https://elputnam.github.io/TechnoVernacular/ I recall this moment when we were passing a group of folks repairing a cart. My dad took a number of well composed images of this scene, but my image is a hip shot I tried to shoot inconspicuously. Despite my efforts at being unobstrusive, the man standing to the side catches the gaze […]
https://elputnam.github.io/CornerMilieu/ I am experimenting with some more layering techniques, including silhouettes and transformations. For this one in terms of content, I was interested in engagement with various technical objects: cameras, phones, carts, etc., and the intersecting milieu of relations between various individuals as well as the limits of connection. I tend to follow themes as
https://elputnam.github.io/PatriaOMuerte/ For this one I decided to combine images taken from the same place, but looking in different directions. Shot along the Malecon, I combine my capture of political words and images juxtaposed to images my father shot of people fishing. I thought my dad had more political content in his work, but that is
https://elputnam.github.io/MechanicalFlora/ I admit I have been quite active in posting the past few weeks. I have been treating this as being “in residence” on social media. Summer always comes with great challenges as I attempt to work while school is out and childcare around me is extremely limited. In order to maintain an artistic practice,
https://elputnam.github.io/FlickeringIcons/ Thus far I have avoided incorporating iconic images into these collages, but I had these images of murals that both my dad and I took, with my version present with my dad looking at it.I am also starting to bring in some of the photographs I took of postcards, as I continue to play
https://elputnam.github.io/DodgeAndBurn/ As I work through these images, creating collages and their subsequent animations, memories come to me. One thing I had forgotten about visiting Havana were the strict boundaries between tourists and locals at that time. Locals were not allowed in tourist spaces unless they were working there, while we as tourists could move with
https://elputnam.github.io/Haunting/ Back in 2007 I was drinking heavily and it was having a poor impact on my life. Earlier that year, a pill overdose while drinking landed me in the ICU for three days during which I nearly died. I knew my drinking was a major cause of strain between my dad and I. I
https://elputnam.github.io/SedimentaryPhotos/ I am continuing to develop collages in Photoshop using images that my dad and I took with some common subject, turning layers into assets, and reassembling as generative animations in p5js. This work very much connects to my practice in the 2000s, not only in that I am using images of that time, but
Sedimentary Memories Read More »
https://elputnam.github.io/CentroHabana/ As I work through these images, I am filled with a range of emotions. The joy and pleasures of travelling to Havana, but also the awareness of the gap that is innate to being a tourist there. Then there are the complexities of my own struggles at that time in navigating a world that
https://elputnam.github.io/MemoryBurn/ This collage (turned into generative animation) is what instigated my current dive into a personal photo archive. As I was examining my dad’s images, I noticed he took a photograph of me with the camera directly at him. I then went through my images to find the corresponding photograph I took. I then began