Hasta La Ideas

Photographer Doug Rickard travels the backroads of America on Google Street View

If photographer Doug Rickard had been able to get away from his daily life and go on the great American road trip like he wanted to, he might never have created the subtly powerful, deeply moving and award-winning images in the collection “A New American Picture.” Because he was unable to travel, Rickard sought other ways to see the country. He went online a lot, searching terms that might lead to images of places like Detroit, which to him symbolized “the mythology of the broken down American dream.” A few months after it was created, Rickard discovered Google Street View and, along with it, a higher calling.

He was floored by the fact that he could sit at home and “walk” the streets of any town, anywhere in the country. Rickard spent the next two years scouring Google Street View for images of the unseen America, starting in Detroit, though he soon discovered that there were countless other “Detroits” all over across America. He was stunned by towns like the 400-person town of Amite City, Louisiana, which has changed little since Ben Shahn photographed it more than 70 years ago.

Moving through the streets shot by Google’s Street View cameras, Rickard searched for vivid colors and compositions that have led critics to liken his work to Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. He also kept the idea of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” in the front of his mind, and recalls the sense of elation when he dropped into Watts in LA one day and discovered a man holding a hose against a stark white wall. Though there have been some grumblings about ownership and intellectual property, those have mostly been quashed by the power of Rickard’s work and his abilities to use—one might even say repurpose—a widespread technology to show us a new way of looking at what’s in front of our very eyes, which is what good photographers strive to do.

A limited edition of “A New American Picture” was published by White Press and Schaden in 2010, and even though it was named best book of 2010 by Photo-Eye Magazine and images were exhibited in the MoMA, it went out of print. Now, however, Aperture is re-releasing the book to a wider audience along with 40 new images.

“A New American Picture” is co-published by Koenig Books, and is available for pre-order on Amazon for $60. An accompanying exhibition will be on view 18 October through 24 November 2012 at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York.

The augmented reality makeover of an Academy Award-winning short

From the outset, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” was imagined as a children’s book. The story is essentially about a man’s magical life among books, and it makes perfect sense as a picture book. Moonbot Studios—founded in part by “Morris Lessmore” author William Joyce—decided to go a different route by producing the story as an animated short. The short ended up winning an Academy award, and Moonbot went on to create an interactive iPad app, which was so wildly successful that it had librarians everywhere fretting about the end of the book as we know it. Now Moonbot and William Joyce have made a physical picture book with an augmented reality app that finally completes the picture for “Morris Lessmore.”

On its own, the book is brilliant. Joe Bluhm provides new illustrations that surely place the book among the top releases of 2012. Imag-N-O-Tron, the downloadable app that brings the book to life, cues voiceover and animated graphics for each spread. “We got a peek at this new technology called augmented reality—which I guess isn’t new now—but it’s new in the way that you are able to target images,” says Moonbot’s Brandon Oldenburg. “That’s where the magic happens. Augmented reality, up until now, always had to target a QR code. Now we’re able to target an illustration.”

Oldenburg points out that those uneasy about the story-telling power of the iPad app were delighted by the harmony of augmented reality. “The app isn’t replacing the book; it’s showing you a way to bridge the gap between the old and the new,” explains Oldenburg. Without overcomplicating the experience, Imag-N-O-Tron keeps the timeless integrity of the printed book while bringing in animated and interactive elements. Moreover, the framework of Imag-N-O-Tron can be used to enable future publications from Moonbot as well.

Oldenburg is right: this certainly isn’t the first time AR has been applied to a book, but it might be the most seamless integration to date. As the capabilities of the technology continue to expand, AR promises a niche future for the printed storybook—a way to bridge the analog-digital divide.

“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” available from Moonbot and on Amazon, and you can find Imag-N-O-Tron in the iTunes App Store.

Lisa Kereszi’s photographic book on family and what’s been thrown away

Photographer Lisa Kereszi has released “Joe’s Junk Yard,” a new photography book about her family’s junk business. In a documentary style similar to her Governor’s Island project, Kereszi records the final years of Joe’s Junk Yard, a business started by her grandfather, Joe Kereszi, in 1949. Located in southeastern Pennsylvania, the yard was a museum for American detritus. Reflecting on her father’s livelihood and her mother’s antique business, Kereszi writes, “I was surrounded by junk.”

The book starts with Kereszi’s grandfather in the form of his collected scrapbooks. Repurposing various materials to create his work, Kereszi explains that her grandfather’s obsession represents a person coming to grips with injustice in the world. “My grandfather’s scrapbooks were something else entirely, works that clearly fall into the category of outsider art,” Kereszi writes. “The loose, tattered books were made of supermarket-bought adhesive-bound pads of multi-colored construction paper.” Beyond the scraps, Joe’s Junk Yard chronologically tracks Kereszi’s documentation of the operation from her high school days through graduate school.

