A few notes on the Azimuth: Degrees of Perception project initiated with Bill Abranowicz long on thirty years ago. Bill and I had just met at Parsons School of Design where Ben Fernandez set me up to work the photo cage & lab, and also to TA for Dennis Simonetti, George Tice, and Bill. Azimuth took off, and — to describe it in brief — was sourced in the geophysical concept of infinite half-space — where the world may be mathematically modeled by bisecting it with an infinite plane (usually this representing the surface of the earth), thus splitting it into two half-spaces. Azimuth was predicated on the idea that Bill and I go out photographing, when one saw something that they wanted to photograph, the other would have the opposite half-space, as indicated by the film plane, within which to compose an image. We worked in 4×5-inch large format which made the process deliberative, and concentrated. Working often at night in urban and rural areas across NYC, New Jersey, and Cape Cod, some exposures pushed an hour! The project did have one exhibition in Washington, DC, in the format of 4×5 contact prints on Kodak Azo paper mounted side-by-side. It wasn’t the optimal solution, but our desire to print the work at 20×24-inches on Oriental Seagull paper was interrupted by the robbery-at-gunpoint of the lab on 23rd Street one night when we were just beginning to print things. I left for France shortly thereafter, done with NYC.
It had the sound, the cadence, of something that Hesse would have Zarathustra speak about. I think the concept began in that time of my existence; when I was first able to read, though perhaps not to understand Steppenwulf. And, contemplating, with friends — in thought and being — the essence of the Shadow of a Hand falling on the Back of the Skull. Imagine that feeling, that presence of vitality: if you can, you will see God. We seek to live in the discovery of what is behind us. Behind and within us. That we come from nothing and all is open, empty before us.
Okay?
That the essence of being is a solitary monologue. Combining and procreating within this monologue is the essence. Interiors. Exteriors. AZImUTH Reigns.
So. The time of night is riding into the dawn
and the time is dying,
And the time is dying
And the time returns to the night
That all the music in the world might carry me away from
sleep. How inconsiderate. And foolish and vain. What folly.
So. I render unto Caesar what is Caesars, And I give to
the night what is of the night.
And, so, maybe I will type into the entire night. Like there is no night
So. You see. that the night is not for. sleeping but for nights and nights.
night
so this is night for what is
And more Ideas on AZImUTH
This Saturday the eighth of December.
How it all relates. Like a fashion of empathy. Having a hand in the formation of ego. And id. strike the happenings. And the cultural exchange. Like the future of the vision. There is the talk of what might happen and the thoughts. That which happens. That becomes the reality. And so as the days enclose about. The nights spread thick in the winter. And I finally feel the winter. And its cold. And its darkness.
Twenty five pairs into what is called the AZImUTH Project. And how the words are so exchanged. Easing into the hot closed window sun Thinking about weaknesses in the body. Blood and Bones. Muscle and Flesh.
Chant down Babylon.
Children on the swing outside in the park. They swing in the stars in the moon and in dreams of peace. Slow and slow they make the earth come to them. The sun quiets. Frozen gravity. Feeds the stands of spine.
AZImUTH, two infinite half-spaces, juxtaposed.
Jersey City, New Jersey, 08 December 1985
