Barthes on portraiture, sort of

"The portrait-photograph is a closed field of forces. Four image-repertoires intersect here, oppose and distort each other. In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art. In other words, a strange action: I do not stop imitating myself, and because of this, each time I am (or let myself be) photographed, I invariably suffer from a sensation of inauthenticity, sometimes of imposture (comparable to certain nightmares). In terms of image-repertoire, the Photograph (the one I intend) represents that very subtle moment when, to tell the truth, I am neither subject nor object but a subject who feels he is becoming an object: I then experience a micro-version of death (of parenthesis): I am truly becoming a specter."
pgs. 13-14, translated by R. Howard

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

I am introduced to the book after reading Herve Guibert's Ghost Image.

I entered the San Francisco Art Institute without a camera, my 35mm art student camera having been stolen out of my car as I moved into my first apartment. Left with a Polaroid and a Kodak Instamatic, I made do.

Journal entries on photography, summer 1978

September 16th, 1978

The sx70s, besides being expensive, are too small to work in the context I want. The Rudolf Schwarzkogler impact is impossible. The sx70 looks like a joke, turning the idea into a hand-sized image, something clearly distilled into an object/commodity.

September 8th, 1978

Began shooting nudes...looked to Schwarzkogler for images to steal/inspire. I guess I feel I should question their success, and deliberate on them more.

I can't keep up the pace of photo-making due to the cost, and realistically, to ideas.

Several people, on seeing my new sx70s, have said that they're glad I'm shooting again. What should they care.

August 5^th, 1978

I look at my photos and think, well, what is the point?

Were would I even want to take them, why should I want to take them out of their cheap snapshot realm? Why belabor such a point? And why go on… with school, art trendies, etc. My desire to take pictures-usually there is no ‘photograph” I want to shoot, just want to participate in the act. The setting up, the posing for time.

August 2^nd, 1978

Journal notes to cover up the lack of assertion/immersion into photo-taking. My favorite series of previously taken instamatic stuff, other than the highly successful perspective series, was the close-up one taken at Peter’s house on Clayton. The prints were never any good, the negatives are horrible, but I like the content/concept. The size when enlarged is dramatic to say the least.

I have no tripod-other method is to tie it down. Earliest photo arose from a need to act in front of camera, as the camera was a fixed object, a recorder. Later, camera moved to a tripod and background, foreground, no ground became controllable. Less action, more focus on detail, environment/mood. Earliest express little more than documentation.

Is there a themeology class, similar to Paul Kos’s syllabus, this fall, where I can practice photo in a non-photo context. Sculpture-Jim Pomeroy.

Dec. 30 & 31, 1978

The Situations became my favorite band at the beginning of November 1978. I refer to them as the new suburban band.
Gigs with the Offs, the punk-reggae band lead by Don Vinil, had to be strange ones. "Die Babylon" preceded by "Mr. Toaster."
Now I wonder why I would post these, why I have so many posters of a band that doesn't have a MySpace page or an entry on wikipedia. Exclusionary, superior, or just pointless, wasted energy. Misspent youth. Or, just youth? It was the situation I was in.

30 years after 1979

performed at the KNOCK Literary Journal release Friday night, Dec. 4, 2009.
www.knockjournal.com

in issue #12 I have four small pieces--I started to write 'drawings,' but one is a lino block print on business reply card, one is collage on security envelope and magazine page, one is double-image photocopy glued to a found piece of cardboard, leaving only one business reply card with marks and writing that might fit one's description of a 'drawing.'
The layout of the magazine, by Ed Perkins mostly, practically overshadows the works themselves, with the text from each work amplified larger, shouting obliviously, declarative wherein the works are relatively unassuming. Certainly in size the works are unimposing.

For the performance, I harkened back to a work from thirty years ago, wherein I broke into pieces 7-inch forty-fives over alternating knees, shouting out the Rock-and-Roll Dinosaur Alphabet--Aerosmith, B is for Boston...." I wrote that alphabet after Chris Burden's Atomic Alphabet: ""A is for Atomic, B is for Bomb..." http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/92
There is a description on a site I stumble across today, daddytypes.com, that perfectly captures the intent of Burden's work--"redirected outrage"--
http://daddytypes.com/2009/06/06/chris_burdens_atomic_alphabet.php
that I attempted in the reading performed for KNOCK.

The Rock Dinosaur Alphabet I did at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco's South of Market area--further south than general traffic, but next door to Trocadero Transfer, where Grace Jones performed "I Need A Man" ascending the Crystal Staircase. Fourth and Bryant, south of the elevated freeway that leads to Bay Bridge and Interstate 80. San Francisco being as time-warped as it is, the Utah is still there
30 years ago, it might have been an SFAI performance night--Monty Thompson might've been another performer.

I'd kill to know where to shop
I'd kill to take that back
I'd kill to have your back
I'd kill for someone to climb on my back
and hold me down
I'd kill to have Harvey Milk
instead of Barney Frank
I'd kill to have had Dan White's address
I'd kill if I thought I'd keep my job
I'd kill to drop a dress size
i'd kill to be her
I'd kill to be me
I'd kill to be in
I'd kill to not have to come out
I'd kill to shut the friggin closet forever
I'd kill to see straights stand up for my rights
I'd kill for the right to be left alone
I'd kill to be alone
I'd kill to take that back
I'd kill to know my way
I'd kill to know what I'm doing here.

a weekend in NYC 1978

11-1-78
"I hit rock bottom. Have 87 cents in bank, and am not real sure when my paycheck will be coming in. Need, have to conserve money. Yet albums and 45s keep coming.
"This is my first day in New York. I haven't the money to go out. I shall stay home and write, listen to records. I have a good size stack of things, maybe I'll take some records down to 42nd Street, try to trade for more. Bleecker Bob's would charge too much, plus it means using the subway, which I can't afford.
"From my apartment/hotel room window I can watch the varied New Yorkers going by. The indian summer heat coming in, forcing the roaches to bask ion the window sill, or to look for crumbs on the bed sheet, a little saliva on the pillow cover.
"Maybe today I will get around to working on that fanzine. Eddy at Cafe Flore is putting a sheet on Friday, called TURPOR-"physical and/or mental inertia"--"Nothing that we write will affect you.
"I'd like to do a write-up on Situations, the new suburban band.
"The new Suburbia. I want to get Situations on the bill with Mutants and B-52s when the show comes. Edy doesn't seem to have a date lined up, but the place is on Main St. Janet from Situations says they don't want to play Mabuhay [Gardens, the principal SF punk club]."