1 00:00:01,517 --> 00:00:03,010 [DUMBO, Brooklyn] 2 00:00:31,099 --> 00:00:34,696 [Daniel Gordon, Artist] 3 00:00:42,516 --> 00:00:46,614 [Daniel Gordon Gets Physical] 4 00:01:00,651 --> 00:01:03,621 When I was in college, I did a couple of things 5 00:01:03,621 --> 00:01:06,676 to try to understand the mechanics of a photograph. 6 00:01:07,336 --> 00:01:11,052 And then, pretty early on, I hit on this thing. 7 00:01:13,169 --> 00:01:16,819 I realized that I could make myself fly, through photography. 8 00:01:18,166 --> 00:01:21,897 That was one very specific idea, 9 00:01:21,897 --> 00:01:25,421 that you set up a camera, 10 00:01:25,421 --> 00:01:27,204 you're photographing an event 11 00:01:27,204 --> 00:01:30,571 where the camera kind of transforms 12 00:01:30,571 --> 00:01:31,664 what's in front of the lens. 13 00:01:32,370 --> 00:01:34,001 And something happens, 14 00:01:34,001 --> 00:01:37,183 and that thing that was there didn't happen, 15 00:01:37,621 --> 00:01:41,601 or didn't look like what it is in the picture. 16 00:01:43,081 --> 00:01:47,171 It's a fiction and a truth at the same time, 17 00:01:47,723 --> 00:01:50,053 and I think it was that transformation 18 00:01:50,070 --> 00:01:53,773 that really drew me to photography. 19 00:01:59,328 --> 00:02:04,666 I did not set out to have a studio-based photographic practice. 20 00:02:05,562 --> 00:02:10,203 I developed, over many years, a process that enabled me 21 00:02:10,203 --> 00:02:15,772 to attempt to do that transformation in my own way. 22 00:02:18,084 --> 00:02:22,111 I was shooting with continuous lights, 8-by-10 slide film, 23 00:02:22,111 --> 00:02:23,973 and they stopped making the film. 24 00:02:24,290 --> 00:02:26,342 So I had to switch to strobe lights, 25 00:02:26,744 --> 00:02:29,940 which is just the flash and you can't see what the shadow is doing. 26 00:02:29,940 --> 00:02:32,743 And so I had to kind of paint the shadows in myself. 27 00:02:34,017 --> 00:02:35,882 And then I started tweaking the colors 28 00:02:35,882 --> 00:02:37,851 and kind of them more of a part of the composition, 29 00:02:37,851 --> 00:02:39,881 and just getting wild. 30 00:02:47,622 --> 00:02:48,698 [shutter clicking] 31 00:02:57,708 --> 00:03:00,780 So, the first picture that I made using found images 32 00:03:00,780 --> 00:03:03,580 was of a picture of a toe transplant operation. 33 00:03:04,842 --> 00:03:07,675 When I was a kid, my dad who was a hand surgeon 34 00:03:07,675 --> 00:03:10,939 made lots of photographs of his cases. 35 00:03:12,242 --> 00:03:14,874 They were just like totally gory and crazy looking, 36 00:03:14,874 --> 00:03:16,581 but fascinating. 37 00:03:17,114 --> 00:03:18,575 Yeah, I really like this picture. 38 00:03:19,981 --> 00:03:22,447 I don't know if this is a toe transplant operation, 39 00:03:22,447 --> 00:03:24,644 and I don't know if my dad is this guy, 40 00:03:24,644 --> 00:03:26,337 or the guy taking the picture. 41 00:03:31,139 --> 00:03:32,813 And it kind of came full circle, 42 00:03:32,813 --> 00:03:35,136 transplanting a toe into a thumb 43 00:03:35,136 --> 00:03:39,213 and transplanting images from online into physical space. 44 00:03:40,706 --> 00:03:43,107 So I thought, what if I could kind of 45 00:03:44,077 --> 00:03:49,342 transport these images that probably had no other life 46 00:03:49,342 --> 00:03:52,043 other than the life that they've had online, 47 00:03:52,043 --> 00:03:53,643 and give them a body-- 48 00:03:53,643 --> 00:03:55,753 give them a form in real life. 49 00:04:05,937 --> 00:04:09,275 This is my wife Ruby's silhouette, 50 00:04:10,025 --> 00:04:11,603 taken two weeks ago 51 00:04:13,930 --> 00:04:14,593 by me. 52 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,610 There's been a lot of talk about appropriation, 53 00:04:20,664 --> 00:04:22,061 in a critical sense. 54 00:04:22,497 --> 00:04:25,200 But I like to think about what I'm doing as, like, 55 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:27,865 an optimistic version of appropriation 56 00:04:27,865 --> 00:04:30,298 where I'm kind of naive. 57 00:04:30,664 --> 00:04:34,368 The images are all ground up and blended together in a way that 58 00:04:34,368 --> 00:04:36,949 the history of them is not important. 