Re: Why Use Photo Alt Processes?
Aside from the graphic "adventures" in using non-traditional methods, and the hope for tactile beauty in the results, I have another motive that's at least as strong: I HATE being at the mercy of a big corporation to make my art... In fact it drives me crazy (OK, crazier) -- a constant threat & irritant. The availability of materials you've come to depend on is at their mercy, and it's in their DNA to discontinue a perfectly fine material/method the moment they think they can force the sheeple to "upgrade" to something else. Or, if, as happened when digital methods began to eat their lunch (boo hoo), they'll simply close down whole operations and do something else. (Hence my title "Post-Factory.") With "alternative" processes, as long as you can get several chemicals you can do your own thing, and the chemicals themselves if well sealed tend to keep indefinitely (even if NOT stored at minus zero degrees), so if you suspect a shortage (real or contrived) you can lay in a lifetime supply. (Or can if you're working in gum or silver et al.,-- pt/ pd might be a stretch.) That by the way is among reasons I wouldn't include inkjet prints as "alternative." As soon as technology moves on, and it will one way or another, they'll be over -- or at least the kind we can run off and modify ourselves could be. (Another reason being that they're hardly "alternative," but seem to be verging on mainstream -- tho that's a different e-mail.) J.
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