Penelope Umbrico

A show currently on display at Bethel University features the artist Penelope Umbrico and her work with photographs by George Poundstone in the Bethel University permanent collection.  It is a big deal to have Umbrico featured at Bethel University because her acclaimed status in the art world as an artist who seeks to understand the objects we photograph and the means in which we do them.  A very nice article about the show was written Knight's Art website, and give insight into some of the deeper questions that Umbico's work lays out.  



Umbrico took photographs by George Poundstone, an amateur photographer in the early 20th century, that she had received over the internet and then took pictures of the photographs from the computer screen with her iPhone.  She uses many different filters and apps that are commonly used for iPhones.  This process brings up many questions about why we photograph images, and in this particular work, why we photograph mountains, and further the pieces asks questions about how to photograph.  Umbico has realized that the world is a changing place and images are being flooded into our every day lives as digital imaging becomes more and more accessible, through our phones, computers, and the internet.  

The show brings about many interesting ideas associated with digital imaging that is very relevant to our understanding of the technology and how it effects us.  She manipulates the photographs to a point that makes them unrecognizable, poking toward how we obscure the reality we see on the internet and in our digital pictures.  The world is vastly different from the images that flood our virtual reality and this show really begins to question where our humanness is and goes, and why we photograph the things we do.  What is the significance of photographing a mountain, it's always there.  If thousands of other people have photographed the same landscape why is it worth taking a photograph for ourselves, especially on the media that we've chose, such as an iPhone.  

A further look at a piece that brings up these same ideas can be found here.

The show is up until May 25th so see it soon!