"dark matter"

I just came across this quote on the Version 08 website- it's an interesting articulation of the idea....

“Like its astronomical cousin, creative dark matter also makes up the bulk of the artistic activity produced in our post-industrial society. However, this type of dark matter is invisible primarily to those who lay claim to the management and interpretation of culture - the critics, art historians, collectors, dealers, museums, curators and arts administrators. It includes informal practices such as home-crafts, makeshift memorials, amateur photography (and pornography), Sunday-painters, self-published newsletters and fan-zines, Internet art galleries -- all work made and circulated in the shadows of the formal art world. Yet, just as the physical universe is dependent on its dark matter and energy, so too is the art world dependent on its shadow creativity. It needs it in much the same way certain developing countries depend on their shadow or informal economies.” - Gregory Sholette (gregorysholette.com)

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This reminds me that I've been trying to locate my copy of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" for a few weeks now. There is a beautiful passage in the book where he describes coming out of the subway and suddenly seeing Harlem- all the lives that happen on what he calls the "lower frequencies," that are left out of history and elided....

speaker

Often I don't "see" parts of an image until after I've taken the picture. In this one I wasn't conscious of the red on the speaker or the red strip on the left until I saw it in the camera.... That discovery- seeing things my unconscious mind must have noticed- is my favorite thing about photography. (I try to keep analytical thought out of the process as much as possible...)

Doris Salcedo

"This fragility is an essential aspect of the sculptures. They can even be affected by someone coming too close to them; they show us how fragile another human being can be... We are even exercising an influence on the world by delicately touching the surface of an object, because the object changes."

-Doris Salcedo

"coloured glasses"

My grandfather was a research chemist for Libbey Owens Ford Glass Co.- his specialty was developing different types of glass- mirrored, one way, bullet-proof. This is a text book from the LOF library, and a cut glass piece they gave him when he retired. It's quite fascinating to me- all the chemistry of the color of glasses.
(I always felt an affinity for him, so I think its interesting I’ve ended up working in his material.)