WALK ON THE EDGE
Walk On The Edge
In 15th century, some people believed that sailors will fall from the edge of the world if traveled too far. The world they knew was finite. But they still continued going out sailing, knowing the uncertainty. That is more brave than knowing where you are going and knowing what is waiting ahead. I believe, in line with their belief in the 15th century, that space ends when confronted by an edge. And no, I am not talking about street literally cut off when I am not looking. They will be there, physically. What I am emphasizing is the discontinuity of stage of the city. It is talked too much to possibly appreciate that photography freeze a moment in our life. But if it is frozen, it is pretty much dead. In a photo, I would rather imagine a space and time caged than frozen. Lens flattens. And in a flattened Manhattan, space and shape collapse into the similar lines, no matter how different the originals are, no matter how far the originals are. In many cases the photo are taken at the different location or time. But it is still magical to find those photo can be paired up as if being cousin. Cousin of the same gene. New York street is naturally filled with similarity, and the city find it own ironic way to laugh it out. News stand has an umbrella in the same fashion from the dome of the bank next to it. Coincident? Maybe. Ironic? Definitely. This sense of staged irony is everywhere. There are also moment when the dialogue is less clear, or doesn’t make sense as I am looking at the print. They are hard
to be recalled how the photo was taken because they are little clue within the frame of the print. They continue to confuse my eye about what was the angle and position, or even where is the real up side. Every one can find wonder in the Pyramid, but it is fun and desirable, to find a wonder right under our nose. Some wonders are easy to find, and some are easy to lost. Nameless architects and builders fills in the gaps between the monuments of the five boroughs. They spent no less effort, but were shadowed by other projects that made it to the hall of fame. The face are cheap, the details are messy, the light is dim, and the people are sneezing. Maybe they are the norm, they are the ugly. Maybe you won’t even notice if they were torn down tomorrow to give way for the next tallest. Sharpen your camera, because they then were found, and now are lost. Camera in my hand is the sewing needle that link together the frames in the city maze. It might be a same typology being used at another occasion. It might be a same curvature being represented from unrelated locations. It might be two unknown people, walking on their own, but forced to have a dialogue under montage. People on the street are natural actors within the stage of frame. They just don’t know it yet. When I want to put a actor on my stage, I shot continuously until they walked off my screen. I can’t expect the location nor the position,
but knowing nothing about how the next second will unfold excited me. On the other hand, those who are being photographed looks concerned, as if I am working for a newspaper and they are being documented as the representative in the next morning headline photo with a titles of “Crisis” or “Poverty”. And in early days that had been the place for photography, an old standard for being true as a social heart that speak for the poor and forgotten. But like Bill Brandt and Berenice Abbott had found, documentary reality can be boring very fast. The newspaper type of the photography occasionally projects an interpretation to the subject rather than letting the subject talk for themselves. Artists do have a choice on what include and exclude in the final publication. And frankly I think he and she should definitely do so. But the joy of selection is way down the road of documentation. “Be faithful,” like Bill Jay said so in his introduction page at <A Cabinet of Wonders>. Let the camera do the selection. There is very little room within the frame, but they are more able to represent illusion than the part that is beyond the edge. In this book the impression of trying to create illusion surpass the pursuit of the reality. There are illusion where two pedestrians never and won’t meet are having an act play on the page. There are illusion that artificial nature and naturalized artifacts are purposely designed as such. There are illusion of a deeper world on blurry reflection that only exist from one perspective on the street. There are illusion on shapes, on light. There are illusions on day and night. When the day dimmed out, I am obsessed with the only bright light source left
in the city, in the upper part of the skyline where you will supposedly see stars but no longer could. The windows float as if the scrapers are gone and nothing is supporting their lightness. Those are the stars New Yorkers are counting every night. Night is also the time when large distorted shadow is everywhere. A slight move of the people or a slight move of the car headlight, the shadow will be stretched beyond recognition. They seem to be the heaviest monster now, much more monsterific than the same shadow at day time. Night summarizes all the confusion and wondering I can feel within a frame. This passion led me to the brightest part of the city at the darkest time of the day. I step down to 50t street and Broadway, following my camera. With much fright, I watched that the world become dimmer and dimmer, quieter and quieter, as the Avenue number descended, from the center of the heat spot to the deep black in the just a few block. And at the end of the 50th street where the road end is marked by a single lamp standing in the middle of the street, root covered in grass, a sense of loneliness stroked, and it seemed not long ago, some people also believed the world has an edge.
Sen Zhang 2017.3
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Sen Zhang sz2634@columbia.edu