oft lno9eoerlMEDIA ARTS ANDTHE JOURNAL OF

REPORTSAr r i.,r Organi.at ions

International ConlercnceAndrea Liu

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Prospect.3 New OrleansKathryn Kramer

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Society lor Photographic EducationNational Conlercncc

Karen vanMeeneno

FEATURESN{igratory Surlaces: An Informal

Visual Economy and the Repair of theColonial ArchiveTimothy P, A. Cooper

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Equivalent Simulation:A Conversation withJohn Opera

David [aRoccat6

EXHIBlTION REVIEWSSarah anrl.Ioseph Bclknap

Janina (iezadlo2)

r \ura Satz: Elc l ids Lcaking l , ightAlmudena [s

FEATURE

Aw

EquivalentSimulation:

Conversationith John Opera

By David LaRocca

ohn Opera is an American photographer uho works atthe intersection of photographic materiality and lighcdcri',cd abstraction. Since graduating from the Schoolof the Art Institutc ol Chicago (rvhcrc hc carned anMFl\i, Opera has lived and r'r,orked in Chicago. His

work has bccn thc subjcct of recent solo exhibitions in Nen York(2013), Los Angclcs (2014), and Miami (2014). lhe preoccupationof his practice in the last ferv vears has centcrcd on thc rclationshipbenveen the material origins of photographic processes and the uaythosc proccsscs can be manipulated to express form, texture, andtonc. [)rauins on thc most primitivc componcnts of imagemaking,Opera has reclaimed processes such as the anthotlpe and cyanot;peand applied them to the representation of abstractions as uell asevcryday objccts. Flspcciallv in his rcccnt work, Opcra addressesthe peculiarity of organic, light-scnsitivc matcrials that give riseto tu'o-dimensional tableaus. For this reason, many of his recentpicccs cvokc thc paramctcrs, conditions, and effects of paintings. Inorder to reflect on these laLest prqccts, cspcciallv in thc light of hislong history of rvork as a photographer, I discussed thc origius anddo'clopmcnt ol'Opcra's rvork rvith him during the rvinter of 2014,via phone and email.

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if;:;-ftthe son oI an aromatherapist I appre( iate the ol lar tory dimension ofmemory). Your awareness of real ly, your roncentrated interest in- themater ia l nature of photography also led to a great deal of work on therelat ionship between physi(s and photography, espe( ia l ly in regard toWerner Heisenberg's un(ertainty pr in( ip te.JO:\ l , . l r r , . , . . . , r , \ , ,1. ,1. \ , , :L l ,

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DL: Your photographs addressing the somber, solemn, but also sumptuousrepresentat ions of imaginary pat ic les, and worlds postulated but unseen byunaidQd observat ion-su(h as your ser ies Soup (2001-02)-were fol lowedby a ser ies of works and projects that deal t d i re( t ly wi th the representat ionof nature quo nature, as i t were, on the scale of the human, as beaut i fu l ly

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FEATURE

iffustr.ted in the rnonograph MP5 Volune ll: (urtis Monn, hhn Opero'Stocio Yeoponis (20091.JO: My work leading up to thc .l1P? book was addressing issucsol nostalgia in nature photogmphy the "Kodak moment" fictinstancc, composing the world as a/1 context and yct, at the sametime, as orl njf contcxt. Photographs byJan Dibbets provcd inspiringand also orienting for me during this period, especially the way hcused thc lraming of photographs arilllr the framc of the artwork; forexample, his Tolkbuk II (1998 99) comes to mind in relation to mypiece Windr.,u 12O071. Because of my attention to the frame-within-a-frame, there was implicidy a lot of tcnsion-tlrrough-iuxtapositionin this and other pieces.

I rvas lllly aware of the problematic nature ol what I wastrying to accomplish, or at least rer,isit, but I also lelt compcllcdbeyond all reason to pursue making thosc images for the MP3 book,espccially after making Rotattng he Disk 12005). It's almost as i{, afterencountering that iraturally emergent lorm in the world, I hadto build an entire context around it in order for it to make senseas art. Of course, this was also in my DNA, so to speak. Thoseearly photographs of my father's inquiries into obscn'ation lrlot,observation (looking at thc way we look at things) started to secmsomehow knowing and haunting and necessary for understandingsomcthing about my own relationship to the world lirst my father'sworld, then mine: ours. lt was also around this time that I startcd todevelop an intense homesickncss, somcthing I periodically strugglewith to this day

