Temporal Manipulation

Robert Scott Nance

When contemplating direction for my work, profane thoughts cloud my mind while my heart seeks beauty and peace. Reconciliation of heart and mind bring about acceptance with the pretense of logic and understanding. Temporal Manipulation is an exploration of humanity’s exertion of influence on the earth. I’m pondering the existence of any spiritual or natural connection while examining our physical connection to the earth in relation to a culture of profit. A culture, I feel, whereby the earth is inevitably assigned a monetary value and then bought and sold in the guise of necessity. We have a seeming desire to control or bring order to the perceived chaos of nature causing a clash between perception and reality. The conflict and coexistence of spirituality, physicality, necessity and commodity create an intriguing tension, which I seek to investigate. In spite of this tension, there exists a strange harmony, which yields peace for me. In the coexistence of host and parasite there lies an interesting antinomy at the crux of our existence. As elusive as understanding may be, I remain vigilant for connections.

Appropriation Earth

I'm not dead set on the title, it's just my favorite to this point. Here's an example of eight which may or may not make my final set of images. My senior exhibition is coming up on the 19th of April...already! Titles are forthcoming.

The bb’s in my head shouted profanity while my heart sought beauty, or even just peace. Once connected, the bb’s spoke acceptance with the pretense of logic and understanding. Out of this eventually arose personal allusions to a journey of experiencing the earth and our place on it.

“Appropriation Earth” is a general exploration of humanity’s connection to and presence on the earth. Pondering the existence of any spiritual connection while examining our physical connection through commodification in a culture of profit whereby the earth is inevitably assigned a monetary value then bought and sold in the name of “necessity”. Earth’s dominance over this stress in association with the human need to make order out of chaos being general themes contemplated.

In spite of contradictory ideas, there exists a strange harmony, which still yields peace for me. In the coexistence of host and parasite, there lies an interesting paradox at the crux of our existence. As elusive as understanding may be, I am always on the lookout for connections.

And More Ideas

Dilapidated houses. The best laid plans of man hold no sway over time. Very old farm houses that are so dilapidated as to be nearly unrecognizable abound throughout the countryside. These carry with them a strange draw to me...sentimentality, evidence of the seeming futility of our constructions...nature's reclamation, broken dreams. Maybe not this depressing.

Bankrupt new constructions interest me as well as a marker of the recent recession. Bankrupt, foreclosed and abandoned, residential and commercial. The significance for me is the amount of money or rather credit that's put into all of this building only to have the dreams and lives of so many completely ruined. Less as buildings and more as broken dreams/lives as a symptom of American society's ever widening gulf between necessity and the capitalist dogma so many complain of only to buy right in.

Animal shelters kill over 90% of all animals. This number is considered good in Austin and is relatively lower than the rest of the country's average. Piles of euthanized animals can be seen on the loading dock of certain shelters every day. Piles of body bags. The pet overpopulation problem, although getting somewhat better in recent years, is oft overlooked and unheralded. Certainly some kind of activism involved in a project such as this.

Fish cleaning stations in different parks draw me viscerally. The smells, sights, tangible texture of fish effluvia death mingle with necessity, reality, sustenance and the excitement of a good dinner to come. These places possess, for me, an interesting convergence of life and death and a realistic look at the food chain.

Mountains of waste at a landfill. Huge earth moving equipment constantly burying the trash of the area into huge mounds on the outskirts of town...A metaphor for the modern dilemma of overpopulation? Search for a way to make this different then what others have done...different angles, perceptions, searching for something deeper than the obvious metaphorical possibilities.

Something elemental. Earth, Air, Fire, Water.........and Spirit. Five elements, five prints of each. Elements make up our world, matter itself. A general them to explore more in depth. What to shoot for Spirit, Fire? As a way to search for the inner-connectivity of all.

Alternate modes of transportation. Find a way to photograph those who are doing the most they can for the environment by using less fossil fuels. Riding bicycles, taking trains, walking, electric cars, scooters, etc. Must find some kind of context to create interest. This could end up inherently political.

Backyard wildlife. Although extremely hard and time consuming to photograph, there is an abundance of "urban or suburban wildlife" just outside of my backyard. Ecosystems and habitat constantly being affected by human sprawl yet still thriving in some capacity. Thriving in spite of shrinking habitat or slowly being destroyed, never to be the same again.

