Transition Zones

TRANSITION ZONES

"Bardo is here, and all of existence is within the bardo movement".
- Lama Tenzin Jamphel

The Tibetan word Bardo means "intermediate state" between birth and death. Other classic definitions of bardo include the time between the moment of falling to sleep and awakening; between the beginning and end of concentration; between apparent death and the exit of consciousness from the body; the passage of the dissolution of consciousness into innate space; between death and rebirth. The only thing stable is change itself. We change, imperceptibly, abruptly, the process constant. Understanding the flow of this continuity is the only thing we can really rely on. Everything born and conditioned is impermanent and will most certainly pass. We are always between here and there, this and that. This in-betweenenss is always here and now, always fully present and complete. It has been meaningful for me to contemplate this truth, and it is something I hope to give to others. Consequently, I photograph the space of transition, the zones between here and there; the meeting place of river and land, storm drain and ocean, inside and outside, domesticated and wild. I photograph intermediate spaces. I imagine that I am inviting the observer to imagine and perceive transition as a constant.

The point is to help myself and others loosen up our hard grip on the false notion of unchanging solidity. The passage between states of existence is both sacred and taboo. Social rituals exist as rites of passage to proceed along our way in life from one phase of maturity and commitment to the next. All blame aside, it is safe to say that today’s materialistic society is largely out of touch with this ritual process. We use images to replace the real thing. Images tell us what to think and condition our behavior as we change inexorably. Artists are myth makers. Within the discourse of photo-based art Transition Zones seek to short-circuit grasping desire and offer the viewer the taste of an enduring nowness. In an ideal world I imagine a balance between structure and play. Art is an activity within which we can pretend to exist in such a world.

I am interested in working with the tensions between the pastoral, industrial, and post-industrial in an evolving geographic edge rich with forbidden zones. Within that dynamic, picturing the unnoticed, the everyday fabric of our shared reality, merits focus. I have ventured to discover and photograph vernacular places of passing and pausing. The monumental and spectacular are of no interest here.

Formally, Transition Zones dwells between the extremes of being read as exclusively documentary or art. James Welling once characterized photography that runs between these two poles of practice as "more than mere record keeping, and less than overt self-expression". Neither the trace nor the transformation of phenomena demands exclusive attention or allegiance. In the process of recording we can not avoid manipulation. No matter how heavily we weigh the scales in one direction or the other photography is always both.

An ancient system of Buddhist psychology called the Abbidharma claims that it is rarely, if ever possible to experience two conflicting emotions simultaneously. That is the reason for meditating on compassion, joy, loving kindness, and equanimity, because at least for the duration of the meditation on these noble immeasurables, as they are sometimes named, you are unlikely to experience the afflictions which oppose them. Of course, one can drift and shift back and forth, but not experience emotional opposites simultaneously. Likewise, when we concentrate on the photograph as a document, a transparent window through which we see "reality," we tend to ignore the picture as an image, as a constructed display of choices with a conscious or unconscious agenda behind those choices which is rooted in history. The point is understanding that the picture could have looked otherwise if different steps had been taken in the process of its production. As soon as we start looking at the photograph as an image, as an object, as a transformation of reality, we become less interested in it as a document and more interested in the aesthetic or anti-aesthetic choices that give the visual information form, and function to disturb or fascinate us. Nevertheless, photography is always a matter of fact and fiction embodied together. Photographers understand this, just as they know that an exposure cannot be made using exclusively either a shutter speed or a lens aperture - exposure always requires both.

Transition Zones is about freedom from binary oppositions. The world is neither black nor white, but rather always in the process of lightening and darkening. It is within this changing continuum that photographs strangely freeze and distort detailed parcels of time and space. The satori of the photograph is to experience trace and transformation simultaneously for a luminous instant, and to understand the middle way, the path of the razor’s edge - to understand the emptiness of both documentary and art mythologies, and confront the crisis of reification with a celebration of passage. In other words, to lighten up and open oneself to the inevitability of change.

