Artist looking for a holographer to work with

[BobH]

If you can identify a holographer with a working studio, close enough for you to interact personally, you'd probably have the collaboration you seek. Trying to make it happen over the internet is an exercise in futility. Without funding, that is. Holography can be very expensive, especially in a studio that offers the size, quality and range of capabilities that promote creative experimentation. Who's going to pay for the materials, chemicals, electricity and rent? Who's going to replace the large ion laser tube when it just breaks in the middle of a project? Offer up a proposal for collaboration that addresses those issues and you'll bring something more to the table than an opportunity to invest in your career.

Please don't take offense at what I just said. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and believe your sincerity, but I've been down that road too many times. Still, I'd be up for all the collaboration you want. Come on by, we'll talk and talk and talk some more. There's a 4x8' Newport table sitting empty in a clean room where I work, and I have all the equipment to fill it up. You gotta come here, though. You gotta deal with the real world issues above, or find the patron who will.

[Defiant Nun]

Bob,
No offense taken whatsoever. Very happy to talk to you. As a collaberative project I would be more than willing to pay for half of everything involved, as long as you are good, very good, and we Can work together. This is not about my carreer. I do Just fine with my paintings.I also have people who would help me with funding for a holographic project and I know how to write a grant to get money also. And if you read my last post I said I know ALOT OF AMAZING ARTISTS who would love to collaberate with you guys. Yes I want to make holograms. But there is more to this. I am trying to help salvage what is left of fine art holography- if there is anything left to salvage. I'll go to California no problem if something is actually happening. I'd be in England with Jon Brodel making holos right now at his invitation, but unfortunately England is in fact too far for me to go right now. I'm sorry if you somehow got burned in the past but I have no intention of doing anything like this to anyone.I'd like to know more about what exactly you mean by " I've been down that road too many times" What happened to turn you off from working with artists? Did you not hammer out a contract to protect yourself and your work? I'm sincerley curious. I'm trying to help you guys out and realize mine and many other artists holographic dreams at the same time. I'm using the internet as a tool to find people who want collaberate, I don't expect to be able to just send you a model and have you pay for everything, only benefitting me. Half of all money made from whatever the project was would go to the holographer- and forgive me if this sounds bold- but they would sell- in high end galleries and museums- not on ebay where I see people like Al G trying so hard to sell to an audience that just doesn't get it selling holo's of store bought statues for 30 bucks. Seems like an incredible waste of your knowledge and talents when so much more could be done. I love you guys. I respect you. I want to work with you. I know alot of other very intense artists who feel the same way. I want to hook you guys up with them and me. I want us to do something extraordinary and beautiful and creative. I want to do this before I die along with fine art holography. I obviously wouldn't go to Ca. to just talk to you. My email and phone # are on my website.you can call me anytime or I can call you for free and we can discuss any project , and the cost and the contract, and anything else. When all this is in place- then I'd be off to Santa Cruz very excited and ready to work.
Chuck Close's holos are selling for a hundred thousand bucks, and I love Chuck and his work and this shows how artists can help fine art holography. Here is a quote from Chuck i pulled off the net:
"Mr. Close says, ''I am used to collaborating in my work, and Jerry opens doors for me.'' Then he adds with a laugh, ''He's so wedded to the ritual of the process that if I'm not here to watch him prepare the plates, I feel guilty, as if I don't deserve to make them.' Chuck is way cool. He's actually talking about daguerreotypes in that quote ,but I'm sure he and his holographer work the same way. "Close is one of the great artists of our age. A master painter, printmaker and photographer, his works are both visually stunning and quietly conceptual. He has recently been experimenting with Daguerreotypes and the most recent work I have seen is a hologram. Stay tuned"

Ronald Mallory, an artist of incredible stature, and a friend has been talking of making holograms again. He is The guy that started the kinetic sculpure movement of the '60s Check out his mind-blowing resume on his website. It's insanely impressive. www.ronaldmallory.com
We (artist and holographers) can help each other out tremendously. We each have something the other needs, and together we could acheive something fantastic.
Or we could just let it die a lonely death.
Thanks for the reply Bob, call me anytime if you'd like to discuss a project and let me see some of your work. I can put you in contact with plenty of amazing artists- this is not by any means just about "my carreer'

[Kaveh]

Somehow i missed this whole thread. I am not in a position to make holograms as I don't have a lab, but I too am saddened by the state of holography which has been like this for 20 years. The guys on this forum are largely determined amateurs (in its best sense) who spend much of their spare time on holography.

In a recent conference I was heartened by what I thought was renewed interest. So I am optimistic. I hope to be making holograms one way or another soon. holography does not deserve to be in the gutter as it is now. Of course when it does get talked about it is not holography at all, as in the recent CNN live hologram business.

Anyway, are you talking holography on your show this Sunday? I hope to be there.