Continuation of Recreations, a series I did for advanced digital, wherein I traveled to many regional state parks and photographed tents, travel trailers, canoes, kayaks, and people, recreating themselves. Looking at the way we allocate and reinvent certain areas of land in a commercial or sociological way of "getting back to nature". What drives this desire. Is it sociological, instinctual, or both.

Nature abstracted. Searching for interesting composition and striking imagery by zooming in, cropping, or shooting from strange perspectives in order to abstract concrete creation. I think I would look for color cohesion primarily throughout the series, not sure what else I might find.

Generally search for human presence in natural environments. The interplay, good or bad, positive or negative, exists whether its photographed or not. I would seek to try and stay away from a documentary type or style of photograph rather get more in depth about what this interplay means to me and how to make this, if possible, intriguing. Interplay both found and constructed. Which has more impact, is it possible to decipher, does construction matter?

More Ideas

New construction in old east Austin brings progress and also prices out long time homeowners through raising taxes to unaffordable levels. Interesting mix of old and new but the people buying out and buying up properties care not for the concerns of the long time residents. Try and photograph the inherent dichotomies of the inevitable "progress"...through people, buildings, structure. Survival in the face of progress, in spite of progress or the realtiy of being bought out cheap and forced out.



In neighborhoods where less taxes are paid often street maintenance and median maintenace is much less prolific than in "desireable neighborhoods" and sometimes shunned altogether. Photographs showing this lack of care for these lower tax braket neighborhoods like the one I live and pay taxes in. A great wealth disparity between and even in the same zipcodes. Homelss people living in proximity to multi million dollar properties. Wealth disparity in america, is social commentary avoidable?



Take my camera to work to photograph mass shipping industry and the odd hours some people keep in order to provide for their families. Inside look at what is common to me but not to many...I think.

Ideas

Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. Also, for me, the sometimes fantastical and certainly idealized past which I create in memory as a way of coping with this yearning for the irrecoverable. As a way of dealing with my need to understand myself....rephotograph old family photos of people and places that made up my infancy, childhood, and adolescence in order to juxtapose these with modern photos of the same places and people. Looking for a correlation or the lack there of between my memory and staunch reality of time changing the evidence of our presence. Hopefully inherently relatable.



Dam the Water. Water is life in my mind which seeks for a biological and spiritual connection between humanity and our home. The importance of water and increase in population has led to our manipulation and attempts to store it. Manipulation by redirecting flow and building roads over and through tributaries to meet the needs of human sprawl and storage in the form of man made reservoirs. This need for survival creates a link w/ our world that, if ever broken, will mean the end of civilizations as we know them. This would be the feeling behind my attempt to photograph dams, low water crossings, etc. in order to show there is beauty in necessity.

Continuation of my Beautifully Uncomfortable series where I photographed harsh natural subjects as a way of challenging myself to find beauty in the harshness of life. Trying to focus more on plant life or degradation of natural areas instead of dead animals. Beauty of the habitual course of a growing population in a general sense instead of focusing on specific subjects. Maybe less personal more general....or more relatable to all.

Hikes into fairly remote locations to photograph at many different times in many different areas peacefulness or serenity or vacancy, harshness, barrenness...starkness? Whatever I might find relatable to wilderness or nature that is not common viewing for the average person in modern society. The process of a long hike and a night in the wilderness for the specific purpose of searching for photographs should be important, integral to the process. Texas, regionally, alluding to nostalgia in a way as Texas is my home and the only area currently realistically accessible.

Family project focusing on portraits of my small family in their environments. Since I've been studying photography I've yet to do portraits of my family and think it might be wise to one day see where this could lead for my family is small and I shall lose more of them some day soon.

Trends in naming. New constructions come up with new names for properties of no previous importance. Adding the ever present capitalist pretension to whatever endeavor is served to sale a unit or property..."The Villas at Onion Creek", "The Bridges at Battle Bend", "The Wharf at Ahab's desire"! Always something at something such is the silly new trend...never the pasture by the highway or the old crappy apartment we want to sell as condos! Photograph this specific vernacular on fancy overdone signage at beautiful light times..Compose beautiful image at the right time with the trendy signage the indirect subject...sarcastic maybe a little, definitely poking fun at ourselves.