Art is not ultimate. Nowadays, thinking of photography and art as a social construction is a given. Other times and other cultures have thought differently. At best art is an offering or bridge from the conditioned to the unconditioned. When the artist focuses on the conditioned they look outwardly. When they focus on the unconditioned they let go inwardly, or more accurately enter that space where inner and outer are no longer operative definitions. In reality the same elements pervade inner and outer phenomena and the borderline is porous. The viewer completes the picture, and the consciousness he or she brings to that endeavor makes all the difference.

The viewer is an aggregate of forms, feelings, perception, volitional impulses, and consciousness. The art object is also a cluster of events gathered in time, disguised as an inherently solid entity. These two appear within a transitory action of looking, which involves the eye organ, the object of our vision - visual forms, and eye consciousness. The same can be said for the other senses as well as the mind, the object of our mind, and mind consciousness. If we can recognize the interdependent nature of this experiencing, and zero in on its bright and luminous source, then we will cease to be caught by perception. The difficulty is to just let it be - an interplay of myriad worlds - "space, dancing space, into space," as Mike Dickman put it. Otherwise, its reification on one level or another - the solidification of desiring things to be what they are not.

Transition Zones is analogous to speech, insofar as speech is less solid than the body, and more solid than mind. Art is materialized speech, within which myth is realized. All this, however is a bit to esoteric. Consequently, when it gets down to making photographs, I try to keep things deceivingly simple and straightforward, keep my hand invisible, and make my work accessible. That’s harder than it would seem, and I’m still trying.

In 1984, when I got out of Cal Arts I was so shell shocked that I had to gently turn to myself and say reassuringly:

"Ed, it’s OK to make a picture."

Now, after teaching for several years, I tell myself:

"Hey Ed, it’s just a picture."

Thinking in terms of Transition Zones helps me keep photography in perspective; neither trivializing nor blowing art out of proportion to life’s many callings.

