#advanced research

Brotherhood of Steel

Recovery & Containment

Salvage teams under Elder Lyons and Elder Maxson have routinely secured downed Zetan drones and ordered them to Fort Hagen and later the Lost Hills bunker for analysis. Nexus Mods Forums

Applied Research

What is the Jason Program? For decades, the Jason program has been shrouded in an air of intrigue and fascination. Originally established during the Cold War, this group of elite scientists has worked behind the scenes to provide guidance on some of the world’s most critical scientific and technological challenges. But what exactly is the Jason program, and why does it captivate so many…

In this post I will be talking about the 2nd floor of the exhibition. 

Vishniac’s Photobook, 2nd floor of exhibition. The front cover reminds me of something interstellar, a nucleus, or the surface of a planet. A much more colourful subject than his gloomier series on the 1st floor - which had the overriding sense of death for me. (Though the pictures of his wife did lighten the mood, and show there was some to celebrate during those harsh times). 

(In the Projection room) His equipment, contained in a glass cabinet. When he moved to Europe (and was safe from Nazi camps and Jewish prosecution) he started earning some money as a photographer, and bought this equipment for a new project. Around the time this would have been very expensive and definitely a luxury, considering his history also, he must have been a poor man (fleeing from concentration camps etc). Above the microscope there is a framed image of him working with his equipment. 

(In the Projection room) Here there is a smaller screen fixed to the wall, which has a different video, of the man himself in nature, collecting samples, and photographing them. This video was commissioned by (can’t remember, think it was a government issued project). In the video he had a voice-over, where he was narrating the video and talking about life, nature, his work etc. 

In the second half of the exhibition (which continued on the floor below) There were other mixed areas, where the layout and displays changed. For example the collage images (there were a few in a cabinet like the ones pictured in this post, so there was some keeping of style and presentation of both floors, and they didn’t feel too disconnected) I spoke about in my previous post on the Roman Vishniac series. As you entered the 2nd floor, there were slightly different areas of the exhibition. On the first floor there was mostly just text on walls, and framed images on walls. However on the 2nd floor there were more ‘display tables’ which featured more glass cabinets containing more precious prints, old resources, photo books etc. One display contained a physical photobook, and a digital version of itself next to it, in order to protect the original copy I suppose. It was a good way of allowing access to these objects as you often see this in the Tate, and I find it irritating sometimes because I want to look through the book, not just see the page which it has been opened to (but obviously you can’t as it’s behind glass and is valuable, etc).

There was also a projection room which I quite liked. This work featured his photobook (see first image on this post) and the works he created with the microscope. 

When I finished viewing the gallery I wrote a brief overview / speculated on what I felt about the exhibition, which is as follows:

Why did he choose to explore an area of photograph which was so far from his usual practice? (Street, Documentary, etc). Was he seeking a grater meaning to life - to his life - to his work? A distraction or an escape from what he had previously seen in his life time spent in Poland, Germany, and France? Was he obsessed in finding a bigger meaning for all the senseless violence and poverty? We are all naturally intrigued by nature - how things are, why they are the way they are. How are they formed, at least I am. I feel like it is a natural and instinctual curiosity of life being a human. Using his money which he saved & earned during his time in the US - as previously mentioned he was able to buy some new gear to shoot with. He decided to indulge his interests with the focus of a microscope. The images produced are so far from his previous style, portraiture, social documentary, street, and political works. The pictures themselves are abstract and colourful, their importance lies on shape, form and colour. The images share qualities with each other interestingly as they are all images from nature, so it was intriguing to see how images of naturally formed things (insects. leaves, bark, etc) seemed to share qualities. Some of the images appear to me as spiritualist or pure abstract paintings - looking like intense blends of vibrant colours, indistinguishable to what the object was originally.  

The obsession with nature (so many images in the presentation/projection room of his video on his photobook and study of nature / science) makes me question why he chose to do this and what it was he was looking for in this work. 

In the video something he said really stood out to me - something along the lines of “it is wonderful thing to be part of something bigger, the cosmos, and it is important to have an interest in nature and the world around you”. After his intense study of nature - as with his microscope - “the world then becomes bigger to us. It is easier to see.”. This intrigued me as it resonated with me. I understand exactly what he is saying and I feel the same way. He probably thought, it is easier to see right an wrong. His narration and images made me want to do the same and entertain my own interests and natural curiosity in nature. Maybe he was thinking “what happened to that pure nature of a child”? Stamped out by Nazist regime perhaps. 

what went well;

Lots of discussion after our presentation, we raised some interesting questions which was relateable to people on our course. I spoke about my own experience, not having a camera and asking if that makes me any less of a photographer. There is a lot of people using phones for photography, everyone can be a photographer with a little bit of knowledge, a good eye, and a iphone these days. I spoke about the impact of technological advancements and how this is impacting our lives. Because a lot of people on our course are young, everyone had a little bit to say. Even people who have grown up in a time before internet wonder what the effect of this technological surge will have on people.

what would you improve;

We would have benefited from meeting more often to discuss more of a plan as a whole group, as we never actually met (all three of us). However I did meet a few times with Lucy to discuss our presentation, what we might talk about and what images we might use. Although this was enough to make a good presentation if we had met with Stine at some point maybe the presentation would have been better. However if we had made a plan and Stine didn’t attend (as she was too ill to come in) then our presentation may have been jeopardized from her absence, if we had planned around her input. Looking at Lucy’s half of the presentation made me think that I should have put less information on the slides, and just spoken with aid of images or quotes. She said she tried to imitate lecture powerpoints. I had never thought of structuring it this way and her slides looked more sleek / professional, allowed her to speak about the topic more.

what did you learn from the process and the discussion

Task 5: History As Method  Lecture notes & Task 5