Beyond the Image: 'Golden Ratios' - a photography exhibition by Christopher Lanczycki
As a personal note, and a preface to this post, I have to say that I live for moments of inspiration. When I see or hear something magnificent, it gives me such a high that I can float on it for a long time. And I want to jump up and down and shout it out to the world so they can experience it, too. I've had this feeling before for various things such as the Lord of the Rings films, the soundtrack of House of Flying Daggers, the first season of Battlestar Galactica and Veronica Mars, for Bruce Naumann's Raw Materials sound sculpture at London's Tate Modern museum in January of 2005, and for Carl Orff's Carmina Burana performed in its entirety at London's Royal Albert Hall in Fall 2004. Just to name a few.
This weekend, I fell in love and was inspired by a stunning photography exhibition, and I'm beyond thrilled to say that the artistic efforts were the work of a very close friend. The full exhibition was entitled BEYOND THE IMAGE and it showcased the work of seven students in a photography workshop of the same name. Instructor's Comments:
One of the ideas behind a class like 'Beyond the Image' is that a single image really conveys very little about a photographer's artistic being - it simply says that he or she knows how to make a good picture. Much of photography instruction is devoted to helping the student realize a well-constructed photograph, one that draws attractive forms with light and shadow, and obviously it is something a photographer has to learn if they want to work in photography, much as a musician has to learn the scales or a writer has to learn to string words together in a meaningful sentence.
Neverthless, visiting a group show which features mostly single images by a group of unfamiliar artists is like going to a concert to hear a number of musicians playing single chords - who among them will be able to use those chords to compose a song that will move us? A single image - even one that is successful in terms of composition, light and form - is at its worst, clever and at its best, frustrating because if it's good ti just makes you want to see more, to see whether the photographer was just 'lucky' or really has something to say.
So for six years no - two at Photoworks - I have been teaching 'Beyond the Image,' a class about imagination - the one thing in photography that can't be taught! But we can encourage imagination, and that is our goal, using as a catalyst groups of related images about a single subject or theme.
'Beyond the Image' is a project-oriented workshop in which a group of like-minded photographers help one another work on various projects, some short, others longer-term. The idea is to help artists express themselves with a sequence of related images that will give the viewer an insight into what intrigues them, what moves them, what it is they have to say that might illuminate us with the mystery that is art.
For me, the best thing about 'Beyond the Image' is that it enables me to work with a diverse group of truly creative people. The second best thing is to see how these same people interact with each others' work. In every sense but the literal, the emerging work turns out to be a series of interesting collaborations. Ideas emerge, flourish, change, languish, then flourish again. As you probably suspect, what you see on the wall is not so much a final product as it is a symbol of all the hard work, the anguish and the triumphs that go into these presentations.
- Mark Power, instructor of 'Beyond the Image' workshop
My friend icajoleu, aka Christopher Lanczycki, was one of the participants in this workshop and I got to see his work at the group exhibit on Saturday. Before the exhibit I had seen the first and final images in his collection (benefits of knowing the photographer), which were admittedly, fascinating, mind-bending and in the case of that last image, heart-wrenching, but neither image prepared me for the full effect of seeing the entire collection. There are fourteen images in total, and they take you on a journey into Chris's mind and his way of thinking. When I first started looking at the exhibit, my jaw dropped...and it stayed dropped for a really long time afterward, because the longer I looked, the longer I thought about what I was seeing, the longer I thought about the implications of what I had seen, the more excited I became. Folks, this exhibit was so awe-inspiring that I CRIED. Not because it was sad, but because it was so GOOD and so well-thought out and after being at the opening for nearly three hours and talking about his collection with numerous people (not in a pretentious way but more in a did you get it? way), the more depth I perceived in the work, the more things popped out at me and I drew more connections between his theme and the small details in each individual image.
Both N and I were quite wowed and we agree that his collection could be hanging in a musuem and that it should seen by as many people as possible. It is math art and it is deeply intellectual, but don't let that scare you. It is also entertaining and a puzzle, collectively and individually. Each piece teases the mind and challenges the viewer to understand the artist's perspective and what the artist is trying to communicate through light and color. I sincerely hope that you will at least take a look.
Chris Lanczycki
Chris, a physicist, came to the class with a project that was both baffling in concept and erudite in execution. At least in the beginning, it baffled myself and the rest of the class, laypeople all, but as time went on and Chris let us peer into his mind a bit, it all began to make sense. The project was to visually illustrate with photographs the decimal representation of the Golden Ratio, which is approximately 1.61803398874989484820. If you are still confused, read carefully Chris's statement, contained in his opening image of the number zero. That will reveal the intelligence that was at work in the project and as you make your way through the images, you will discover that intelligence also has a great deal to say about other concepts such as commodities and value. From the beginning, the concept and images were all there in Chris's mind: the problem-solving lay in how to best express the concept visually and that process was almost as fascinating as the work itself. Valuable questions were raised such as: who beyond himself does the artist try to please? And does an idea lose its strength if it is made too transparent? The process of realizing this novel idea also included using a scanner as a camera (which of course is what it is), which gave the class the rare opportunity of seeing a photographer scan a hamburger.
