MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM

MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM: “









MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM /// RYTHM FROM WITHIN

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I was intrigued with expanding the possibilities of still photography through a different approach to motion, so I developed my own method of multiple exposures. Then I set up a nurturing atmosphere, where my participants felt safe to tune into their emotions and express them physically.

I soon realized that I was photographing spirit more than surface. My subjects were not only moving, but they were also relating to nature in a manner that often revealed their inner selves.

I seemed to be photographing the psyche, a place far removed from what people present to the public. I learned to scout out special places in nature that promoted a cosmic relationship. In addition, I learned to encourage my subjects to produce spontaneous movement by drawing upon a place beyond conscious thought.

The work has evolved into deeply felt personal, emotional and psychological states that elicit universal themes in the viewer. This is an essence of successful portraiture, yet I wasn’t interested in the literal representation of individuals. I preferred an abstract way of going deeper. I trusted the intuition of my participants to bring out the human condition. And I learned to trust my own intuition, as well.

After earlier experimentation and prior projects, I turned my attention to a major dance company. I began ‘The Energy of Dance’ with the Limon Dance Company in 1998. I started by being in control, asking the dancers to repeat specific passages of movement that I had observed on stage and in rehearsals. They quickly caught on to the technique I was developing, and appropriately began improvising. I reacted instinctively and reflexively, adding many images to each frame of film, without time to deliberate. Giving up control meant welcoming a multitude of surprises. Over time, photographs appeared that ranged from amazing juxtapositions, to intricate meshings with nature, to complex depths of expression. Sometimes a rare and refreshing beauty developed that itself transcended the literal and reflected an inner radiance.

It became my signature style. A gallery director named this approach ‘Rhythm from Within’, which became the new name for the project.

One reviewer came to call this ‘risky photography,’ because there was no way to predict the final outcome. The images form immediately upon the film. There’s no later manipulation. And there’s no premeditation, just meditation that powers my exploration of the ‘Rhythm from Within’.

Nine years later, I have a large and still evolving body of work. I’ve assembled 36 images (28 in the Special Exhibit and the others on the website) that show the evolution of this body of work. More importantly, these are choice images from a series that delves into the roots of dance, from motion brought forth by emotion. This intuitive approach includes images of many famous dancers and dance companies, including the Limon Dance Company, Parsons Dance Company, Edisa Weeks, Robert Moses’ Kin, and many others, including students at the annual Bates Dance Festival.

I’m now developing themes under the umbrella of ‘Rhythm from Within’. The first segment is being shown in this current Special Exhibit. There will be many more that I will assemble over the years–both from the files and from new sessions.

☁ MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM
☁ MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM @ CONTEMPORARY WORKS

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Glitchbot: for all your corrupt JPEG needs

Glitchbot: for all your corrupt JPEG needs: “

Glitchbot is a Flickr bot that grabs Creative Commons-licensed images, corrupts them, and re-posts them with attribution and compatible licenses.


GlitchBot draws from a limited number of source images and a limited number of possible glitches and will theoretically yield all possible glitch derivatives. However, like the compression algorithms GlitchBot exploits, GlitchBot is an imperfect creation. Within the flickr comments and descriptions there can be found occasional typos, and much more rarely an image may pass through completely unglitched – a glitch manifested in the absence of glitch. Furthermore, though there is a limited supply of source images and of potential glitched derivatives, GlitchBot moves far too slowly (one image per day) to keep up with the rapid influx of new flickr uploads.

Glitchbot

(via JWZ)


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Sleep culture in the West, and elsewhere

Sleep culture in the West, and elsewhere: “sleepysleep.jpg

Science journalist Jessa Gamble has a new book coming out that’s going to be about the cultural differences that determine how humans perceive time. Awesome! In a post at the Last Word on Nothing blog, Gamble talks about how these differences affect the way we sleep.

Perhaps you’d prefer somewhere with a concept of time that fits human activities, rather than a soulless number on a digital clock. In Sudan, the Nuer people are cow herds and tell the time according to the day’s work schedule. The clock might read milking time, pasturing time or cattle-moving time. According to anthropologist Wade Davis, Borneo’s Penan people measure time using subjective perception. If a hunting trip reaped a lot of meat, it’s understood to have taken a shorter time, even though it could have lasted several days.

I also assume you’d like to be somewhere you can consistently enjoy a good night’s rest. Cultural conceptions of a good night’s rest are wildly variable. For example, my earliest immersion in a non-Western culture was as part of Canada World Youth, a program that pairs a group of Canadian teens with, in our case, an Egyptian counterpart. Beyond the obvious mismatch between Canadian teen culture and the priorities of Islam, there were countless small divergences. For the Canadians, a common theme, unexpectedly, was the sanctity of sleep. Once asleep, a North American adult is likely to be, if not tiptoed around, at least left undisturbed unless there is some type of emergency. In contrast, if I retired at 10 in Egypt, I might be woken at midnight by someone asking where I put the spatula. I started to wonder why I had ever thought sleep was a state deserving of respect. Perhaps it is only when a society becomes chronically sleep-deprived that hours of it are horded and jealously guarded from disruption.

This bears out in the research. Solitary sleep on a softly cushioned surface, between four walls and under a roof–it’s hardly typical. Anthropologist Carol Worthman has spent many years in the field studying nighttime in traditional societies. In contrast with the Western sleep model–a regular bedtime followed by continuous sleep until morning–the Eje of Congo have some level of social activity persisting through all hours. The sleeping area of a family will see coming and going as some members retire, grooming each other for parasites that might disturb their sleep, and others hear the familiar strains of a thumb piano and get up to dance.

Via Ed Yong

Image: Sleeping with Bo, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from joi’s photostream


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