ED HECKERMAN

TRANSITION ZONES "Bardo is here, and all of existence is within the bardo movement". - Lama Tenzin Jamphel The Tibetan word Bardo means "intermediate state" between birth and death. Other classic definitions of bardo include the time between the moment of falling to sleep and awakening; between the beginning and end of concentration; between apparent death and the exit of consciousness from the body; the passage of the dissolution of consciousness into innate space; between death and rebirth. The only thing stable is change itself. We change, imperceptibly, abruptly, the process constant. Understanding the flow of this continuity is the only thing we can really rely on. Everything born and conditioned is impermanent and will most certainly pass. We are always between here and there, this and that. This in-betweenenss is always here and now, always fully present and complete. It has been meaningful for me to contemplate this truth, and it is something I hope to give to others. Consequently, I photograph the space of transition, the zones between here and there; the meeting place of river and land, storm drain and ocean, inside and outside, domesticated and wild. I photograph intermediate spaces. I imagine that I am inviting the observer to imagine and perceive transition as a constant. The point is to help myself and others loosen up our hard grip on the false notion of unchanging solidity. The passage between states of existence is both sacred and taboo. Social rituals exist as rites of passage to proceed along our way in life from one phase of maturity and commitment to the next. All blame aside, it is safe to say that today’s materialistic society is largely out of touch with this ritual process. We use images to replace the real thing. Images tell us what to think and condition our behavior as we change inexorably. Artists are myth makers. Within the discourse of photo-based art Transition Zones seek to short-circuit grasping desire and offer the viewer the taste of an enduring nowness. In an ideal world I imagine a balance between structure and play. Art is an activity within which we can pretend to exist in such a world. I am interested in working with the tensions between the pastoral, industrial, and post-industrial in an evolving geographic edge rich with forbidden zones. Within that dynamic, picturing the unnoticed, the everyday fabric of our shared reality, merits focus. I have ventured to discover and photograph vernacular places of passing and pausing. The monumental and spectacular are of no interest here. Formally, Transition Zones dwells between the extremes of being read as exclusively documentary or art. James Welling once characterized photography that runs between these two poles of practice as "more than mere record keeping, and less than overt self-expression". Neither the trace nor the transformation of phenomena demands exclusive attention or allegiance. In the process of recording we can not avoid manipulation. No matter how heavily we weigh the scales in one direction or the other photography is always both. An ancient system of Buddhist psychology called the Abbidharma claims that it is rarely, if ever possible to experience two conflicting emotions simultaneously. That is the reason for meditating on compassion, joy, loving kindness, and equanimity, because at least for the duration of the meditation on these noble immeasurables, as they are sometimes named, you are unlikely to experience the afflictions which oppose them. Of course, one can drift and shift back and forth, but not experience emotional opposites simultaneously. Likewise, when we concentrate on the photograph as a document, a transparent window through which we see "reality," we tend to ignore the picture as an image, as a constructed display of choices with a conscious or unconscious agenda behind those choices which is rooted in history. The point is understanding that the picture could have looked otherwise if different steps had been taken in the process of its production. As soon as we start looking at the photograph as an image, as an object, as a transformation of reality, we become less interested in it as a document and more interested in the aesthetic or anti-aesthetic choices that give the visual information form, and function to disturb or fascinate us. Nevertheless, photography is always a matter of fact and fiction embodied together. Photographers understand this, just as they know that an exposure cannot be made using exclusively either a shutter speed or a lens aperture - exposure always requires both. Transition Zones is about freedom from binary oppositions. The world is neither black nor white, but rather always in the process of lightening and darkening. It is within this changing continuum that photographs strangely freeze and distort detailed parcels of time and space. The satori of the photograph is to experience trace and transformation simultaneously for a luminous instant, and to understand the middle way, the path of the razor’s edge - to understand the emptiness of both documentary and art mythologies, and confront the crisis of reification with a celebration of passage. In other words, to lighten up and open oneself to the inevitability of change. Art is not ultimate. Nowadays, thinking of photography and art as a social construction is a given. Other times and other cultures have thought differently. At best art is an offering or bridge from the conditioned to the unconditioned. When the artist focuses on the conditioned they look outwardly. When they focus on the unconditioned they let go inwardly, or more accurately enter that space where inner and outer are no longer operative definitions. In reality the same elements pervade inner and outer phenomena and the borderline is porous. The viewer completes the picture, and the consciousness he or she brings to that endeavor makes all the difference. The viewer is an aggregate of forms, feelings, perception, volitional impulses, and consciousness. The art object is also a cluster of events gathered in time, disguised as an inherently solid entity. These two appear within a transitory action of looking, which involves the eye organ, the object of our vision - visual forms, and eye consciousness. The same can be said for the other senses as well as the mind, the object of our mind, and mind consciousness. If we can recognize the interdependent nature of this experiencing, and zero in on its bright and luminous source, then we will cease to be caught by perception. The difficulty is to just let it be - an interplay of myriad worlds - "space, dancing space, into space," as Mike Dickman put it. Otherwise, its reification on one level or another - the solidification of desiring things to be what they are not. Transition Zones is analogous to speech, insofar as speech is less solid than the body, and more solid than mind. Art is materialized speech, within which myth is realized. All this, however is a bit to esoteric. Consequently, when it gets down to making photographs, I try to keep things deceivingly simple and straightforward, keep my hand invisible, and make my work accessible. That’s harder than it would seem, and I’m still trying. In 1984, when I got out of Cal Arts I was so shell shocked that I had to gently turn to myself and say reassuringly: "Ed, it’s OK to make a picture." Now, after teaching for several years, I tell myself: "Hey Ed, it’s just a picture." Thinking in terms of Transition Zones helps me keep photography in perspective; neither trivializing nor blowing art out of proportion to life’s many callings. HOME OTHER WRITINGS