update

NEW PHOTOBLOG: Phlogi.com <----- I post photos i find online.

new project site: watchussleep.com <-----shani and i streaming our sleep live every night.

new updated homepage/portfolio: benjaminlotan.com <----this is what i have been working on... not done yet, and does not work in internet explorer, but give me feedback...

update

Just made a twitter account. so you can follow my moves there if you wish:

http://twitter.com/benjaminlotan

still posting with friends xandre and taymoor on eggpoop.blogspot.com but now building a new personal site to be published before the end of the year. Probably will start some new blogs. (an image blog, and a screenshot blog.. etc)

also streaming my dreams, as i become aware of them... not sure how this will work out yet, but planning on sleeping in front of my webcam as often as possible. you can check out my ustream.tv channel at ustream.tv/channel/watchmedream
i'll figure everything out soon enough.

ben

the Captured meMe on Channel 6 News

they captured me on a machine, and broadcast my words and images...

see blog post and News clip here

or go strait to the news clip

EggPoop

I Have been Posting On EGGPOOP.BLOGSPOT.COM so go there and read.
Its a blog for all of us in san diego.

30,000 Photo project.

I have just over 30,000 digital photos on my hard drive from the past 7 years or so. I just recognized this today and started to think about how i could use all of them to create something. One idea is to load them all into Final Cut and Use as single film frames. I did some initial tests, and there is something nice that emerges. While you cannot see each photo alone, you see sessions. when i photograph i will sometimes take many photos of a single scene. so when they are all flying by quickly, you can make out some of the scenes quite well. I will post some film footage soon. These stills are from a trial in which i had 4 separate streams of images to cut down on the length.

Photocombines

write a program that will grab random photos from my complete library, and do simple combinations, such as half half. Use for further ideas/inspiration. force to make connections... associate.

Guitar effects=video effects

an early sketch of something that could be expanded and worked out more thoroughly in the future.

Suicide. TorryPines

Last night i went for a walk to Torry Pines Glider port area. When i got there. there were many trucks. Someone had driven their car off the cliff. commotion. the difference between those that off themselves in such dramatic fashion and those who without a trace. The effort to get his car up from the beach.... I took a bunch of footage, of the trucks mostly. It was very dark but i think i can put something together. These are film stills.

Erdnaxela roll

i do golf

videos

SLOW BOTTLE:



HEAD:



THE KISS:



I posted a bunch more new videos. Instead of embedding them all here, i will just post this link:

VIDEOS

it will take you to my youtube videos in order of most recently posted. the first 12 or so are pretty new.

family

thisismyfamily

me

one of the first pictures i posted of myself on facebook. I was struck by how much younger i look... first time i looked at a picture of myself from college and really recognized the aging process...

new perspectives

Set up multiple cameras and filmed, these are screenshots. but i sort of like them more as photographs. Idea to use multiple cams, and sync the shutters to get multiple angles, then think of some good way to show them all together. (grid?)

film stills from current tendancy to make

Video Photography

I'm always chasing this idea of converting a segment of video into a single photo frame.

Here i have combined 1 frame per second of a 60 second video of friend brian standing perfectly still.

desk

whenever i remember i like to take snapshots of my desk, or workspace.

Photosi

Training North from San Diego, i took hundreds of pictures the whole way, thinking about compiling them in a grid and printing them poster size as a sequence documenting the changing landscape. This journey will be completed each season, or perhaps each year for the next few decades.

Here is a small sample of images:



also started messing around with different kinds of pixilation algorithms.

books

Loop Etching

journal

This is 64 pages of journal entries from my first month on exchange at dartmouth. I have condensed it down to one page. Each line is an individual paragraph.

Preview

dirt

Scanner Portraits

using a scanner as a camera.

1-Pixel Portraits

I took a one pixel vertical sliver of my face in this picture, and stretched it out to make a new kind of portrait. (i got this idea from the artist tom friedman... he's good.)

Underpassage

Every Underpass on the 101, 405, and 5 freeways, driving through LA and Orange Counties to San Diego.

Project Greenlite in the press

This is a project I worked on at dartmouth last quarter (i am in video):

Press Video

//@

you might not wake up tomorrow.
but you'll never wake up.

green key etc

this weekend there is a party everywhere. but doesn't that only mean more of the same patterns? moving around, that wholesome activity between drinks, dirty smiles and laughter. That walking, hoping you will see something. hoping something will happen. That you will see someone.

now it's not just about the basement and a couple of larger rooms, it's a few houses and a block. you can move in between these new expanded spaces, but its just the same.

What is it like here?
It's small, and there is something missing. and you, you would rather just stay in some other place. you would rather just deal with your own shit, and not be here.

and when you walk into the gallery and you see the cream of the crop of student artwork. coming from these people who sink such cash into their own lives, investing in networks, and hoping they can learn and it all pays off,
your perspective is one that is upsetting, and you don't care, and are upset in a way. because somehow all this shit discounts your shit, and what you would do, and what you want to do. somehow. and you are upset. "does that make sense?" you ask yourself.

You lost faith because you saw them all as competitors, and you weren't nervous. you were agitated, and bothered and put off. that their work is out there in opposition to your own. it cuts, it grates the public and puts them in a place of antitrust and ignorance. It is blinding, as all those who tag and write their names across spaces. that although they believe in themselves and their right. and their power, and their ability, and their prowess, they again, only see that single bit.

meaning as a reflection of being here, this whole time, you try to understand. Walking in this night, alone.
you are scared of that supremacy that comes with recognition of problems. and you are upset because your being good, makes there bad, and that is not good.

hello los angelos, we're looking at a whole lot of heat.

text.

hands

fingers (in two parts)

Fast arms

Shoulders