DL: And the rare presence of the human fgure in your work also oc

DL: 5o it! notthe subied matter-the (ontent-that will be (aptivatingto yiewers, but something lse. What then? The lmage or, as you'vebeen saying, th! psy(hologicalor cognitive relations that arise bettveenthe viewer and the work?J0: For me, the work derives from an acknowledgment of thepossibility of transcendent reality or epiphantic vision evenreligious vision. 'l'he notion of a transcendent reality is, ofcourse, a preoccupation that intimately links us with antiquity:from Plato (/rddr) to Kant lnoumenal. So, in my small way, I'mtrying to explore through a practice of immanent, materialistphotography how we can think about the ways a medium itselfcan give rise to images, and, it would seem, also to thoughts.How these qualities and eflects are being achieved, I think, hasto do with the manner in which these works come into beingCyanotypes are made by baffiingly simple means- Why do light-sensitive compounds exist in nature? SirJohn Herschel positedthat by studying photosynthesis he could develop a chemicalformula for fixing a photographic image. He must have been abig dreamer I like how animistic that method of inquiry is, in away. I want to believe that Herschel's scientific approach a kindof hybrid of the physical and the intuitive was a defensiblesort of thinking, as if we could proceed with the belief thatthe universe is aware of how photography provides a way ofexamining itself.

DL: Precisely. Instead of a photograph of naturc (say, rc

FEATUREdrug-induced hallucination. This includes setting up a scenariowhere the viewer's experience continually reiaforces thzt he orshe is looling at a representation that shares qualities with bothphotographs and paintings.

DL: What or where, then, is the role fol opti(s-ifany? Have you overcomethe mechanical attrlbutes of th camera .rd (hemlcal aspeds of fln tosonehov letun to the radi(.| o gins of light sensitivity as animated bynatunl rnatelial3? Does this move 3hift us (lo3er to the rarth, or adiyatethe tnnlcendental you spoke ofcarliar? For one's nind (ould gothe otherw.y-des(end to the depths-rnd be dl.vrn in by you. wolk! lelation tobioluminexence and fi uoles(en(e, espe(ially among dep-sea (leatures.Soup

l )hotoglal)hic mat.r- ials and l) lnccsscs i lbr cxamltc. thc sctt ings ()r lcl igi tal canrcras l los'cr; portr ' :r i t . nrounlain; sq)ia. lojr. cl l ronc.c1(.r thiLt are expor)clt i i r lh dist iur( ius us l lonr lradit iol ls associaledwith hand\r'(nk and lalxrr. s('I1:choscn "sellin$i. \\hich llrinq_s usback to oriqin anclart ist in tcl l ine rvars. Laboritscl l holds rvithinin i t thc possibi l i t r lbr ' :r mcditat ivc, nonl ir t :ar lopoatqrhit spact:rvc once cal lct l i t " inrasirat ion." r\ lot ol 'mv ideas come l iom thethoughl-space that cmcrgcs du ng morc mindlcss productionminc is nn irrt l )oln l innr davdrceorin{.

DL: What then should we say is being represented in or by thes works?light? The effects of light's behavior (and thus pattclns of otherwireunsen physiol laws)? 0r natural laws more generally-in (hemistry andphysics and biology?J0: lhc imagcs zrrc about lbrccs. such as l iglrt . Likerr isc. sr:nit l lv iscosit \ : thc matc al and thc chcmical, and cvcn rnolccularintcractions crrmc inlo pla\t Sl; l l . ui th al l t l rcsc lans. al l t l teseclcmorts ol nirtural o)dcr. thc imascd rcsult is a mall ol 'somethingbevond hunran comprchcnsi(n-

It dot:s seem that art is increasinglr ' pluggine inlo (hc s?rmc l i) l ( csthat nrn :rnd consl i tutc c!cr\ thing \r 'c kIo\\ ' cspccialh, thc l lumanrealrn lrrrcl i (s sovernins belrniors. ' l he parad()x l i )r art ists. thcn.is that our cognil ive prncesses arc also grcalh shi l i ine t)$?ud l ln'vir lual/ thc simulatcd/thc schcmatic. \ \ i : rr 'c, olvirg to acciclents

ol t imc and placc, bccorninq incrcasinglv dc-natural izcd i i rrostpcoplc just cal l this "cl igi t izcd"l so rrv nro\ 'cmc t in the dircct ionof elemental ' technologies" of nature birdshit, f l ies, folds, l ight-scnsitive orqanic rnatter seenls at once reorienting aircl. in anunscntimcnlal \ !a\ ' ! rcs(ora(ivc. l

DAVID LARo(0, pHD, is Visiting S(holar in the Department of English at(orn.ll University and a ledurer in the Dpartment of Philosophy at SUNYCortfand. Hc ir the authot of Emetson's English Troits dnd th Noturo, Historyof Metoplror (20131 and the editor of Tfie Philos ophy of \4or Filns l2014l,among other vorks.

NoTES|. Not Hse Yet, LoudM erCa ery Los AnBe es, Septem ber ll Octobe, 24, 2014. 2. For morenfomallon. rewwJohn0p{a (om and ww DavidlaRo(a.org.

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OPENING SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

PICKER ART GALLERYCO LGATE. E D U/PICKE RHAMILTON, NEW YORK COLGATE U N IVERSITY