penelope umbrico . . .

The field of photography is constantly changing. What constitutes a "photographer" or a "photograph" has always been redefined by technological innovations. In the last two decades, the digital revolution and the Internet have enabled us to quickly develop new photographic processes, rapidly altering our definition of photography. One might even say that the present state of photography is similar to that of the time of its invention, when the form's emerging cultural significance swiftly expanded as a result of technological innovations. "The Photographic Universe: A Conference" reflects on this current moment, with the pervasive digitalization of the medium and its speedy permeation into contemporary life. Prominent thinkers and practitioners from a variety of artistic, scientific, cultural, and sociopolitical backgrounds discuss their role in the growing the field of photography, evaluate its increasingly blurry relationship between art and life, and speculate how photographic images will continue to change the way we see our world.

For more information, visit http://photographicuniverse.parsons.edu

penelope umbrico . . .

Read more about Penelope's work here.

"This is a project I started when I found 541,795 pictures of sunsets searching the word “sunset” on the image hosting website, Flickr. I cropped just the suns from these pictures and uploaded them to Kodak, making 4" x 6" machine prints from them. For each installation, the title reflects the number of hits I got searching "sunset" on Flickr on the day I made/print the piece – for example, the title of the piece for the Gallery of Modern Art, Australia, was 2,303,057 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 9/25/07 and for the New York Photo Festival it was 3,221,717 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 3/31/08 - the title itself becoming a comment on the ever increasing use of web-based photo communities, and a reflection of the ubiquity of pre-scripted collective content there. I think it's peculiar that the sun, the quintessential life giver, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of warmth, optimism and vitamin D, and so universally photographed, finds expression on the internet, the most virtual of spaces equally infinite but within a closed electrical circuit. Looking into this cool electronic space one finds a virtual window onto the natural world."


Titles of installations to date:

2,303,057 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 9/25/07

3,221,717 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 3/31/08 

4,064,589 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 9/02/08
4
109,500 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 9/09/08
4
786,139 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 1/14/09
5
009,279 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 2/20/09
5
083,088 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 3/06/09
5
332,272 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 4/22/09
5
377,183 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 4/28/09
5
537,594 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 5/30/09 

5,858,631 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 7/26/09
5
911,253 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 8/03/09
6
069,633 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 8/27/09
7
626,056 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 7/17/10
7
707,250 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 7/30/10
8
146,774 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 10/15/10
8
309,719 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 11/20/10
8
313,619 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 11/21/10 
8
730,221 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 02/20/11 


Screen-saver: http://www.penelopeumbrico.net/SunBurnScSvr/Installers/ScSvr2.html 
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunsfromflickr-umbrico/ 
Second Life: virtual post-cards of these images made to distribute on the open-ended virtual world “Second Life” as virtual ditritushttp://www.penelopeumbrico.net/index.htmlhttp://www.penelopeumbrico.net/index.html