STEVE ROOD:

OKEY DOKEY... As you can see in the above works, Steve has a very diverse quality spread over his works, so for this blog I will focus on the aspects of his work I found most inspiring and how he has been influenced by the history of photogrpahy and visual arts.


I think Steve Rood has a very interesting background. He appealed to me, especially after I heard he had studied in Holland and worked in Italy! :)

He started out with a passion for film making, then somehow ended up as a fashion photographer in Milan, then decided he needed an 'education' so went and studied in Holland. Then became an 'advertiser photographer'. He then discovered didn’t like adverstising, liked ideas but not the 'business' of it. He has also done work as an art director.



Something cool I first heard was that his last name 'Rood' means red in english, so he has used as a theme throughout his works.

He stated that when he was little he lit a fire to compost, from then he has associated photography with something 'weird' as this...
He also has an actual fire extinquisher as his card, which once people get they won't throw out.






I throughouly enjoyed all of his work, however his photography work I found was absolutley stunning. Many of his works use over exposure as an effect, He stated that a theme most of his work is based on is "reduction". This is shown in the way he used an "unfocsued" effect and overexposure. Some of his works (e.g the work he did for shoe designers) is kept nice and simple.
Birth, sex and death…overexposed and out of focused… theme about reduction…
Leave lots of room for text… versatility…


Some of His influences (the ones I could catch) were:
Led zeppelin, andy Warhol, apocoplypes, Lichenstein, DADA.

Also this quote by Mary Boone.

"Quality first, and foremost,
Has to do with authentic radical posistion,
it has to do with obsession,
it has to do with clearly defined and exclusive.
I mean intellectually exclusive, ideals, and it has to do with spirituality…"



What do you want to be known as – in the way of your specialism??

He states many of his works are "Kinda feminine products, that have a natural aspect to them…" but that being specilized doesn’t mean hooked up to work for life…

Also that the more "outlandish" they were the better…
The aestetic of his works are really amazing, I was like wow the whole time...


With his photogrpahy he also discovered he always wanted to "have a light coming towards him"… He would create objects and posistion the lights anywhere… lights that create shadows, his works became about the shadows and not the object…
From this he started to call himself “the shadow man”…








His portraiture works are also very emotive. We see him making photo's of his friends, people who are important to him.. Chuck Close inspired..."trying to be objective as possible and failing miserably, and being happy… "

this other artist I found, I thought fitted in quite well with the portraiture and also technology ... Joseph Kosuth :)




Steve Rood also as a job does design work, because its a "good way to earn money"...He has attracted architects- simply because he was into light and space aspects.
He started out doning cool as stuff for band sites (for free) then got massive jobs for export gold and stuff, business strategy, awesome and inspiring business strategy...

Some other really cool works that inspired me were the digital works that are Interactive.
Including the work he did for his Masters degreee at AUT. The images were all disconnectied (70percent was found imagery)… The idea is that identity of the person is generated through the interaction fo the photoalbum… I found it really interesting to watch, as for every viewer it would bring different feelings and thoughts into their heads.

Something interesting about the idea of media and interaction that has so muched changed the world we lvie in... this guy smule with his Iphone and being able to play flute on it and interact with people all around the world, (to be honest I wasn't sure how exactly this fitted in with his work) but it fitted with the whole revolution of technology and shows how fast technology moves...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhCJq7EAJJA

Some of his other really cool works have been where he has used 'light obscura' and a concave mirror to create works. He also talked a lot about how the history of visual art, the history of photogrpahy and how it is always changing. Which I think shows greatly in his work. He stated that "photography came along because they were deteremind to capture things in a certain way on paper and were sick of drawing…" And now, 150 years later, photography is a blip in the landscape of digital media..

I also liked the work where there were 2 images on a flip coin, and it spinned both ways, creating an image in the viewers mind that wasn't how it originally looked. Rood also stated that moving image is jsut a sequence of stills.

I think this lecture will help me greatly for the moving image breif we are just starting this week in Studio, which is awesome, a cool artist model to research even more.

www.rood.co.nz/talk.