Richard Cravens

Artist’s Statement

I began pursuing visual arts via photography in my preteen years when my father gave me a Kodak Instamatic still camera and a Super 8 motion picture camera to use while on hunting trips. These were somewhat primitive tools but they supplied a minimal introduction to the concept of presenting a personal vision of the world to others via a recorded/rendered image.

During high school I discovered ‘real’ photographic technology and immersed myself in every aspect available in rural Missouri in the 1970s. I entered the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1976 as an intended Journalism major. As soon as I discovered the photo classes in the Art Department I abandoned all interest in other studies. I worked with Oliver Schuchard and Rosalind Kimball Moulton during 1978-1980 until my interest in commercial photography drew me away from academia. I became aware of the new digital video technology in 1999 and began to explore it professionally. The revolution in media tools driven by Apple Computer has provided a rich set of opportunities to anyone with an interest in any visual art; for a photographer with expertise in commercial illustration, multimedia, video production and computing, the potential was obvious.

In the last four years I have finally begun to realize the types of imagery I dreamt of decades ago. My early admiration for the pantheon of great still photographers (Adams, Weston, Callahan and dozens others) remains, augmented by a deep appreciation of the masters of cinematic imagery. I now pursue a third path that combines the skills, sensibilities and traditions of both still and motion photography with newer challenges from other visual media, plus the music and computing worlds: it is now possible to perform imagery in the same manner as a guitarist delivers a solo, and share the result with the world almost instantly via the Internet. Video artists can create a vision, exchange their works online, remix and redistribute them almost as fast as they can be created. If collage was the true art form of the last century, improvised collaborative montage may be its successor in this one, created in public, delivered at the speed of light.

Hesse’s Glass Bead Game is upon us; our challenge, to share its fruit with the world. The promise of live musical improvisation, dynamic cinema, video synthesis and global communications have yet to be fully explored, much less realized. That smell is my blood on the knife’s hot electronic edge, where ever I can find it.

These images are stills captured from layers of individual videos mixed during live performance with the Convergence Conspiracy Collective Psychoto-Electro Arkestra. The individual component video layers are each from 'found' video gleaned from the Internet's repository of video performance art. Consider them a remix, a tiny fraction of a larger work - video links are to be provided here in the near future so you may enjoy the work in full motion, as intended.

- Richard Cravens

Works by Richard Cravens

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	SunLips
	ModernTransportation
	TribalDance