treehouse

Interview with Andrew Kaiser for Luminous magazine .Out soon

A. K :Tell us a bit about yourself. When did you start taking pictures on a serious level? What attracted you to working with the visual arts?

Well I was never a wonder child. Growing up in disarray, my thoughts and actions have always chaotic, unbalanced and , at times, disputable, but I lived with my eyes wide open absorbing as much visual information as possible, closely observing and trying to make sense of the world. I don't remember how art came to me or me to art, the sure thing is that, as a kid, the three things that could bring my attention into focus were candy reading and drawing, the latter ever more feverishly pursued. Since I didn't really have any friends and despised most of my colleagues and teachers, bringing images from my imagination to a the world of fact became my predominant activity, which , in turn, led to my attending of art profiled institutions of higher education where i gradually struggled for, with, and against academic rigor in painting, drawing and clay work. My hunger for new media grew and when I could finally afford a digital camera I clutched it and explored its limits quite viscerally. This was a few years back, in my second year of college. I evolved a lot in a short period of time due to, I think, sheer fascination and so, presently, even if I still find pleasure in and exhibit works of painting and drawing, it is in animation, film and especially photography where I find aesthetic bliss. Images as rendered by these media are close to my inmost being and I suppose I am a tad attracted by the instant gratification that some offer.
I live in a small bleak, artless, prosaic town by the Black sea; here using the means that art provides has become more of a method of subsistence, of living on that higher plane where the equivocal blabber of the general population cant reach. The fascination for creating runs on a parallel path to the fear of falling….

A. K : Which one item of photographic equipment is the most important to you?

The camera itself. (since I don't have any other equipment).

A. K. :: How do you decide on locations & subjects?

Its a very peculiar and chaotic operation. I'm not very systematic about these things and because my photos fit into a wide range of categories it hard to find an unitary answer.. When I’m not shooting something conceptual and the pictures have a human element I’m usually choosing from the places and people that I’ve put a mental annotation upon seeing or i just know are available as resources ( like my attic for example). Most models are personal friends or friends of friends but most importantly they are people who put their trust in me and really enjoy partaking in the general madness and excitement erected by the whole process.

A. K : Sometimes when I am personally shooting photography it feels very spiritual and photo opportunities simply present themselves as a gift....do you ever feel that way and do you think there is such a thing as someone really having a "natural eye" for photography?

Very rarely have i felt that the photos i take are a gift. Maybe because I always have a plan in mind when I hold the camera. I don't go hunting for the images; I like to make things happen myself. Every final image is really a struggle and the feeling I get when I’m shooting is more of constant tension and feverish concentration but, paradoxically, something that elicits this much cathartic energy in the end not unpleasant at all. Art enables this beautiful ensemble of crushing seriousness and ludic flight to be possible. Concerning new media ,I am self-taught and i don't believe that only a rigorous academic education can offer a person a chance to develop , so i suppose it could also be said about me that i have a “natural eye” but i also understand that my natural eye comes from an unnatural mind and that innate intuition must be doubled by a trained sense of sight and a vast visual repertoire. Oh..and passion.

A. K: How important is it for you to tell a story with your photographs?

Since photography per se lacks the element that moving photography possesses, time, I’m not really sure to which extent it has the capacity to narrate. Personally I find the “story” to be quite irrelevant, a conceptual image I perceive more like a hit and run rather than an elaborate tale and mostly in my work I’m concerned purely with aesthetics.

A. K :How does your personality change when you look through the camera?

I'm very much in the moment and sometimes i tend to become a bit more authoritarian and dominating but i think more precise is my good friends observation :
“Your mind gets spirited away when you have the camera”

A. K. :Describe a day in your personal or professional life.

Oh, my days are never quite the same, all thou after a quick retrospection i suppose I could point out some constants. I don't have a fixed schedule for work, being a freelancer photographer/graphic designer , and I’ve given up on going to my classes as often as I should ( I hardly go at all now) so after I wake up, around 11 a. m and i feed my dog, cat, hamster, birds and snails, I basically have an insane amount of “free time” to squander as i please, so, depending solely on mood, I dedicate myself either to painting or graphic design, animation, film editing, photography work etc. ,entangling myself hermitically to a single project for many days, even weeks, on end until I see the finished result. To keep things sane I incorporate a substantial reading session each day and watch amazing cinema works and anime on a regular basis.

A. K : Do you ever find yourself in a creative rut? What steps do you take to break yourself out of it?

I do have periods when I constantly question my ideas and plans, but being creatively apathetic means i can focus on other , more trivial, yet interesting, stuff like... conversation, building a bird feeder, learning a new language, cooking a smoke bomb, traveling etc. The muse eventually returns.

A. K :If you had to describe your work with only one word, what would it be?

Trip.

A. K : Do you feel that beauty is a word that can be defined?

I could answer either “yes” or “no” and still sound quite fraudulent

A. K : What is the ONE lasting impression you want to leave in your photos?

Enchantment