Site Archive

Did digital imaging throw documentary into an ontological crisis?
Written by David Tames on August 20, 2010
Filed Under Art, Camera, Critical Theory, Documentary, Featured, Photography
1 Comment  

Scholars have long discussed the ambiguity and subjectivity inherent in photographic representation with its seductive verisimilitude. Bill Mitchell’s The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era (The MIT Press, 1992), the first book-length critical analysis of the...  Continue Reading...

Expanded Cinema: Still fresh after forty years
Written by David Tames on August 17, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Featured, Filmmaking, New Media
2 Comments  

A few months ago I pulled Gene Youngblood’s classic Expanded Cinema (E.P. Dutton & Company, 1970, available online) off the shelf and read it again. The pages in my well worn softcover edition were falling out, the glue having dried over the two decades I’ve owned the book....  Continue Reading...

Memory and the end of reality
Written by David Tames on August 11, 2010
Filed Under Art, Critical Theory, Front Page, New Media, Writing
6 Comments  

The transformation from media as a form of cultural production to media as entertainment has lead us into a crisis as we enter the fifth phase of history. Marshall McLuhan (1962, 2005) divided history in four phases: 1. culture of oral communication, 2. manuscript culture, 3. the Gutenberg...  Continue Reading...

2010 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment
Written by David Tames on July 27, 2010
Filed Under Art, Documentary, Events & Screenings, Filmmaking, New Media, Photography
Leave a Comment  

If you live in the Boston area, here’s an idea for what to do this weekend: The 2010 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment! Consider making a day of it and come out and visit on one of the public visitation days, Saturday, July 31st or Sunday, August 1st. Seven artists groups homesteading on...  Continue Reading...

MassArt’s Summer Film School, 2010
Written by David Tames on June 10, 2010
Filed Under Art, Camera, Documentary, Editing, Events & Screenings, Filmmaking
Leave a Comment  

Summer is upon us and I would like to remind you there is still time to register for most of the Summer Film School classes at MassArt. If you don’t live in the Boston area, MassArt is offering an affordable residential option in the dorms! Check out the course descriptions below. For...  Continue Reading...

Pearls of wisdom
Written by David Tames on April 23, 2010
Filed Under Art, Books, Design, Featured, Reviews
Leave a Comment  

Back in February I attended a conference “Who’s Afraid of New Media” held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Wendy Richmond, who has recently published a book, Art Without Compromise* (Allworth Press, 2009), was one of the speakers. During a break we had a delightful conversation...  Continue Reading...

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
Written by David Tames on April 6, 2010
Filed Under Art, Documentary, Events & Screenings, Reviews
3 Comments  

I was in New York on March 27th to participate in The Conversation at Columbia University. In a recent blog post about the event, Rania wrote, “the paradox—though the topic was digital, the excitement came from face-to-face, real-world, real-time, high-touch experience of bodies in...  Continue Reading...

The 2010 DeCordova Biennial
Written by David Tames on February 15, 2010
Filed Under Art, Events & Screenings
Leave a Comment  

Not to be out of step with the Biennial trend sweeping through the museum world, the long-running DeCordova Annual has been transformed this year into the new DeCordova Biennial providing a more extensive survey of New England’s contemporary art scene, which will be occurring, as the...  Continue Reading...

What happen(ed) when artists annex(ed) an island?
Written by David Tames on October 16, 2009
Filed Under Art, Events & Screenings
Leave a Comment  

This summer Alice Apley and I were “embedded documentarians” collaborating with mixed-media artist Sharon Haggins Dunn on her installation, Dragonflies and Angel Wings as part of the 2009 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment. An exhibition opens this weekend (part of the Fort Point Open...  Continue Reading...

What happens when artists annex an island?
Written by David Tames on July 28, 2009
Filed Under Art, Events & Screenings
Leave a Comment  

The Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, a weekend-long interactive art exhibition, will be open to the public on Saturday and Sunday (August 1-2, 2009). Sharon Haggins Dunn, Alice Apley, and yours truly are among the artists participating in the event this year. If you live in the Boston area, consider...  Continue Reading...

Next Page »