59 00:04:38,139 --> 00:04:43,200 What I do want somebody to think about is just the picture. 60 00:04:44,232 --> 00:04:50,339 It's not that one can't have a really compelling conversation about art 61 00:04:50,339 --> 00:04:53,203 in the world via appropriation, 62 00:04:53,203 --> 00:04:57,898 but I do think that as I continue to make pictures 63 00:04:57,898 --> 00:05:00,571 I've been allowing things to be more beautiful-- 64 00:05:00,571 --> 00:05:03,594 allowing those relationships 65 00:05:04,719 --> 00:05:07,687 between physical things within a photograph 66 00:05:07,687 --> 00:05:10,487 to kind of make meaning. 67 00:05:10,487 --> 00:05:11,506 [shutter clicks] 68 00:05:32,899 --> 00:05:35,681 I never really know what I'm going to get, 69 00:05:35,681 --> 00:05:38,156 even though I spend so much time with it 70 00:05:38,156 --> 00:05:40,690 in the process of making it. 71 00:05:44,921 --> 00:05:46,184 I kind of like not knowing, 72 00:05:46,184 --> 00:05:48,489 and then getting the film back and being surprised 73 00:05:48,489 --> 00:05:50,689 by how it morphs from, kind of, 74 00:05:50,689 --> 00:05:54,047 jumble of pretty shoddily-made stuff 75 00:05:54,637 --> 00:05:57,048 into something that does have depth 76 00:05:57,048 --> 00:05:58,187 and substance 77 00:05:58,187 --> 00:06:00,584 and kind of turns into something real. 78 00:06:05,876 --> 00:06:09,645 It's really transformed through making the photograph. 79 00:06:09,645 --> 00:06:11,677 I mean, I'm happy about this 80 00:06:11,677 --> 00:06:13,277 black kind of blend in 81 00:06:13,277 --> 00:06:14,571 to the foreground and the background, 82 00:06:14,571 --> 00:06:16,200 and have the white blend in 83 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:17,877 with the foreground and the background. 84 00:06:18,476 --> 00:06:19,568 I like it. 85 00:06:20,571 --> 00:06:23,075 I'm really interested in those points 86 00:06:23,075 --> 00:06:27,799 where one extreme meets another extreme, 87 00:06:28,230 --> 00:06:30,874 and you're not quite sure what you're looking at. 88 00:06:42,938 --> 00:06:45,000 The transparency will be drum scanned, 89 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,210 which is just a very good scan. 90 00:06:50,108 --> 00:06:52,644 And I work with Anthony from Green Rhino. 91 00:06:53,030 --> 00:06:56,045 We'll do, like, four or five meetings, 92 00:06:56,045 --> 00:06:58,306 starting with small prints, 93 00:06:58,306 --> 00:06:59,875 just to work on the color. 94 00:07:00,077 --> 00:07:02,737 We can color correct for specific parts. 95 00:07:04,376 --> 00:07:07,907 So, say the reds aren't quite the right red, 96 00:07:07,907 --> 00:07:10,432 we can select that part 97 00:07:10,432 --> 00:07:11,876 and make it correct. 98 00:07:12,107 --> 00:07:14,032 But, more or less what we're doing is just 99 00:07:14,032 --> 00:07:16,444 correcting it to make it look like 100 00:07:16,444 --> 00:07:17,844 what it looked like. 101 00:07:26,605 --> 00:07:27,370 Looks good. 102 00:07:32,801 --> 00:07:34,032 It is interesting 103 00:07:34,032 --> 00:07:39,609 how I spend ninety-nine percent of my time in process-- 104 00:07:39,875 --> 00:07:40,938 finding images, 105 00:07:42,044 --> 00:07:42,937 printing them out, 106 00:07:43,202 --> 00:07:45,800 constructing them into a three-dimensional thing, 107 00:07:46,107 --> 00:07:47,245 photographing that, 108 00:07:48,432 --> 00:07:49,876 processing that film, 109 00:07:50,801 --> 00:07:52,601 scanning it on my little scanner, 110 00:07:52,939 --> 00:07:53,770 making a print, 111 00:07:53,939 --> 00:07:55,274 looking at it on the wall-- 112 00:07:55,877 --> 00:07:56,939 and how little time 113 00:07:58,306 --> 00:08:00,340 I get with the actual work. 114 00:08:01,568 --> 00:08:04,245 If I'm lucky, it's in a show, 115 00:08:04,598 --> 00:08:06,876 and I get to look at it 116 00:08:07,032 --> 00:08:08,444 while I install it, 117 00:08:09,232 --> 00:08:10,876 and spend a little time with it. 118 00:08:11,507 --> 00:08:14,970 But the final thing does really matter, 119 00:08:15,372 --> 00:08:17,307 and it's important that it resolves, 120 00:08:17,307 --> 00:08:18,202 in the end, 121 00:08:18,202 --> 00:08:19,645 as a print.