Re: alt exhibit
Hey, John.
I think we essentially agree on the definition of alternative
processes, and your distinction between historical and alternative is
well taken. Glad you chimed in,
Katharine
On Sep 6, 2007, at 6:48 PM, john@johnbrewerphotography.com wrote:
Nice to have some dialogue going; are we the only ones here?
I'm here Katharine ;)
My personal definition of alternative processes is the production
of a photographic image using non factory made media for the end
result. At the risk of being anal I also define historical and
alternative as being subtly different, for example the Ware
cyanotype or the temperaprint are alt but not historical.
Just my tuppence worth.
John
www.johnbrewerphotography.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Katharine Thayer"
<kthayer@pacifier.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: alt exhibit
I don't disagree; it's kind of like glass half full or glass half
empty. I suppose, if truth be told, I look at it from where I
stand with both feet planted well inside alternative processes,
and see everything else as "outside." :--)
I didn't mean positive and negative definitions in terms of value
judgment, assigning good and bad connotations to the definitions;
I only meant positive and negative in the sense of positive space
vs. negative space. ...the difference between identifying
"alternative processes" as a thing in and of itself, vs
identifying "alternative processes" as everything that's not
mainstream, as the negative space around mainstream
photography. All I was saying is that I identify alternative
processes the first way rather than the second way, but that's
not to say my way of looking at it is the only way or even a
majority way of looking at it; I suspect the other way, of
seeing it as whatever's non-mainstream, is more widespread.
I do agree that inkjet prints don't really belong under
"alternative processes." I only meant that once I understood the
definition of "alternative" for the purpose of the show, it made
more sense to me that there would be inkjet prints in the show,
because the call for work identified images made with a holga
camera or a pinhole camera as examples of "alternative processes"
with no requirement that these images be printed in some non-
mainstream or traditionally alternative process.
Nice to have some dialogue going; are we the only ones here?
Katharine
On Sep 6, 2007, at 10:39 AM, Diana Bloomfield wrote:
Agree that the confusion, in part, is with the title they chose
to use for the exhibit. "Alternative Works" would have been
more accurate.
That said, the term "alternative," as in "alternative
processes," does imply, in part, that which is not firmly
entrenched in the mainstream-- to my way of thinking. (Again,
digital printing is-- at least from what I've seen.) I don't
view that as a negative definition, nor as having a negative
connotation. "Anything outside the mainstream," given where the
mainstream has been lately, seems positive to me. ;)
Diana
On Sep 6, 2007, at 1:11 PM, Katharine Thayer wrote:
On Sep 6, 2007, at 7:57 AM, permadocument wrote:
On visiting the on-line alt exhibit I was impressed by the
overall quality
of the retained works. A question arises: would it not be the
moment to
define what we really mean when we speak of "alternative works".
I think "alternative works" could be defined any way a person or
institution would care to define it, because "alternative works"
doesn't mean anything to me particularly. Now that I
understand that the call for work for this particular show
defined "alternative" as such things as images from plastic
cameras, pinhole images, photograms and the like, I'm not
surprised to find such images, printed digitally, as part of
the show.
For me, the confusion arose from their use of the phrase
"alternative processes" as the title of the show. "Alternative
processes" has come to mean, for me at least, and I suspect for
some others as well, a specific set of handcoated processes.
If they had named the show "alternative works" rather than
"alternative processes," I wouldn't have had any expectation
that the show would consist mostly if not wholly of works made
by one or more of these handcoated "alternative processes,"
because as I said, "alternative works" could be anything at all
as far as I'm concerned. Anthotypes, holga pictures,
crossprocessed images, whatever, including the set of
processes I know as "alternative processes."
And maybe "alternative processes" isn't a good name, because it
does seem to denote "alternative to" x, and then you have to
define what x is and accept everything outside x as
"alternative." But I've never defined "alternative processes"
as being whatever's left outside the boundaries of some x, to
me it does have a positive definition as this particular group
of processes, rather than a negative definition as "anything
outside the mainstream." So maybe something else, like
"handcoated processes" or "historical processes" would be a
better name than "alternative processes."
I'm not yet ready to accept gelatin silver as an alternative
process unless it's handcoated, and then I do think it
belongs. But it's not surprising that we don't all agree
precisely on where the boundaries lie that demark "alternative
processes."
katharine
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