dayoutlast is an essential counterpart to my practice as an Artist. It involves an activity of looking closely and articulating a range between unity and multiplicity.
dayoutlast is my direct, personal engagement with the works of other artists, mostly Los Angelean, and is therefore meant to reflect my own questions and interest about art in this place. Moreover, dayoutlast is a meant to be a critical mechanism whereby questions are posed and provisional answers are given through this process of looking, taking pictures, and sharing them occasionally accompanied by words. It works in several ways: through all five senses, through photographic, lens-based apparati, accompanying words (internal/verbal), or some combination thereof. Each way is to be considered in relation to the other, as much as to the whole.
In terms of the images, they are to be considered as much by what they include as much as by what they exclude, certainly within the context of a particular artwork or showing of works. As such, training a camera on a subject in a particular way automatically cuts away a visual field, centralizes concerns, and establishes a framework, the defining characteristic(s) in terms of space and time, the latter asserted through sequencing. It’s really hard not to consider sculptural (cultural?) carving when using a camera. While the addition of words may sometimes clarify the image, at other times they may complicate the view. Therefore, it is important to consider how they are working together (or not). In most instances by their lack, a conversation is proposed in terms of thought and thoughtfulness both an effect of a visual thinking process and of the works represented.
dayoutlast focuses on specific things. More than a system of display and document, it is meant to approach something deeper within a constellation of works over a period of time, duration of post and text determined by what’s required rather than arbitrary limits governed by economy I presume. So, rather than simply recapitulate what one can find on other blogs or institutional websites, image and text here are meant to clarify what’s essentially present (or not). Granted, there are typically straightforward establishing shots to contextualize a post, just as a documentary film or video might do. As such, sequence of images is considered very carefully as it represents the works, movements between works, movements within/between spaces, and, quite often, increasing/decreasing distance focal distances toward notions of abstraction at the limits of perception micro and macro. So, as posts fold/unfold, note connective “tissues” between them in terms of continuity of color and scale shift.
dayoutlast, on the most practical level, is organized around principles of stream and flow. I used to post images just as I had viewed them "streamingly conscious." The body of posts still scroll from oldest to newest, but I often rearrange sequence to emphasize purpose. Along the right hand side, there are are series of elements just below About Me. You will find My Blog List, Popular Posts, the Blog Archive, and Medium/Site. The latter is an important component of my inquiry as a thought has been developing about absorption of art space and medium. The blog visitor is invited to draw his/her own conclusion, and certainly contemporary life is reinforcing this idea that everywhere is an art studio, namely a photographic one.
dayoutlast will have become a knowledge repository of a certain kind, an archive, of a specific era in time. Through my lens as an Artist, a primary viewer, a technologically assisted viewer, and interlocutor, dayoutlast assimilates strands of LA art of a certain time and place. While not to be considered an artwork in its own right, it is meant to call attention to ongoing fragmentation of art spatially and temporarily. As such, dayoutlast could very well be last day out, in which case the most recent post speaks for itself about art and time. On the other hand, it could be completely out of order.
