. I’ve been riding crests and sliding into troughs for more than a month now.

Unfortunately, It’s gotten to the point where giving this blog the attention it deserves is more than I can manage.

The truth is: I’ve been looking for a job for six months now and haven’t gotten so much as a callback. I have to find a job in two weeks or I will be homeless. I’ve been homeless before. It is the worst.

I am just on the no-danger-to-myself side of suicidally depressed.

Plus, I learned unequivocally that perhaps the last person who I truly have feelings for admitted in her estimation, there’s no chemistry between us.

This year I’ll be 37. My health is middling on a good day. One way or another I’m simply not long for this world.

That’s okay. And probably better for all parties involved. The little light I try to bring won’t really be missed.

This post isn’t the end. I promise I will be back. I don’t know when. It’ll be a minute.

I’ll still be around, though. Feel free to say ‘hi’. I’ll do my best to respond.

Lastly, thanks to Yumiko Campbell for reading from very early on. I appreciate it and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

(A.P.–not sure you’ll ever see this–but in no small way this entire blog has been for you. All the things I’d never know how to say, are here between the lines. All the ways I love to touch you if the wanting was even a little mutual.)

Dane – Johanna Stickland (2013)

First off: this is really the first time I’ve put a face to the name Johanna Stickland and Jesus Harold and Maude Fucking Christ on Christmas she is breathtaking.

Looking back I’ve seen oodles of her work before but it’s never clicked until this that it’s the same young woman in so many wonderful images.

I won’t lie: I am completely taken with this. If you’re a regular, you’ll ask: but what about your intractable opposition to #skinnyframebullshit?

It’s not #skinnyframebullshit. Why? Well, the composition doesn’t echo the model. Instead, the frame is oriented in this fashion to compensate for both the lack of room (the area between the shrubs and the chain link fence is quite narrow); also, if the camera were landscape oriented it would create all kinds of problems–there would be even more of the bokehed fence (which as it is teeters at the edge of too much), not to mention the shrub which you can see jutting into the lower-right corner of the frame would appear in the frame and distracting from the loose one point perspective that constantly refocuses the eye on Ms. Stickland and her intensely penetrating stare.

Lastly, this fence–like so many of its brethern–is slightly canted. Ms. Stickland’s pronounced lean away from the fence combined with the upper arm intersecting so precisely with the first horizontal third expertly balances the frame.

I am curious to know more about the image maker responsible for this but I can’t find fuck all about Dane anywhere. Alas.

Mr. H – 浪奔 [Ben Lang] (2011)

Originally, this was supposed to follow up my post on close-ups and the notion of the foreign-in-the-familiar.

A series of unfortunate events–bad weather, illness, intoxication and the Internet at my accommodations crashing–made that impossible. Maybe it’s better that way.

I don’t necessarily dispute what I suggested. I just think the foreign-in-the-familiar indicates something more in line with those puzzles in children’s media where they a extreme close up that’s been all reoriented to be wawker-jawed and one has to recognize the original object.  (And one of them is always a goddamn manhole cover–WTF is that about?)

I would have been much better served by suggesting a metaphor with detail insets. For example: here’s the absolutely fucking brilliant Ghent Altarpiece; and here’s a detail inset of Eve holding some type of citrus.

In photography/digital imaging (which really need to be treated mutual exclusive disciplines that share a common lineage but suffered a irrevocable schism and are roughly as non-interchangeable as the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy), the close-up is comparable to the detail inset de-linked from the original contextual totality. In other words: in art you see the big picture first and then a small detail of the big picture is brought into sharper focus–by focusing on a part of the whole the whole gains further specificity of meaning; in photography/digital imaging, it’s the other way around– one focuses on the detail and from the detail has to intuit the broader context. That’s great if a broader context has been exists, has been established, is explicit. The problem is when the close-up relies upon the interest generated by an atypical manner of seeing to sell the frame independent of broader detail.

(It occurs to me that this detail inset metaphor functions exquisitely when applied to cinema before–and I’m guesstimating here–the late 70s/early 80s with the exception of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc; however, even that used close-up is an exceedingly well-reasoned and above all consistently applied manner.)

There is a great deal of contextual information that can be sussed out from The Frenzy of the Visible’s masturbatory Self-Portrait–things about the space occupied by the subject, that the light is daylight coming through a window, etc.. Mr. H, on the other hand–although clever in his framing which implies the explicit instead of showing it–removes any sort of contextual cue to focus attention on the ejaculatory aftermath of a male bodied individual masturbating to orgasm. I won’t lie: this makes my brain run 200 km/h in the wrong lane* about potential applications for the wonderfully surreal textures semen exhibits under the light pushing overexposure. Still, such detail would have been equally visible and more compelling–although also more explicit and therefore more challengingto present artfully–with more context.

Lastly, although its soft-core coyly pushing up against hard-core is hardly my cup of tea, Mr. H seems–after a cursory scan–to have a good bit more instinctive talent than any image maker I can think of making similar work targeted at heteronormative types.,

Source: moremoremoreee

nymphoninjas:

nymphoninjas:

“And it will be more like a song, and less like its math

If you pull on my hair and bite me like that.” (Bright Eyes)

I used to submit my self shots, but now I have few reasons for submitting some I took of my partner.. first of all, there aren’t that many male submissions here usually and I don’t like this difference. this is quite generic view only. most personal is that I enjoy watching my partner playing with himself and it really turns me on. this time I took some pictures of the action..

