Including the series 'Night' (2014–15), 'Corrupt Files' (2013) and 'DCTs' (2016)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykdDZKJEHcA&index=61&list=PLwhNj7NgHHVfm2NI0CgA-y-Ljeoz3ZeYG
"Often people confuse photography with human vision but they’re very different things. (...)
[What] happens to our sense of our selves, our sense of time when so much of our knowledge about the world comes through these mechanical media, these inhuman media?” (© Stan Douglas, winner of the 2016 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography)
"Attending to such questions, The Hasselblad Award 2016, which presents three series entitled
'Night' (2014–15),
'Corrupt Files' (2013) and
'DCTs' (2016), accompanied by two texts, offer intricate meditations on the function, construction and consumption of contemporary forms of photography. From HD cinematic images to abstract manifestations of data, each series probes the relationship between human and mechanical memory, each employing a particular synthetic process supported, if not entirely constructed, by computer software.
In one of the neo-noir mise-en-scènes of 'Night', two single vehicles drive through the darkness over Vancouver’s Georgia Viaduct, their headlights glowing like the road lamps punctuating the panorama. Underneath the flyover in the southwestern corner of Strathcona, lived a predominantly African Canadian community for the better half of the 20th century, until the area was bulldozed in the early 1970s to make way for the so-called inner-city freeway. Using 3D modelling software,
DOUGLAS reconstructs the neighbourhood from the vantage point of a drone: in 'Hogan’s Alley' (2014) we see multiple rooftops and luminous windows – an inhabited environment with no people in sight. Clouding the lines between real, imagined and remembered, the series attends to the shadows of history as it materialises the memory of a marginalised community.
Contrary to 'Night', 'Corrupt Files' and 'DCTs' radically depart from the realm of representation.
'Corrupt Files' is a collection of digital images composed of densely packed multi-coloured streaks – each streak vying for our attention. Stan DOUGLAS built the series from files that were corrupted in the process of shooting his well-known projects Disco Angola and Midcentury Studio.
'DCTs', on the other hand, emerged from a rigorous attempt to ‘write’ images using tailor-made software that reverse engineers what happens in a JPEG encoding, producing hypnotic shapes and colours.
In Stan DOUGLAS' interview with Roxana Marcoci - published in the book, too - the artist places the series in the context of his recent photographic works. Noam M. Elcott’s thorough, art historical analysis of DOUGLAS’ approaches to photography, further offers an illuminating reading of the artist’s practice. Pushing the limits of what we know and understand to be photography, the Hasselblad Foundation recognises Stan DOUGLAS as an artist who has made pioneering achievements in photographic art." (publisher's note, © Mack Books, 2016)
"An artist of outstanding significance, Stan DOUGLAS has received international recognition for his powerful photographic art, as well as his work with video and film. His practice reflects carefully and poignantly on the history of photography and film, offering new understandings of the cultural and technological developments of both media. Furthermore, Stan DOUGLAS has an open and highly innovative approach to both analogue and new digital formats. At the heart of his work lies a strong interest and commitment to social issues of race, gender, identity and post-colonial politics, whilst maintaining a valuable self-critical perspective on the role of the artist in contemporary culture." (© The Foundation’s citation regarding the 2016 Hasselblad Award Winner Stan Douglas:)
About the photographer, Stan DOUGLAS (b. 1960):
Stan DOUGLAs is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver. Since the late 1980s his films, videos and photographs have been seen in exhibitions internationally, including Documentas IX, X and XI and three Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005).
In 2016 he received the renowned Hasselblad Award;
Douglas’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide. Major museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. Stan Douglas is currently Core Faculty in the Graduate Department of the Art Center College of Design in California.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykdDZKJEHcA&index=61&list=PLwhNj7NgHHVfm2NI0CgA-y-Ljeoz3ZeYG
"Often people confuse photography with human vision but they’re very different things. (...)
[What] happens to our sense of our selves, our sense of time when so much of our knowledge about the world comes through these mechanical media, these inhuman media?” (© Stan Douglas, winner of the 2016 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography)
"Attending to such questions, The Hasselblad Award 2016, which presents three series entitled
'Night' (2014–15),
'Corrupt Files' (2013) and
'DCTs' (2016), accompanied by two texts, offer intricate meditations on the function, construction and consumption of contemporary forms of photography. From HD cinematic images to abstract manifestations of data, each series probes the relationship between human and mechanical memory, each employing a particular synthetic process supported, if not entirely constructed, by computer software.
In one of the neo-noir mise-en-scènes of 'Night', two single vehicles drive through the darkness over Vancouver’s Georgia Viaduct, their headlights glowing like the road lamps punctuating the panorama. Underneath the flyover in the southwestern corner of Strathcona, lived a predominantly African Canadian community for the better half of the 20th century, until the area was bulldozed in the early 1970s to make way for the so-called inner-city freeway. Using 3D modelling software,
DOUGLAS reconstructs the neighbourhood from the vantage point of a drone: in 'Hogan’s Alley' (2014) we see multiple rooftops and luminous windows – an inhabited environment with no people in sight. Clouding the lines between real, imagined and remembered, the series attends to the shadows of history as it materialises the memory of a marginalised community.
Contrary to 'Night', 'Corrupt Files' and 'DCTs' radically depart from the realm of representation.
'Corrupt Files' is a collection of digital images composed of densely packed multi-coloured streaks – each streak vying for our attention. Stan DOUGLAS built the series from files that were corrupted in the process of shooting his well-known projects Disco Angola and Midcentury Studio.
'DCTs', on the other hand, emerged from a rigorous attempt to ‘write’ images using tailor-made software that reverse engineers what happens in a JPEG encoding, producing hypnotic shapes and colours.
In Stan DOUGLAS' interview with Roxana Marcoci - published in the book, too - the artist places the series in the context of his recent photographic works. Noam M. Elcott’s thorough, art historical analysis of DOUGLAS’ approaches to photography, further offers an illuminating reading of the artist’s practice. Pushing the limits of what we know and understand to be photography, the Hasselblad Foundation recognises Stan DOUGLAS as an artist who has made pioneering achievements in photographic art." (publisher's note, © Mack Books, 2016)
"An artist of outstanding significance, Stan DOUGLAS has received international recognition for his powerful photographic art, as well as his work with video and film. His practice reflects carefully and poignantly on the history of photography and film, offering new understandings of the cultural and technological developments of both media. Furthermore, Stan DOUGLAS has an open and highly innovative approach to both analogue and new digital formats. At the heart of his work lies a strong interest and commitment to social issues of race, gender, identity and post-colonial politics, whilst maintaining a valuable self-critical perspective on the role of the artist in contemporary culture." (© The Foundation’s citation regarding the 2016 Hasselblad Award Winner Stan Douglas:)
About the photographer, Stan DOUGLAS (b. 1960):
Stan DOUGLAs is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver. Since the late 1980s his films, videos and photographs have been seen in exhibitions internationally, including Documentas IX, X and XI and three Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005).
In 2016 he received the renowned Hasselblad Award;
Douglas’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide. Major museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. Stan Douglas is currently Core Faculty in the Graduate Department of the Art Center College of Design in California.
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Noam M. Elcott
- Format
- HC (tipped in, no dust jacket, as issued), 24 x 27 cm., 116 pp., 39 color & 31 b/w ills., English