0:00:01.517,0:00:03.010 [DUMBO, Brooklyn] 0:00:31.099,0:00:34.696 [Daniel Gordon, Artist] 0:00:42.516,0:00:46.614 [Daniel Gordon Gets Physical] 0:01:00.651,0:01:03.621 When I was in college, I did a couple of things 0:01:03.621,0:01:06.676 to try to understand the mechanics of a photograph. 0:01:07.336,0:01:11.052 And then, pretty early on, I hit on this thing. 0:01:13.169,0:01:16.819 I realized that I could make myself fly, through photography. 0:01:18.166,0:01:21.897 That was one very specific idea, 0:01:21.897,0:01:25.421 that you set up a camera, 0:01:25.421,0:01:27.204 you're photographing an event 0:01:27.204,0:01:30.571 where the camera kind of transforms 0:01:30.571,0:01:31.664 what's in front of the lens. 0:01:32.370,0:01:34.001 And something happens, 0:01:34.001,0:01:37.183 and that thing that was there didn't happen, 0:01:37.621,0:01:41.601 or didn't look like what it is in the picture. 0:01:43.081,0:01:47.171 It's a fiction and a truth at the same time, 0:01:47.723,0:01:50.053 and I think it was that transformation 0:01:50.070,0:01:53.773 that really drew me to photography. 0:01:59.328,0:02:04.666 I did not set out to have a studio-based photographic practice. 0:02:05.562,0:02:10.203 I developed, over many years, a process that enabled me 0:02:10.203,0:02:15.772 to attempt to do that transformation in my own way. 0:02:18.084,0:02:22.111 I was shooting with continuous lights, 8-by-10 slide film, 0:02:22.111,0:02:23.973 and they stopped making the film. 0:02:24.290,0:02:26.342 So I had to switch to strobe lights, 0:02:26.744,0:02:29.940 which is just the flash and you can't see what the shadow is doing. 0:02:29.940,0:02:32.743 And so I had to kind of paint the shadows in myself. 0:02:34.017,0:02:35.882 And then I started tweaking the colors 0:02:35.882,0:02:37.851 and kind of them more of a part of the composition, 0:02:37.851,0:02:39.881 and just getting wild. 0:02:47.622,0:02:48.698 [shutter clicking] 0:02:57.708,0:03:00.780 So, the first picture that I made using found images 0:03:00.780,0:03:03.580 was of a picture of a toe transplant operation. 0:03:04.842,0:03:07.675 When I was a kid, my dad who was a hand surgeon 0:03:07.675,0:03:10.939 made lots of photographs of his cases. 0:03:12.242,0:03:14.874 They were just like totally gory and crazy looking, 0:03:14.874,0:03:16.581 but fascinating. 0:03:17.114,0:03:18.575 Yeah, I really like this picture. 0:03:19.981,0:03:22.447 I don't know if this is a toe transplant operation, 0:03:22.447,0:03:24.644 and I don't know if my dad is this guy, 0:03:24.644,0:03:26.337 or the guy taking the picture. 0:03:31.139,0:03:32.813 And it kind of came full circle, 0:03:32.813,0:03:35.136 transplanting a toe into a thumb 0:03:35.136,0:03:39.213 and transplanting images from online into physical space. 0:03:40.706,0:03:43.107 So I thought, what if I could kind of 0:03:44.077,0:03:49.342 transport these images that probably had no other life 0:03:49.342,0:03:52.043 other than the life that they've had online, 0:03:52.043,0:03:53.643 and give them a body-- 0:03:53.643,0:03:55.753 give them a form in real life. 0:04:05.937,0:04:09.275 This is my wife Ruby's silhouette, 0:04:10.025,0:04:11.603 taken two weeks ago 0:04:13.930,0:04:14.593 by me. 0:04:17.000,0:04:19.610 There's been a lot of talk about appropriation, 0:04:20.664,0:04:22.061 in a critical sense. 0:04:22.497,0:04:25.200 But I like to think about what I'm doing as, like, 0:04:25.200,0:04:27.865 an optimistic version of appropriation 0:04:27.865,0:04:30.298 where I'm kind of naive. 0:04:30.664,0:04:34.368 The images are all ground up and blended together in a way that 0:04:34.368,0:04:36.949 the history of them is not important. 