Let me slip in my new blog which I have not advertised much. There are a couple of posts on the recent conference:

http://bazargan.org/

[Defiant Nun]

Kaveh,
Thanks for the reply, I did see the cnn thing. Interesting. I will for sure be talking about holography this Sunday. It's not really a show, just a live chat room where artists and anyone can meet and talk about anything related to art. I've invited everyone on this forum to attend. Last week, from this group only the genious Jon Brodel came and said he would try to be back next week. I'm going to do this every Sunday as long as anyone keeps showing up. Ted Mikulski, an extremely talented artist was there also discussing his upcoming book titled "The Death of Art" for which Jon and myself are writing a piece for. www.tedmikulski.com Ron Mallory was there. A few others talked as well although 23 others attended but did not participate. I'd love to make the topic this week " FIne Art Holography- Where it stands and what can be done about it" although talk of any art is always welcomed. I would love to see you and others there. Please pass this on to anyone who you think would like to be there. And thanks for those links too. Hope to talk with you this Sunday!

[Kaveh]

Jonathan is one of the famous old timers. You realize it would have been 3am for him. I am in India right now so I think it will be 8am monday.

[Jacques]

Hi,
Maybe I’m too late to participate in this interesting debate but anyway, here’s my humble advice. You guys talk a lot about collaborations but basically it come to a very simple question. What do you want to do visually? In other words, what do you want the observer to see? The answer will determine the tools you need, and consequently the type of collaboration you should seek.

For example: If colours and pure light are the most important image features of your project. Then analog holography, the diffractive manipulation of light, may be the way to go. If volumes, the perspective effects of 3D space, are the material you want to manipulate, then assemblage of the models becomes more important in analog holography and synthetic holography may be an easier solution. If dynamics of the spatial content, the transformation of appearance with variations of the observer’s points of view is what you want to explore, then synthetic holography may offer more possibilities.

Your paintings show a definite interest in chromatics, but also in the effects of agglomerations of forms. If you go toward synthetic holography, with Geola or others, don’t be shocked by the complexity of a 3D software like 3DSmax, if your new to computer graphics. The requirements for computer generated holograms are a few basic parameters. It could be more a Photoshop job with a simple final mapping in a 3D software. Most CGH systems just need a series of rendered bitmaps to produce a hologram. Unless you need a special plugin, the rendering software is not that important.

Nevertheless, I have work with physicists and engineers in synthetic holography and it’s not easy. I have work with artists in synthetic holography, it’s not easy either. Collaboration is not easy. So you need to know clearly what you want. The common ground in scientific and artistic holography is optics, the visible. Artists or scientists, your collaborators need to visualise what you want to achieve.

Good luck...

[Dutchelm05]

Maybe I’m too late to participate in this interesting debate but anyway, here’s my humble advice. You guys talk a lot about collaborations but basically it come to a very simple question. What do you want to do visually? In other words, what do you want the observer to see? The answer will determine the tools you need, and consequently the type of collaboration you should seek.

Thanks for keeping this topic alive Jacques.
These are valid questions.
In short (at least for me) I would like the observer to see what I see. This amazing three dimensional wonder. A week or so ago I visited Bob Hess's home and I could not resist the temptation to looking at some of his holograms that were not displayed. They were off scale incredible. On the way home I thought to myself it must be a me thing, that somehow it connects to me and a handful of others. How could anyone looking at those holograms not be effectived? Perhaps it is much like Jackson Pollock art; I look at it and really try to feel it, but nothing. I have some holograms here in my office and the range of interest is from amazement to "oh cool". It obviously resonates with some and not others.
So the answer is, I don’t know because I feel like I am conveying what I want people to see. The question is what do they see?

[Jacques]

Obviously, everyone making images, as artists or technicians, would like people to see the same things. But when you talk about the observer's emotional reactions you enter the field of interpretation. In that space you won't have much control on what people see, feel or interpret from an hologram as well as from any other image. Interpretation is a chaotic process. That's why I said that the commun ground for artists and holographer is optics: shapes, forms, colours, movements, depth, dimensions, positions, luminosity, composition, etc. Referential content may be important but its spatial and optical organisation will be a crucial component of an understanding in a collaboration inside the science and art of holography. As for interpretation and emotional reactions you're looking for, you can hope for the best only if the visual content is presented in a way that perception will be able to gather the stimulis as you wanted to present them. Even so, there's no guarantee.

[Defiant Nun]

"Obviously, everyone making images, as artists or technicians, would like people to see the same things"- This is in no way accurate. Salvadore dali is quoted many times saying he wanted people to see different things in his art- each person who looked at it. AS a master of illusion I do not believe he acheived this goal- as soon everyone sees the illusion. Myself as an abstract artist, I do not tell the viewer what to look for and define nothing. See what you like to see- don't look if you don't want to. I have volumes of things people have written at my shows in books and no 2 people have ever seen the same thing. I'm actually thinking holography as art may well be dead, and that perhaps scientists and artist can't or don't want to work with each other anymore. Forgive me for trying everyone, but I'm done with this topic forever.
It shouldn't be this difficult to work together. Sick of fighting about trying to work with people who don't want to. And I have plenty of things to do by myself.
Good luck to you all and best wishes always!!
You are all brilliant scientists.

[Larry Lieberman]

Hello everyone,
Does anyone out there know of a holographer who would be willing to work with an artist on a set of limited edition pieces?
I have some $$, but would also entertain the idea of paying cost and splitting the money made. If I make them, they will sell. Any advice/leads greatly appreciated.
thanks

Please tell me more,

Thank-you