Wednesday Work: (speaking of water towers....) The Work of Idris Khan

every...Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical type Gasholders

Idris Khan

2004

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Idris Khan is a London based artist using appropriated imagery and a document scanner to create "all-encompassing composites, consolidating iconic cultural symbols of similar type into single 'super-iamges'."

Khan records each individual image in a series of photographs or paintings, (or each individual page of music or text in a literary work), which he then works with digitally to layer each on top of the other to create a single image of said music, text, or series.

He did that here with the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, (mentioned in reference to water towers in the last post),

every...Bernd and Hilla Becher Prison type Gasholders

Idris Khan

2004

(source)

every...Bernd and Hilla Becher Gable sided Houses

Idris Khan

2004

(source)

As well as with musical scores by Bach,

Bach... six suites for the solo cello

Idris Khan

2006

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And literary works like, Vilem Flusser's "Towards a Philosophy of Photography."

every...page of Vilem Flusser's 'Towards a Philosophy of Photography'

Idris Khan

2004

(source)

Whether this is just a cheap trick, a nod to the overwhelming flood of information that is out there, or a question to what it means to experience a thing (can the photograph be the experience? Is every page/note/image needed in the overall experience of a thing?) - it's up to you as an individual to answer that question for yourself, my jury is still out.

It did lead me to another intersting artist, by the name of Jason Salavon. Salavon is a Chicago based artist and like Khan, is an artist who is noted for his custom computer use to manipulate preexisting media to create new visual work of art.

Some interesting works of his are his series of "MTV's 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time". A series in which Salavon takes "each of these videos and digitizes them in their entirety. The individual frames of each video are then simplified to their mean average color, eliminating overt content. These solid-colored squares are then arranged in their original sequence and are read left-to-right, top-to-bottom."

MTV's 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time: 1. Thriller

Jason Salavon

2001

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MTV's 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time: 2. Vogue

Jason Salavon

2001

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MTV's 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time: 3. Teen Spirit

Jason Salavon

2001

(source)

Perhaps a quote from Khan's artist page via Saatchi Gallery puts it best for both artists work and their ability to "create poetic malleability from the fixed codes of history. Compressing the timeline of repitition into indivisible subsuming moments, the photos offering a glimpse into the sublime."

You can read more about Idris Khan here, and here. And Jason Salavon here, and here.

Summer reading list: Eistein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman.