Peter Gielen - Supermax Photography

"I specialize in photographic and video aerial studies of urban development, documenting its relation to land use. During a 2010 helicopter photo mission in Arizona, where I recorded sprawl patterns—the hidden geometries of suburban and exurban developments that become visible only when seen from far above the ground—I also flew over a number of prison complexes. Observing residential construction, I normally take my time to find the right position in flight, but these quick “fly-bys”—for example, over one of the Florence State Prison compounds, as seen in the shot above—were necessarily much less controlled. This airspace is technically not restricted, but it’s more or less understood that as a member of the general public, one shouldn’t come too close to any of these high-security places.

Initially I was interested only in the comparative planning forms of these prison structures, in contrast to regular commercial housing developments. But then I quickly became intrigued by what else these constructions might reveal, both from an aesthetic and a sociological point of view."

 -Peter Gielen via Creative Time (click for more/context)

More on the project from Wired

Kohei Yoshiyuki - The Park

“The Park” is a series made in the 70′s by the Japanese photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki. Crossing one night Shinjuku’s Chuo park, Kohei Yoshiyuki noticed a couple lying on the floor and, a few meters away, discretely moving closer, two men who observe the pair. He takes his camera but the darkness blurs the image. He then decides to buy Kodak infrared flashbulbs and begins an immersion into the strange world of voyeurism. “The Park” results from this experience. Lovers and spies are caught by the lens which therefore takes part to the scene. The viewers are thus exposed to the same situation. With a certain irony, Kohei Yoshiyuki chose in 1979 to exhibit the series at Tokyo’s Komai Gallery in a complete darkness distributing flashlights to the visitors. As Walker Evans or Weegee, Kohei Yoshiyuki belongs to that caste of photographers who, far away to get satisfied with a contemplative approach, equip themselves to force the moment and, in such a way, transcend the boundaries between public life and intimacy. (via)

Alessandro Bavari - Metachaos

Metachaos, from Greek Meta (beyond) and Chaos (the abyss where the eternally-formless state of the universe hides), indicates a primordial shape of ameba, which lacks in precise morphology, and it is characterized by mutation and mitosis. In fact the bodies represented in METACHAOS, even though they are characterized by an apparently anthropomorphous appearance, in reality they are without identity and conscience. They exist confined in a spaceless and timeless state, an hostile and decadent hyperuranium where a fortress, in perpetual movement, dominates the landscape in defense of a supercelestial, harmonic but fragile parallel dimension. In its destructive instinct of violating the dimensional limbo, the mutant horde penetrates the intimacy of the fortress, laying siege like a virus. Similar to the balance of a philological continuum in human species, bringing the status of things back to the primordial broth. METACHAOS is a multidisciplinary audio-visual project, articulated in a short film, a set of photography and mix-technique paintings. The purpose of the project is to represent the most tragic aspects of the human nature and of its motion, such as war, madness, social change and hate. - Alessandro Bavari

                                                 

(Metachaos)

Alison Scarpulla - Photography

 

(Alison Scarpulla)