Off the map and out of touch..

Resident Alien. Part 4

.. So I made 4x6 inch prints of the Resident Alien series and pinned them up on the wall of my apartment with the idea of editing and sequencing them into a book. There was an opportunity for me to make a book at that time too, with POGO, out of Berlin in 2013, but sadly it didn't happen. Time had passed and I could not get myself or the work organized enough to do it. Editor Claudio Pheifer was understanding and kept the offer open, but not long after that I fell off the map and out of touch and now it's suddenly 10 years later. I missed several interesting opportunities at that time because my digital skill set was extremely limited and my attention was divided between EMT training, a job at UPS and the uncertainty around my immigration status. I continued to think about presenting the photos like a sort of movie trailer or channel surfing through my own American experience, or a psychogeographical survey (more about this later). I also had this idea about filling every inch of the book with photos printed on super high gloss paper so its overall impact would be something akin to glistening cultural pornography. Ambitious stuff, I know..

The photos were on my wall for about a year and in that time they moved around in an ever changing sequence I could never settle on as their numbers grew. There was an open invitation to anyone who visited to take a look at it and put a few pairs together as a spread or a run of images over a few pages. And now looking back, in all that time, I did not end up with any solid sequence at all and I kept no record of its progress. I still don’t have a sequence today because I have yet to start work on it. I am essentially back at stage one. What I am familiar with though is the strength of the work itself, seeing it together like this on the wall again, in 2023. I know what I’ve got and I know the feeling I get from it experienced as a whole, its clout, if you like..

A hinged cranium and a sprung jaw..

Resident Alien. Part 3

 

There were a couple of blips in my criminal history that my lawyers were concerned about. One included a charge for trafficking in human body parts. A charge which was later dropped, but I was told could still register on a background check and would need careful explanation if it came up in my immigration interview. This occurred while I was living in Norway in 2001 when someone in the UK was interested in acquiring a print from my tarot card series (Death) and proposed a trade for a human skull in return. This was an offer I could not refuse and the exchange was made and I was detained by the authorities when I went to pick it up. It was indeed a real human skull, but with a hinged cranium and a sprung jaw it was soon determined to be a teaching aid so the charges were dropped and I was allowed to keep it. When I returned to the UK a couple of years later I wrapped the skull in a jumper and put it in my hand luggage and took it with me on the flight back without incident or delay. The skull is still in the UK today, packed in a box and stored in a barn, amid sawdust, cobwebs and gloom, and has since been weathered by 15 years of seasons in the mist of an Iron Age hill fort. It waits now, silently in the same old darkness for my return journey back to the dust.

With tomorrow set as the end date..

Resident Alien. Part 2.

At the time of making this series (between 2008-2012), my life was under the scrutiny of the US department of homeland security. I was applying for residency to establish a life in the US together with my American wife. Our initial procrastination in getting the green card ball rolling had meant my tourist visa had expired and I had been living without any legal documentation for almost 2 years. It was under these circumstances that we lived, worked and traveled and they were the psychological conditions in which all the photographs, now called, Resident Alien, were made. It was an unsettling time for us newlyweds, we couldn’t really put down any roots, everything was in doubt and we had to be strong and we had to have hope, but I felt somehow like I was living on borrowed time and the game would be up for me any day now. 

So with tomorrow set as the end date, we quickly learned to make the most of today and we began to explore the America that I had recently landed right in the center of, in Kansas, and say yes to everything in the meantime. Many of these early road trips are documented here in this blog and it was the reason why I first set it up, as a travel journal. It was a time of both high anxiety and great adventure and it was full of the first time for things. It was my first time in the USA. It was my first time using a digital camera. It was my first attempt to shoot in colour with any real commitment and they would later be the first images that I uploaded to the internet. It’s also to be noted that all of these first times had their own tree of related first times attached to them. It was an intense initiation into my new “as seen on TV” life in America and I was very much the outsider looking in.