-written by Mark Power, instructor
Biography
Chris Lanczycki has always been a fan of numbers, and still finds the sequence of numbers used for camera f-stops interesting. This probably has little to do with why he gravitated towards photography eight years ago as a partial antidote to his doctoral work in physics at the University of Maryland. When not cussing out Photoshop, he works in a research group at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) developing software for the study of protein evolution.
Contact: Chris Lanczycki, icajoleu at gmail dot com
Online Gallery
Golden Ratios
archival color inkjet prints
1. 0 Golden Ratios
2. 1 Remembering a Founding Father
3. 6 Financial Relativity
4. 1803 Towards a Manifest Destiny
5. 39 Making Mom's Day
6. 8 Golden Rectangles
7. 87 Cheap Gas for Election Day!
8. 4 Four, in Currency
9. 9 Time Travel on a Limited Budget
10. 89 The Economics of Role Models
11. 484 Grains of Rice
12. 8 CPR for a Monopoly
13. 2 Save Now, Pay Later
14. 0 The Slow Recommoditization of Gold
ARTIST'S STATEMENT: (see first image)
*I know that the text is quite small in this first image. If anyone would like a larger version, I will try to get one from my friend.
My thoughts on the images
(please don't read if you would like to understand the images on your own first)
First off, the numbers that preface each image title are one of the numbers in the calculation of the Golden Ratio: 1.61803398874989484820. That same number is on the credit card in the first title image. Each of the images have a faded golden frame to suggest a credit card because each image is about value. Some of the images are very straight forward while others require more thought. For example, my favorites are #2: 1 Remembering a Founding Father, #7: 87 Cheap Gas for Election Day!, #10: 89 The Economics of Role Models, and #14: 0 The Slow Recommoditization of Gold. Just to point out that in image #2 which represents "1" - the Washington Monument is in the shape of a "1" and in the final image which represents "0", the wedding ring is in the shape of "O" as is the ring's shadow. (Incidentally, though, Chris did not count out 484 grains of rice for image #11, and yes, we did ask him.) There is however a number represented visually in each image to correspond to some part of the number in the fraction on each image.
#9 was a hard one for me because I don't have the same frame of reference to candy dots that Chris has, so for him, time travel through candy dots is possible because they represent nostalgia, but for me and anyone who doesn't remember them from our childhood, we cannot experience time travel through candy dots. Which, in my opinion, further illustrates Chris's point in each of these images: that value is relative, deeply subjective, and very personal.
I could go on for quite a while, because as I stated before, the longer I look at each image, the more I see. This post is already much longer than I had thought it might be, so if you have any questions, would like to discuss any of the images, etc., please leave a comment.
This weekend, I fell in love and was inspired by a stunning photography exhibition, and I'm beyond thrilled to say that the artistic efforts were the work of a very close friend. The full exhibition was entitled BEYOND THE IMAGE and it showcased the work of seven students in a photography workshop of the same name. Instructor's Comments:
One of the ideas behind a class like 'Beyond the Image' is that a single image really conveys very little about a photographer's artistic being - it simply says that he or she knows how to make a good picture. Much of photography instruction is devoted to helping the student realize a well-constructed photograph, one that draws attractive forms with light and shadow, and obviously it is something a photographer has to learn if they want to work in photography, much as a musician has to learn the scales or a writer has to learn to string words together in a meaningful sentence.
Neverthless, visiting a group show which features mostly single images by a group of unfamiliar artists is like going to a concert to hear a number of musicians playing single chords - who among them will be able to use those chords to compose a song that will move us? A single image - even one that is successful in terms of composition, light and form - is at its worst, clever and at its best, frustrating because if it's good ti just makes you want to see more, to see whether the photographer was just 'lucky' or really has something to say.
So for six years no - two at Photoworks - I have been teaching 'Beyond the Image,' a class about imagination - the one thing in photography that can't be taught! But we can encourage imagination, and that is our goal, using as a catalyst groups of related images about a single subject or theme.
'Beyond the Image' is a project-oriented workshop in which a group of like-minded photographers help one another work on various projects, some short, others longer-term. The idea is to help artists express themselves with a sequence of related images that will give the viewer an insight into what intrigues them, what moves them, what it is they have to say that might illuminate us with the mystery that is art.
For me, the best thing about 'Beyond the Image' is that it enables me to work with a diverse group of truly creative people. The second best thing is to see how these same people interact with each others' work. In every sense but the literal, the emerging work turns out to be a series of interesting collaborations. Ideas emerge, flourish, change, languish, then flourish again. As you probably suspect, what you see on the wall is not so much a final product as it is a symbol of all the hard work, the anguish and the triumphs that go into these presentations.