Photographer Larry Fink introduces the book, writing, “A junkyard is not an end run for matter; it is the beginning of a new condition for the curious, cultured and coincidental mind.” For Kereszi, the aesthetic of the yard started with people. Photographing her family around the yard with a student’s 35mm camera, Kereszi began the long process of documenting Joe’s Junk Yard. As the project evolved, Kereszi focused more on still objects and the iconic materials.

“Later, the work starts to get more still and centered on these things that I’m finding and pointing to as things of importance,” Kereszi tells CH. “An engine that looks like a heart or a transmission on the ground that starts to look like an elephant’s trunk—things that start to turn into something else by me focusing in on them.” Part of her motivation for recording the junkyard had to do with the failing business and her uncle’s suicide, with the physical objects acting as a manifestation of this loss.

It would be a disservice to dismiss Kereszi’s work as merely deadpan glimpses at a familiar subject, with a promient narrative of changing values and the abandoment of the DIY lifestyle shining through the documentation. “It was a part of life that you don’t throw stuff away when you’re done with it. You reuse it, and you fix it. Whereas today, we live in a much more disposable culture,” says Kereszi.

Kereszi wraps up her essay on Joe’s Junk Yard with a reflection on objects and inheritance: “I’ve inherited a lot from the place, from the hood ornaments pried from cars and signage stripped from walls to the ritual of hiding baseball bats behind doorjambs. But I’ve also inherited the passion for scavenging, for collecting, photographically and otherwise, and a constant need to feel that rare moment of discovery of treasure among the trash, or better, of true meaning and transcendence amid the chaos, pain, and banality of life.”

“Joe’s Junk Yard” is available from Artbook and on Amazon. See more images of the book as well as image credits after the jump.

Images courtesy of the artist and the Yancy Richardson Gallery

(from top)

The Office, 2002

Joe Jr.’s girlfriend Patty and Evans with truck bed, 1998

Wise man figure in junk car, 1993

Eloyse and Joe Jr. smoking, 1999

Joe Jr. and Patty in emptied-out office, last week open, summer, 2003

“Yard Sale” sign with junk, Media, PA, 2009

Brainy nonprofit TED is following through on its promise to turn its passion for “ideas worth spreading” into slim volumes that it hopes readers will consider worth downloading—for $2.99 a pop or less, thanks to a new subscription model (three months, six books, $14.99). The technology, entertainment, and design mavens have launched an app that provides easy and instant access to TED Books, short (10,000 to 20,000 words) nonfiction works that are meant to explore one big idea in a way that can be absorbed in a single sitting. “TED Books are to books as TED Talks are to lectures,” according to TED’s Chris Anderson. The free app, designed for both iPhone and iPad, beefs up the images in TED Books while adding features such as video, audio, links to maps, online resources, search, commenting, sharing, and automatically updated editions. With 16 titles published—including Living Architecture by Rachel Armstrong—and an ambitious schedule that promises a new one every two weeks, now is the time for TED to do something about those still-cringeworthy virtual book covers.

Got an app we should know about? Drop us a line at unbeige [at] mediabistro.com

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Berlin’s leading design book shop welcomes world renowned illustrator Olaf Hajek and more

As ardent readers of Gestalten‘s stellar art and design books, we’ve been wanting to visit their storefront, Gestalten Space, ever since it opened last year in Berlin. Tucked away in a cobblestone alley in Mitte, Gestalten Space sells the imprint’s own publications along with a well curated selection of covetable design objects, while the exhibition space in back allows for an expansion to the work of the artists and designers they publish. Demonstrating a wide scope, in April they exhibited photographs from Jorg Bruggemann’s book “Metalheads,” followed by a selection of the best new Japanese communication design from the Tokyo Art Directors Club.

Right now Gestalten is celebrating “Black Antoinette,” their second monograph by illustrator Olaf Hajek, with an exhibition that runs through July. A collection of Hajek’s work from the past three years including editorial contracts, commercial portraits and personal pieces, “Black Antoinette” continues Hajek’s visual language of colorful botanical headdresses and folkloric influences with a distinct handmade, tactile quality akin to woodblock, not seen is most contemporary illustration. The look stems from the fact that Hajek never starts his work on the computer, but with paint on paper, wood or gray board. He does use a scanner, but only to send his work to clients—never as part of his illustration process.

The new book sets itself apart from Hajek’s previous publications with a style that has become more “free and painterly,” as Gestalten puts it, and less committed to absolute perfection. “Hajek masterfully melds influences from West African and Latin American art to create surreal juxtapositions of fairy tale fantasies and disordered realities. His magical realism enriches the perspective of anyone viewing his work,” and, we’d like to add, allows him to masterfully tread the fine line between commercial illustration and fine art.”

“Black Antoinette” runs through 29 July 2012 at Gestalten Space, where you can also buy the book. Copies will be available in the US within the coming months.

Gestalten Space images by Perrin Drumm