The Relationship of the Real, the Virtual, and the Fictitious
I have been working with images about the
World War II Observation Towers at Cape Henlopen for two years now. The
monolithic stone cylinders hold a deep and special fascination for me.
Their presence on the beach at Gordons Pond is unexpected, even surreal,
and every time I walk on the beach there I find myself thinking that the
towers seem to have materialized from some other time and place. The
southernmost of the towers (I have dubbed it Tower #1) leans at a slight
angle toward the water as though nodding toward the power that will
eventually possess it.
The towers have become symbolic for me of
the events that took place on September 11, 2001, because that is my
birthday, and because of the system I had been using to reference them
when photographing them; for example, North Tower, Position One. Because
of that, I feel the special need to remember and commemorate the
thousands of lives lost that day. For me, the World War II Observation
Towers are sentinels standing forever at attention on Cape Henlopen,
inextricably tied to the lost Towers of the World Trade Center, and,
as I have produced this work I have been constantly reminded of
the tragic events of “nine-eleven.”
The current show is an installation of
digital photography, digital prints and digital prints with watercolor
painting, mixed media with distressed paint, and large pastel drawings.
I show the towers at various times of the day and in various weather
conditions. This year, however, I am also working in a new direction
based on my attempt to know and understand the relationship of
cyberspace to reality, virtuality, actuality, fiction, and visual art.
The new, large-scale digital fantasy prints about the towers are the
result of this. They include images removed from various sites on the
internet; usually with the permission of the creator of the images as in
the case of the Boeing 737 airliners seen flying through some of them.
Sometimes, however, as in the case of the
human torsos hidden within the cement tower walls of other prints, I did
not obtain permission to use the images. Instead, using a virtual
identity created with images taken from other sites, I traded my false
images for those that I use in my work. These images are actual images
obtained from the sites located in cyberspace from other individuals
that may be actual or false images of the person with whom I was
communicating at the time. I was, however, careful not to disclose the
identifying facial features of any of these persons in the actual art
works. Additionally, there is a gaming practice in which artists
purposefully create false identities on line with the intention that
others will try to deduce who they actually are.
Cyberspace is the word coined by William
Gibson in his 1984 science fiction novel, Neuromancer, to denote the
“navigable” space of a fictional video game. The word has become
part of our vocabulary and denotes the very real presence of the virtual
realities created on the electronic web from the intangible links and
sites of the internet as well as the experience gathered from the
screened computer environment in which many of us spend a significant
part of our diurnal experience working and playing. It has become a very
real part of our experience.
My play in virtual reality is evidenced
in the physical prints that exist in actual time and space. They are,
however, visual fictions, amalgamations of my digital photographs taken
of the towers with those taken of other locations, and with the images
pulled from the internet and they are meant to inspire the viewer to
create his or her own narratives about the towers. I change the
locations of the towers in the large prints, sometimes, minimally, with
the intent that the viewer may or may not discover the manipulation. At
other times, I make the move extremely obvious. In Tower #1, Fantasy #2,
the tower floats in the cumulus clouds of a thunderstorm I shot in
Sarasota, Florida. In others, the towers are placed on various beaches,
and/or filled with the transparent figures of sun-bathers. In another, a
silver foil clad man is sitting at the base of one of the towers, or
walking around them. Most of the added on images, planes, and sunbathers
were obtained from the internet, though the silver foil man is my
creation. He was the inspiration for and the main character in my
doctoral dissertation, Isaac Stoltzfus: Images about Male Sexuality and
Culture. He appears in these art works because the foil man is
reflective and reminds me that virtual reality has become a part of our
every day reality, but is only a reflection of it. It is a projection of
our wishes and desires, and it has recorded in its invisible ethereal
links and sites information that may or may not be based in actual
reality. I hope many people will come to the exhibit and enjoy creating
their own stories about the images based on their own viewing
experience.
The
new works of John Klomp may be seen at the Blue Moon Restaurant,
September 1-28. The opening reception is September 7 from 2-4 p.m.
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