- Mark Power, instructor of 'Beyond the Image' workshop
My friend icajoleu, aka Christopher Lanczycki, was one of the participants in this workshop and I got to see his work at the group exhibit on Saturday. Before the exhibit I had seen the first and final images in his collection (benefits of knowing the photographer), which were admittedly, fascinating, mind-bending and in the case of that last image, heart-wrenching, but neither image prepared me for the full effect of seeing the entire collection. There are fourteen images in total, and they take you on a journey into Chris's mind and his way of thinking. When I first started looking at the exhibit, my jaw dropped...and it stayed dropped for a really long time afterward, because the longer I looked, the longer I thought about what I was seeing, the longer I thought about the implications of what I had seen, the more excited I became. Folks, this exhibit was so awe-inspiring that I CRIED. Not because it was sad, but because it was so GOOD and so well-thought out and after being at the opening for nearly three hours and talking about his collection with numerous people (not in a pretentious way but more in a did you get it? way), the more depth I perceived in the work, the more things popped out at me and I drew more connections between his theme and the small details in each individual image.
Both N and I were quite wowed and we agree that his collection could be hanging in a musuem and that it should seen by as many people as possible. It is math art and it is deeply intellectual, but don't let that scare you. It is also entertaining and a puzzle, collectively and individually. Each piece teases the mind and challenges the viewer to understand the artist's perspective and what the artist is trying to communicate through light and color. I sincerely hope that you will at least take a look.
Chris Lanczycki
Chris, a physicist, came to the class with a project that was both baffling in concept and erudite in execution. At least in the beginning, it baffled myself and the rest of the class, laypeople all, but as time went on and Chris let us peer into his mind a bit, it all began to make sense. The project was to visually illustrate with photographs the decimal representation of the Golden Ratio, which is approximately 1.61803398874989484820. If you are still confused, read carefully Chris's statement, contained in his opening image of the number zero. That will reveal the intelligence that was at work in the project and as you make your way through the images, you will discover that intelligence also has a great deal to say about other concepts such as commodities and value. From the beginning, the concept and images were all there in Chris's mind: the problem-solving lay in how to best express the concept visually and that process was almost as fascinating as the work itself. Valuable questions were raised such as: who beyond himself does the artist try to please? And does an idea lose its strength if it is made too transparent? The process of realizing this novel idea also included using a scanner as a camera (which of course is what it is), which gave the class the rare opportunity of seeing a photographer scan a hamburger.
-written by Mark Power, instructor
Biography
Chris Lanczycki has always been a fan of numbers, and still finds the sequence of numbers used for camera f-stops interesting. This probably has little to do with why he gravitated towards photography eight years ago as a partial antidote to his doctoral work in physics at the University of Maryland. When not cussing out Photoshop, he works in a research group at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) developing software for the study of protein evolution.
Contact: Chris Lanczycki, icajoleu at gmail dot com
Online Gallery
Golden Ratios
archival color inkjet prints
1. 0 Golden Ratios
2. 1 Remembering a Founding Father
3. 6 Financial Relativity
4. 1803 Towards a Manifest Destiny
5. 39 Making Mom's Day
6. 8 Golden Rectangles
7. 87 Cheap Gas for Election Day!
8. 4 Four, in Currency
9. 9 Time Travel on a Limited Budget
10. 89 The Economics of Role Models
11. 484 Grains of Rice
12. 8 CPR for a Monopoly
13. 2 Save Now, Pay Later
14. 0 The Slow Recommoditization of Gold
ARTIST'S STATEMENT: (see first image)
*I know that the text is quite small in this first image. If anyone would like a larger version, I will try to get one from my friend.
My thoughts on the images
(please don't read if you would like to understand the images on your own first)
First off, the numbers that preface each image title are one of the numbers in the calculation of the Golden Ratio: 1.61803398874989484820. That same number is on the credit card in the first title image. Each of the images have a faded golden frame to suggest a credit card because each image is about value. Some of the images are very straight forward while others require more thought. For example, my favorites are #2: 1 Remembering a Founding Father, #7: 87 Cheap Gas for Election Day!, #10: 89 The Economics of Role Models, and #14: 0 The Slow Recommoditization of Gold. Just to point out that in image #2 which represents "1" - the Washington Monument is in the shape of a "1" and in the final image which represents "0", the wedding ring is in the shape of "O" as is the ring's shadow. (Incidentally, though, Chris did not count out 484 grains of rice for image #11, and yes, we did ask him.) There is however a number represented visually in each image to correspond to some part of the number in the fraction on each image.
#9 was a hard one for me because I don't have the same frame of reference to candy dots that Chris has, so for him, time travel through candy dots is possible because they represent nostalgia, but for me and anyone who doesn't remember them from our childhood, we cannot experience time travel through candy dots. Which, in my opinion, further illustrates Chris's point in each of these images: that value is relative, deeply subjective, and very personal.
I could go on for quite a while, because as I stated before, the longer I look at each image, the more I see. This post is already much longer than I had thought it might be, so if you have any questions, would like to discuss any of the images, etc., please leave a comment.