Viz Lab Summer Grant 2006

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Re-Imaging and Imagining the Beautiful and Sublime

Steve Bardolph Art+Design

Project overview

The Visualization and Digital Imaging Lab helped me in the summer of 2005 to realize new ways of visualizing the landscape, and human interactions therein. I have explored large format panoramic photography for years, stretching the traditional rectangular window vertically, horizontally, and across time to capture more of the visual experience. With the assistance of my VDIL grant I was given the opportunity to re-image and imagine alternative, and potentially more immersive, natural and urban spaces with non-conventional lenses, specialized software, and large format printing.

In some of my experiments I used an especially wide-angle lens to capture 360-degree panoramas all at once, presenting to the viewer a single moment in time, but a view that extends behind, above, and below the normal camera frame. This leaves the photographer, and anyone else in the area, nowhere to hide. This led to more honest and at times amusing interactions and perspectives than conventional landscape photographs, which tend to idealize the landscape, cropping out any human presence. With my new perspective suddenly I was appearing in every frame, at times with cameras, carrying cases, tripods, and cars, and usually with roads, walkways, power lines, and other “imperfections.” I found this both more real and surreal. I was able to candidly capture more than ever before, but because of the extreme wide angle, horizons, trees, architectural lines and humans were bent and distorted into a spherical, or more properly, “donut” shaped view.

Though software exists to unwrap the donut and create virtual reality panoramas, I chose to keep the donut, revel in the fresh perspective, and further layer my compositions with other photographs to make them even more revealing. The resulting artworks play with notions of truth and fiction, where photographer becomes subject, land becomes island, Lake Superior appears at times a puddle, and the sky itself is wrapped in a bubble.

Because of the unique environment of the VDIL I was able to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues in both the arts and sciences, which led to a fruitful collaboration with mathematician Josh Jacobs. Together we explored mosaics and tiling, using my landscape photography and his extensive knowledge of mathematical concepts and computer science. It was exciting to see my photographs tessellated, additively and multiplicatively tiled in a manner reminiscent of the works of M.C.Escher.