In a Mirror Full of Rhyme: still searching for photography’s essence

Institute of Cultural Inquiry

Process Room

After being in residence at Crossroads School for Arts and Science for over a month at the beginning of 2015, I am left with a suitcase full of notes, images, videos, and sound files that have yet to be considered. Hoping to begin the long process of contemplation these documents will undoubtedly inspire, I am conducting a ‘phantom,’ residency at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry. The residency draws its title from the original residency’s name – In a Mere Full of Rime: a search for photography’s essence; the modified, tongue-in-cheek rejoinder, In a Mirror Full of Rhyme: still searching for photograph’s essence, sets the tone for a session of unbridled experimentation and play while also pointing to the core methodology behind the residency’s ‘search,’ – the making of a photograph and/or its attendant ontology – ‘the photographic.’

The phantom residency will take place in the newly inaugurated Process Room at the ICI. This place has been set up for contemplation, inspiration, and experimentation and is in its pilot stage. The ICI hopes to integrate both the room and its process-directed mandates into their 2015-16 Visualist-in-Residence project.

The Landing Page for In a Mere Full of Rime: a Search for Photography’s Essence will grow in the weeks ahead as I archive the notes and images from that residency.

The Landing Page for In a Mirror Full of Rhyme will offer a glimpse of the unfolding process at the ICI, albeit in a less organized, more process-based manner.