It was a great Saturday afternoon and we had sex straight after this little shoot and few times later. different places, different intensity but all these were a real pleasure.

Absolutely gorgeous photo, I like everything about it from his sweet purple pants to her knees in the corner. Glad to hear you two are showing off for each other and documenting it, watching your partner get themselves off is pretty much the best way to learn about what they like and how to get them off. Sounds like you two had an amazing day, I’m quite jealous. I hope you two come back to share with us again, thanks again great job A+. 

This and Knitphilia’s Rape isn’t sexy, but being a survivor is are far-and-a-fucking-way my favorite Nympho Ninjas’ Submission Sunday contributions. (An aside: while I am guardedly supportive of the community surrounding NN it does–as an Asian-American–bother me the way ‘ninja’ is so casually appropriated.)

I don’t think this is an objectively good image. Further, pairing it with Conor Oberst’s self-important ravings borders on intolerable.  But, for all its flaws, it has something many more technically adept work lack: truthfulness–the frayed rag rug, messy hair, kick ass pants, beautiful light on the back of his right hand and knees jutting into the frame.

This is the first time in my life I have actually wished a depiction of male-bodied desire was of me–I almost globally identify with female-bodied depictions of desire. Here, I think it’s due to a mistaken notion that if I looked like this there’d might be a slightly better than impossible odds someone would find me attractive.

250

Despite the frequent pretense, I run what boils down to a smut blog. The point isn’t lost on me. Thus, every 50th post I like to take a moment to address a tangential ‘real’ world issue that intersects (however glancing) with issues of sexuality and depictions of desire.

Unfortunately, living just below the 45th parallel north, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) dawns in mid-October and runs through March; instead of fighting the good fight, I’ve pretty much curled up under a rock this year.

It’s more than just SAD… I was forced out of my job mid-July. It wasn’t the best job in the world but it was the best job I’ve ever held in that 65% of it was spirit-crushing political power games and 35% of it was the most rewarding work I’ve ever done outside of social justice activism or creative endeavors. I worked with, advocated for and loved on brilliant but economically disadvantaged college students. Making their lives a little easier, pouring a little more light and bringing joy came so much closer to balancing the bullshit-to-reward ratio than I’d ever expected to find.

It did, however, present limit my abilities to explore my creative urges. I tried to look at it as a blessing in disguise when I was told to accept a ‘generous’ buyout and resign or I would be fired and get nothing.

In that I spent three weeks bouncing around between Iceland, Berlin, Amsterdam and Madrid, it was a blessing; I still haven’t completely processed the experience.

After four months of looking for a job that will pay enough to support me, allow me the time and energy I need to at least be more consistent with my photography and finding exactly fuck all; I am out of time and nearly out of money. I feel completely trapped.

This is compounded by the fact that I have never once in my life gotten anything I wanted. That sounds entitled. Let me clarify: it seems as if whenever I allow myself to admit that I want something, the universe kicks me in the face and illustrates in the most cruelly malicious fashion that wanting is the fuel on which impossibility voraciously feeds.

All the jobs I’ve ever gotten have been accidents. I’ve been in the right place at the right time and given a chance based on nothing more than abject desperation. Same with everything else except finishing college. I am not sure how that happened but I am definitely going to pay for it for the rest of my life. (I have no regrets.)

I don’t know why I’m venting all this. I don’t presume anyone does or should care. And I know it’s narcissistic that I am hijacking the venue for discussing things in the context other than insular smut criticism. But I have been feeling a degree of disingenuousness lately. I’m posting all this stuff about desire and wanting when I don’t even believe any longer that such experiences are ever mine to have again.

Truthfully, due to my continuing–and now rendered completely mysterious by the fact that a battery of extremely expensive tastes has deemed me surprisingly healthy for a late thirtysomething, high-functioning alcoholic–health issues, I pretty much figured I’d lose my job and make the most of the time I had left figuring I’d have died by this point.

But I am still here. And while yes, I may be going blind. And even if someone ever was insane enough to ever want me, maybe I’ll be so sick I can’t offer them pleasure.

As stupid as it sounds–and it sounds idiotic–the truest impetus for this blog was an effort to leave a record of the things no one wants to discuss openly but which I find so compellingly beautiful, which haunt me. That way maybe when I am gone, someone I loved deeply but was to afraid the telling would ruin everything might stumble upon it and in reading this record know how desperate I wanted to connect with them but I knew the desire to connect was not mutual–and I can’t do non-mutual. So I did this, I said in a horse whisper to secrets and silence: this is a kiss that demands no kiss-back.

And then, on Thursday, in a conversation that could have gone very badly and didn’t go at all like I expected–and I am still not at all sure what was decided by it–there was a moment when someone I love acknowledged my vulnerability and admitted her own. It was like the sanskit namaste: the spirit in me acknowledges and greets the spirit in you. Except: it was the fragileness in me acknowledges and greets the fragileness in you.

And it was like two years of unresolved anger evaporated in that moment. Like all these years I’ve been struggling to remember the name I was given but had forgotten and then in the hearing it uttered, remembering.

I want to live and I want to grow and learn–be more than less. I want to love. It’s just so bloody difficult to love the all–the good, the bad– and not the you with its good and its bad.

I’m lost but maybe you’ll find me if you are willing to look. I’m looking for you. Maybe I’ll find you, too.