Final Project Proposal

For the final project, I want to investigate something without a concrete answer. Something hypothetical and impossible to pinpoint such as a scientific theory and it's possibilities.

The universe is vast, mysterious and is the perfect match because we can never truly understand it. We can only theorize how and why it works leaving the possibilities endless.  In this project, I want to express the Multiverse Theory. Also known as parallel universes or alternative reality, the theory implies that there could be other universes like our own, yet different in a certain way. It also can imply a relationship, or lack of relationship with our own, such as in reality, we eat with our hands and walk on our feet. In an alternate universe, we might eat with our feet and walk with our hands. The main idea I want to investigate and show through my images is the the idea that each universe is separated from one another by a single quantum event. For example, each day we make hundreds of choices to go about our day. Right now, I'm writing this proposal and it's 2:10pm. In parallel universe, this action is not made and I am not writing my proposal at this specific time. Instead, I am scanning facebook out of boredom.  Furthermore, if in one universe I answer "no" to a question, then in another universe it could be "yes",  or "maybe" in a third.

A way I want to show this is by taking identical pictures, maybe triptychs style, to emphasize with possibilities with how we live in our own reality verses a parallel one.

Project 3 In-progress critique

For this project, I want to reproduce famous paintings and sculptures with musical influence. I want each reproduction to scream a specific genre of music. For example, I feel the Man in Red Turban by Jan Van Eyck will have a hip hop essence, whereas the Guitar Player by Picasso will have a classic rock feel.

Project 2- In Plain Site: We are Milwaukee Street

The City of Milwaukee is the second most segregated city in the United States. A method to finding this information is by using the Dissimilarity Index, which is a measurement used to quantify segregation. It is based on scale of 1-100, 1 being a perfect integration to 100 being completely segregated. It compares neighborhoods of a city by race, mainly black and whites. The Dissimilarity Index of Milwaukee is rated a 79.6. This means that 79.6 percent of an individual race would have to move so that each neighborhood reflects the racial composition of the city as a whole. If you told someone who lived in the City of Milwaukee this information, I guarantee they wouldn't be surprised by these numbers. Its common knowledge. We know the segregation because we know the city. We know which neighborhoods are good and which ones to stay away from. Even if someone isn't from here, they would soon find out because in the wrong direction, a certain number of blocks can put you in a neighborhood you may not feel welcomed in. We are segregated by the boundaries of our neighborhoods cooping us up by socioeconomic status and race. 

With this final image, I wanted to erase the boundaries and unify the City of Milwaukee as one. One city where the sharp neighborhood lines dividing us become foggy and unclear, morphing the neighborhoods together. These pictures were taken all over the City: Glendale, Whitefish Bay, Eastside, Riverwest, Bayview, Cudahy, and several parts of Central Milwaukee. These neighborhoods range immensely with differences in socioeconomic status, crime rate, education, and race. If you look the piece, squint your eyes once. Blur your vision and understand. See how the sharp differences in the transitions fade. They become unapparent and unimportant. The differences evolve and the neighborhoods look like one, making a normal, non-segregated street as if the Dissimilarity Index was just a made up measurement.

Proposal Project #2

PP #2: In Plain Sight Social/Documentary (Environmental)

The new project assigned is to "explore the history of some aspect of the City of Milwaukee, whether it be social, cultural, economical, political, environmental, or personal." We are also influenced to investigate "locations of significant civil rights events, prosperous factories now vacant, deserted neighborhoods," etc.


In one part of this assignment, I want to investigate the imbalance of socioeconomic classes in Milwaukee. I hope to portray Milwaukee was a unified city, erasing boundaries that segregate the neighborhoods and bring us together as one. Research is crucial. I need to investigate Milwaukee's neighborhoods finding statistics on poverty, ethnicity, crime rate, and education. Photo composition will range greatly because of the massive range of scenery Milwaukee offers. Factories, preschools, MPS, businesses, houses, streets, both thriving and vacant, will collaborate with one another in this series. Final orientation is key with evoking the intended concept as well. I want images to flow into each other as if they were true. I think for this image I will print from Sabin Hall in order to elaborate the series with size and length. I would love to see this final piece 15"x 100" but well have to see.


-RWJ

Artist Statement Project 1

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Artist Statement

Robert William Jablonski

This series of photos is based off the concept of intimate photography. For this, I used myself; something I have never done before. I’ve taken thousands of photographs, but have never included myself within them. I can count the number of self-portraits on both of my hands. I wanted to show myself to the viewer and open up my personal life for their disposal. It’s something so foreign to me, yet therapeutic in someway. The photographs are reoccurring moments in my life that are personal; closed off to the public eye and witness by only the closest people in my life.  Although the scenes were set up, I wanted to capture a candid and third person perspective as if you had just walked in on my personal time. I am unaware of your presence, going about my normal routine as if I were alone. 

 In our society, we speak in tongues. You talk to your best friend differently than you would to your boss. You talk differently to you significant other, in contrast to talking to a complete stranger. We conform to different atmospheres, people and relationships. I do it all the time in my life. At work, I need to present myself in a professional manner and talk with proper/polite grammar. At home, I talk to my roommates with my personal vernacular and feel free to say whatever I want. In these photos, I am myself. Although dialogue is excluded, the essence of personal alone time illustrates my vernacular.  These photos document the intimate moments of who I am.

Response Paper 1

Nan Goldin

When observing the characteristics of intimate photography, Nan Goldin’s work illuminates the concept.  I found her work to be inspiring after reading about her in The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton.  I read that over 30 years she's continued to capture the essence of intimate scenes of the gay and transsexual communities, as well as the intimacy of relationships and lovers. Her work is inspiring because her motif and subject matter captures the behind the scenes of our society.  I want to do this for my first assignment. I want to capture the behind the scenes of what you never see in life and bring forth a sense of truth behind a person.  

In the reading, the author explains the concept of Goldin’s series called The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. She goes on saying how the series “was a personalized contemplation of the nature of subject’s such as sexual relationships, male social isolation, domestic violence and substance abuse (page 3).”   This series goes beyond the ideal imagery and shows the truth summed up for the viewers disposal.  I find it uncomfortable and trashy at times, but its truth and emotion reveals so much from the given scene.

Other Source:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/nan-goldin/

Project 1 Proposal

For this first project, I want to use myself as the subject and capture parts of my life that only a few see. I want to capture vulnerable and hidden times in my life from an unknown third person perspective. With this idea, I plan on taking photos in the areas and places most familiar to me and my routine. Areas include my work space at PSOA Theaters, my room, my jogging path, my house and bedroom, my bathroom, local bars I attend, etc. I also want to incorporate relationships between certain people in my life. Nan Goldin's work is very inspiring because the truth doesn't have to be ideal or pretty. Also, nudity and drugs are sometimes blunt in her imagery where nothing is hidden even if it could be repulsive.  I'll probably take up to 200 photos and edit from there which ones would fit well with one another. I will also use light, positioning and color to emphasize the emotion each image will illustrate. Sizing I want to play around with. Standard photo sizes are good but I want to look at elongating the images. For instance having them all be 2x14in then layer them from top to bottom completing a massive cube of different imagery.