Denaturalised

I'm denaturalising nature in silence, Shhhs

Denaturalise = Make less natural or unnatural.

My nature is not luxuriant but dry, woody, a lively "nature morte".The image pretends to make forget the original essence of the specimen,and view it under a new light, an unnatural one. However, the processing won't be dramatic nor would mutate the image in any sort of way, except for the colour. In that sense, as James Anthony Gue Lee says, it is its somewhat the "magical" nature, the one that you don't usually find at first sight.

Several elements influenced the way this set looks. Firstly, is silence understood as clarity of mind and of perception. Therefore the images have to be clear, whitish. Second, is the work of Karl Blossfeldt on plants, although my images aren't as "ethnographic" (or good) as his were. The images have to be simple, schematic, direct. Thirdly, Chillida's reflection on the relation between Nature and Art , Art as nature, and nature as Art. These images have to be simple and schematic in a way, painterly or sculptoric in another. If you want visual complexity visit my collages, but this simplicity is as complex as the other...

There is no overlaying here, not use of the filter textures. What you see here is the result of my own experimentation with different forms of manipulation. I've already done everything possible with normal overlying and texturising. Now is time for something else and different

It is relevant that you see the discussion in
www.flickr.com/photos/teodegas/243647512 4/
And in
www.flickr.com/photos/teodegas/247357388 8/


Oniric Mermaid Pro User says:

Thanks to James, ,more additions to the description of this set. Thanks dear James!

Teo,
Recently my wife dusted off a book of vegetable and flower photography of Charles Jones. She had bought this book a few years ago. Have you ever looked at his early 20thc b &w prints of his vegetables, and flowers?

On one level one could see a relationship, through elements and process, to your denaturalized work. At the same timethere is striking divergence within the frame. ie his organization vs your construction.

Yet I see a companionship in a vegetable grower and a philosopher, a resignation to the ephemeral nature. His work does not seem to suggest harvest but a futile attempt to preserve.

In your work there is also a focus on preservation.
Photography is equal to fossilization? and what can we learn, our attempt to reconstruct frustrated by so many vacated spaces that refuse to be read.
arbitrary arrangement, dark and permanent.

=====
Dear James,
My images are usually the result of my personal conversation with my natural or cultural surroundings, of my own thinking. Of course, I'm consciously and unconsciously influenced by some artists, images or tendencies, but most of the time I cannot say from whom or where they come since I see them as very much myself. Some images from other people inspire me, of course, but I try to avoid repeating what I've seen or following tendencies that are not my own way of approaching the world. It sounds awful (and pretentious), but it is true.

Said this, in the Denaturalised set I play with many sculptural, painting and photographic influences, consciously. The only photographic influence I acknowledge is the one from Karl Blossfeldt, although my approach to each plant specimen is very different, never straight forward or descriptive. I've just seen Charles Jones video, and his photos are closer to KB than to my approach. Some people have mentioned to me that this set reminds them of Irving's cig butts photos, but I've never seen those photos.

This set of photos is very much a collection of my own feelings and unspoken relationship with the plants I'm photographing. First, the there is the process of collecting and being aware of their existence. The "discovery". Then, there is the photographic approach. The rapport is instinctive, despite being also "intellectual". Some pieces present themselves in certain compositions straight away. I call that "the plants talking directly to me". If we approach nature with our three eyes,nature is going to speak many languages, and show itself beyond the obvious. Other images, reflect my readings, interests or things happening in my life, which superimpose over the arrangement of certain images.

I see this set completely alive (despite being nature morte), full of movement and life, and in some case full of music of noises, which I perfectly hear in my mind. A sort of synaesthesia.

Yes, photography is, in a way, a form of fossilisation. Better said, a form of "preservation". To me, fossilisation requires -from a physical point of view- a certain degree and time of decomposition. My photos, again, don't fossilise or preserve, so my plants have not reached that stage yet.. From an intellectual point of view, yes, photography can be fossilisation, especially when it portraits ways of life, social groups and social customs and practices of the past or ones that are disappearing. I consider ethnographic photos fossilised photos.

=========
On 16 Jul 08, 12.02AM WST jbops59 said:

My thoughts on fossilization were "poetically" centered on the replacing of one material with another. A preservation, yes, with some disclaimers, a denaturing,yes,to my spirit of thinking, and a process of alteration,if one investigates what is change, what is chance, what is important, what is information,....observe in every direction of how something is and comes to be.

The big question I also ask is about anything that is uncovered, disturbed,interpreted, moved from its original resting place ;what will become of it?
===========

agree with you poetically use of fossilisation and the meaning you give it. Wonderful definition! I mean, in that way my plants are truly fossilised.

Re your big question... it is a philosophical question... thanks for posing it.

It can be replied applying it to things (my plant specimens for example) or to people (emigrants, of which I'm one, for example). Let's start with the emigrants... they are people removed (naturally or obliged by the circumstances) from their original natural and cultural resting place.... what happened to me/them? A whole deal of things. Removal is adaptation, transformation, mutation, growth, pain, "alien-ation", death,many things. Alienation is perhaps the most defining term.

The same applies to natural specimens when uncovered, disturbed, interpreted and moved naturally or by me. What about a leaf fallen from a tree that, moved by the wind, ends in the middle of a shopping mall ground with butt ashes on? Or a leaf that ends 400 metres away on a garden to which doesn't belong and mixed with other fallen leaves, or alone on a rubbish bin cover? The leaf changes while falls, the way it falls (dry, fresh, cut) and when it falls. If a passer by brushes a bush leaf with his umbrella and some flowers and leaves fall as a consequence, Is not that the effect of nature? Are not we part of Nature?

However, even if the specimen is not alienated the way I do it in my set, that fallen leaf, when moves and leaves the tree gets a new life, it can be transformed or mutated by the sun,snow, fire, water, funghi... or by we humans.

Now think about this... nature... so natural and so "untouched" to be still nature... natural species have been moving naturally and by the action of humans (voluntary or not) since we are humans. Historically speaking the movement of varieties of plants have occurred, and being documented at least since the beginning of this millennium. This before gardening, pruning, or natural selection for gardening was invented.

Is a mango tree in a city park in NY natural?.... No, it is an artifice of humans and the way we want to create nature around us, using especies that don't belong to our zone and that need of special care or irrigation to grow... but nobody thinks of a park as non-nature or artificial, except if there is a lot of design... but before the design starts there is a huge design...

Going back to my specimens... most of them were collected from the floor, after being removed from their trees, bushes,branches by the wind, the rain, the passers by... nature itself. I just happened to notice them. Therefore, tthe alienation (natural) had already happened before I even noticed them. My "discovery" is a little more artificial, since there is a purpose and wish in this alienation of the specimen. I want to relate to that specimen, to nature, personally, no matter what you the viewer think. it is my thingy with plants. My exercise. There is no doctrine in the set, just my eflection on Nature by doing something very similar to what the natural world does... but aware.