0:04:38.139,0:04:43.200 What I do want somebody to think about is just the picture. 0:04:44.232,0:04:50.339 It's not that one can't have a really compelling conversation about art 0:04:50.339,0:04:53.203 in the world via appropriation, 0:04:53.203,0:04:57.898 but I do think that as I continue to make pictures 0:04:57.898,0:05:00.571 I've been allowing things to be more beautiful-- 0:05:00.571,0:05:03.594 allowing those relationships 0:05:04.719,0:05:07.687 between physical things within a photograph 0:05:07.687,0:05:10.487 to kind of make meaning. 0:05:10.487,0:05:11.506 [shutter clicks] 0:05:32.899,0:05:35.681 I never really know what I'm going to get, 0:05:35.681,0:05:38.156 even though I spend so much time with it 0:05:38.156,0:05:40.690 in the process of making it. 0:05:44.921,0:05:46.184 I kind of like not knowing, 0:05:46.184,0:05:48.489 and then getting the film back and being surprised 0:05:48.489,0:05:50.689 by how it morphs from, kind of, 0:05:50.689,0:05:54.047 jumble of pretty shoddily-made stuff 0:05:54.637,0:05:57.048 into something that does have depth 0:05:57.048,0:05:58.187 and substance 0:05:58.187,0:06:00.584 and kind of turns into something real. 0:06:05.876,0:06:09.645 It's really transformed through making the photograph. 0:06:09.645,0:06:11.677 I mean, I'm happy about this 0:06:11.677,0:06:13.277 black kind of blend in 0:06:13.277,0:06:14.571 to the foreground and the background, 0:06:14.571,0:06:16.200 and have the white blend in 0:06:16.200,0:06:17.877 with the foreground and the background. 0:06:18.476,0:06:19.568 I like it. 0:06:20.571,0:06:23.075 I'm really interested in those points 0:06:23.075,0:06:27.799 where one extreme meets another extreme, 0:06:28.230,0:06:30.874 and you're not quite sure what you're looking at. 0:06:42.938,0:06:45.000 The transparency will be drum scanned, 0:06:45.000,0:06:48.210 which is just a very good scan. 0:06:50.108,0:06:52.644 And I work with Anthony from Green Rhino. 0:06:53.030,0:06:56.045 We'll do, like, four or five meetings, 0:06:56.045,0:06:58.306 starting with small prints, 0:06:58.306,0:06:59.875 just to work on the color. 0:07:00.077,0:07:02.737 We can color correct for specific parts. 0:07:04.376,0:07:07.907 So, say the reds aren't quite the right red, 0:07:07.907,0:07:10.432 we can select that part 0:07:10.432,0:07:11.876 and make it correct. 0:07:12.107,0:07:14.032 But, more or less what we're doing is just 0:07:14.032,0:07:16.444 correcting it to make it look like 0:07:16.444,0:07:17.844 what it looked like. 0:07:26.605,0:07:27.370 Looks good. 0:07:32.801,0:07:34.032 It is interesting 0:07:34.032,0:07:39.609 how I spend ninety-nine percent of my time in process-- 0:07:39.875,0:07:40.938 finding images, 0:07:42.044,0:07:42.937 printing them out, 0:07:43.202,0:07:45.800 constructing them into a three-dimensional thing, 0:07:46.107,0:07:47.245 photographing that, 0:07:48.432,0:07:49.876 processing that film, 0:07:50.801,0:07:52.601 scanning it on my little scanner, 0:07:52.939,0:07:53.770 making a print, 0:07:53.939,0:07:55.274 looking at it on the wall-- 0:07:55.877,0:07:56.939 and how little time 0:07:58.306,0:08:00.340 I get with the actual work. 0:08:01.568,0:08:04.245 If I'm lucky, it's in a show, 0:08:04.598,0:08:06.876 and I get to look at it 0:08:07.032,0:08:08.444 while I install it, 0:08:09.232,0:08:10.876 and spend a little time with it. 0:08:11.507,0:08:14.970 But the final thing does really matter, 0:08:15.372,0:08:17.307 and it's important that it resolves, 0:08:17.307,0:08:18.202 in the end, 0:08:18.202,0:08:19.645 as a print.