Making History: MICHAEL SCHMIDT (1945-2014)
May 31, 2014 § Leave a comment
I don’t understand people and historians who view history as something finished, something past. For me, history only has a function when it is defined from the vantage point of the present so to speak, as an essential component of the present and the future.
(Michael Schmidt 2010)
Michael Schmidt (portrait by John Gossage)
Last Saturday, May 24th, in Berlin, the exceptional Michael Schmidt passed away. Too soon. Schmidt was one of the most important German-born, post-war artists. His projects, EIN-HEIT and Waffenruhe, both as books and installations, changed everything about how I thought about and indeed used photography.
Here are links to more extensive description and review of Schmidt’s work:
Gerry Badger
American Suburb X
And an eloquent obituary by Jörg Colberg.
PROGRESS REPORT
May 15, 2014 § Leave a comment
It has been some time since the last post. This followed an intensive series of events around THE MARKET , most recently being a very successful installation at the Centre Culturel Irlandais. The public and media response in Paris, further underscored the profound interest in, and indeed a need to discuss, the subject matter of the project, a subject matter that continues to grip the world.
In addition, the time away from posting has provided a chance to reflect upon where the project finds itself. The intention is to now make a further research trip later in the summer to a site in Asia that has always been viewed as a pivotal location for the project. As elsewhere, this is dependent on securing access. To date, the process of negotiation has taken almost 2 years. However, a central conceptual framing has been both how access embodies a state of relation and condition of the functioning of the markets.
In anticipation of securing access, the plan is then is for a significant publication of the complete project to appear in 2015.
In the meantime, this blog/gathering place will continue to host posts in relation to THE MARKET. Enabling a means to reflect on the research process and indeed how the mechanism/momentum of financial capitalism continues to play itself out. Perhaps to completion.
Finally, as part of this post. Here is a short video of the first installation, which includes the audio of the algorithmic soundscape, The Normalisation of Deviance as installed at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin late last year.
THE MARKET 