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September 25, 2005
Making a Space
For my perspective model I replicated the view from my stoop on 12th street in Brooklyn. I haven't spent much time on my stoop, i'm too busy running around, but people are out there all the time. Even as I write this I hear people on the stoop. It's a distinctly urban phenomenon that's new to me.
Some people live their lives from the stoop, in the same four block radius. The stoop and the view from it is their world. Personally, I think of it as a place you pass when you are coming home or going out into the world, not a place you stop.
For this assignment I thought I would slow down and stop on the stoop, take a look around. From the stoop I took photos all the way around. Since you are sitting you cannot see behind you and you cannot really turn your body, only your head. When you turn your head you are blocked off by the first floor apartment windows on both sides.
The model was implemented as an overlapping collage of two dimensional photographs. The cascade of fences, cars and building pass through the 270 degree arc. The street is blocked off my the buildings on the other side. You cannot see over them, the world from the stoop ends there. You can look up and see the possibility of some other place, but there is no actual manifestation, you are blocked off on all sides.
I'm excited to see what happens when we put a camera at stoop level. The photos look like a shtetl. Like they could be a set for an animation about ukraine before the war.
Posted by Bukhin, Mike at September 25, 2005 03:15 PM