Grab - Puerto Madryn, Argentina Duo

1. Free carousel on the Puerto Madryn, Argentina beach.

So it's possible that art's about memories? That memories are the ultimate filter? 

But memories go goofy. Lots of people, like me, rarely dream in color. Something sucks away everything but shades of grey. Which is like emotional liposuction. Hmmmm.... Invented in 1983, the prefix to the word... "lipo" comes from the Greek word "lipos" for fat.

What's it mean to surgically remove all but various shades of one color? Is only fat gone? Or has the operation become... profound? While I've got color-blind cousins, I see what I call colors. And you do the same, right? So removing all but say, B&W shades strips away...? Is it possible, in any way, to do an accurate picture of anything without some commonly accepted agreement over the identity of say red from green? Green from blue? And all of what our brain defines of every gradation resulting from any possible mixture of RG and B?

Is all black and white representation... illustration... as opposed to say, photography?

Are your non-color dreams photography or illustration? Are your conscious memories, for that matter. photographic? Or are they something else each time you take them out for review? Tried another way... Is the mere act of "remembering" a... in photographic terms... a lossy process? Like jpeg images, they suffer a loss of information each time they are compressed and recompressed, and... 

2. Free carousel on the Puerto Madryn, Argentina beach.

Of course memories are filtered through a lossy screen each time they're examined... and they have a shelf-life problem even in their storage bins. Who can argue that their images are "representational" in any sense in the face of infinite contrary evidence? At best our memories are illustrative. And to the degree that we assemble them to draw conclusions - which after all is what art does - well,,,

Note that word, "draw". We're back to sucking. Huh? To draw is to what? To represent something with tools, words, or such. Or to pull something out. I can draw blood from your vein, draw gold from its vein, or draw a conclusion. But, a conclusion from whom?

Say what? Well do these two images draw any conclusions from you? About what? Or have I drawn conclusions that I'm representing in either one or the other of these images? Representing to whom? Me? You? 

Are we each sucking on the same story vein? Does color liposuction cause us to draw... different conclusions, me with my tools, you with from your own emotional vein? 

Are either of these images illustrations of reality? Or has the lossy process of art sucked away enough of the sculptor's stone that maybe a goofy angel gets released? Sigh... 

Enough questions for a crisp November night? 

Patagonia 8: Buenos Aires - Deadly Thoughts

How do I wind up in cemeteries? Seems our guides, or friends find the largest and most historic dead-zones for us to wander (and wonder) about. So on February 2, 2019 - at about 10am: Here’s a moment in  El Cementario Recoleta where Argentina’s largely 1822-1960 very rich and/or famous are spectacularly interred. It’s a tourist magnet. And at its epicenter my Canon 7D MkII snapped this decisive Buenos Aires moment. Our brains are wired to bring order to puzzles. To find meaning in disparate stuff.

And in the park's epicenter - with all of the ornately crafted and bejeweled mausoleums about, my camera found this decisive moment of passers-by...

Strangers among the dead

And as I studied the moment... this came to mind:

“So… did’ja ever see a

poem?” she asked, her foot tapping.

.

 “Y’know, in another language?

Maybe Spanish? But, like, 

I don’t understand Spanish.”

“So… I’gotta’ geek at words that

sorta look English-ly?”

That foot twitched quicker.

“Which reveals what? 

Maybe there’s sorta’ 

D-E-E-E-E-P stuff in there?”

She paused, foot tapping loud.

“So… well look at this image. 

It’s kinda like that.”

Her tapping paused…

“You know what I’m sayin’?”

Well do you... um... know what she's sayin'? There seems to be a story in that image, perhaps a visual poem... haunting me as much as the opulently haunted little bone-homes lining the avenues which lead to esta centro del Necrolpolis de Recoleta.