Morning After the Apocalypse, video installation, Paul Pfeiffer, 2003
Today's lecture was with Paul Pfieffer. His work deals a lot with photography and appropriated imagery and video. As he was speaking about his work, I often found myself very confused by his intent or the reasonings to why he create some of his odd pieces.
One series called "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a series of more than four images of basketball players. Pfeiffer appropriates that images, and erases the contextual information for the photography, moving the figure to different areas of the court. The images of these players are interesting because they are of high tension moments for the players. I was confused by Pfeiffer when he said that the name of the series really had nothing in relation for the work. But later I read in an interview on Art:21 that he used the name from a historical reference of the history of evolution. He said that he was interested in the combination of the history of evolution with the dramatic ending or scene being displayed in the photograph.
It make me wonder why he didn't give that explanation during this lecture.
Pfeiffer really showed a great variety of work that spread over a good period of time. He works a lot with the ideas of erasing identity from images. I really admired his project in the World Trade Centers where they filmed eggs hatching and the chickens growing up in real time and played it back in real time on the televisions in the World Trade Center. When he was speaking about the video I pictured in my head something beautiful and graceful but when he showed a clip from it you see that it is a little rough and intense because it is very close up and ground level with the chickens. I think he was trying to remind people of the cycle of life but I would be interested to learn peoples reactions to the imagery.
Another work that I admired was the "Morning After the Deluge." In this work he took two real time videos of the sun rising and falling and turned one upside down and butted the horizon lines together. The end product was a beautiful film show the sun set and rise at the same time. The sun stays in the same spot on the frame and the horizon line moves up and down the page.
These two piece I have described really remind and influence the work I am working on now. Because I am focusing on appreciating everyday and realizing the time going by, these two works reflect the idea of the cycle of earth never ceasing.
One series called "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a series of more than four images of basketball players. Pfeiffer appropriates that images, and erases the contextual information for the photography, moving the figure to different areas of the court. The images of these players are interesting because they are of high tension moments for the players. I was confused by Pfeiffer when he said that the name of the series really had nothing in relation for the work. But later I read in an interview on Art:21 that he used the name from a historical reference of the history of evolution. He said that he was interested in the combination of the history of evolution with the dramatic ending or scene being displayed in the photograph.
It make me wonder why he didn't give that explanation during this lecture.
Pfeiffer really showed a great variety of work that spread over a good period of time. He works a lot with the ideas of erasing identity from images. I really admired his project in the World Trade Centers where they filmed eggs hatching and the chickens growing up in real time and played it back in real time on the televisions in the World Trade Center. When he was speaking about the video I pictured in my head something beautiful and graceful but when he showed a clip from it you see that it is a little rough and intense because it is very close up and ground level with the chickens. I think he was trying to remind people of the cycle of life but I would be interested to learn peoples reactions to the imagery.
Another work that I admired was the "Morning After the Deluge." In this work he took two real time videos of the sun rising and falling and turned one upside down and butted the horizon lines together. The end product was a beautiful film show the sun set and rise at the same time. The sun stays in the same spot on the frame and the horizon line moves up and down the page.
These two piece I have described really remind and influence the work I am working on now. Because I am focusing on appreciating everyday and realizing the time going by, these two works reflect the idea of the cycle of earth never ceasing.
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