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Issue 3
identity Identity is a tricky thing, an elusive quality that can rarely be put down to a single word or phrase. In an era of growing interconnectivity, people rarely assign themselves to one group or quality. We have our belief systems, our races, our level of intelligence; there are the hobbies, the neighborhoods, the causes for which we would bleed; we cherish hair color, family albums, character flaws. Constantly people are molding themselves, denying or embracing inherent qualities—ever adding and subtracting to the great project that is the Self. This issue celebrates that creation, the way we see ourselves and the way others see us. This issue also marks a special change in the very short Ego Bruise history: it is the first issue available for print, which will be availabe on-demand at magcloud.com. In the spirit of accessability,sharing, and fairness, the magazine is priced at cost to produce, with no monetary profit gained. Thanks once again to all who submitted work to the third issue. You have made editing this magazine very enjoyable. — Melanie Richards, Editor-in-Chief Cover: Design by Melanie Richards, photos by Ryan Keightley
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table of contents
ST UF F
# interview with jayanti seiler 34 contributors 35 next issue’s call for en try DR AW ING /PH OT OG RA
PH Y/D ES IGN
by artist: 4-5, 30-31 elena gallota 6-7, 32 asrul dwi 8 adara sĂĄnchez 10 robert almeida 11 hashkan shafaati 12 raquel fukuda 13 casey feldman 13 helen burnley 14-17 jayanti seiler 19 haralds filipovs 19 andrea lopez 23 ph ilip pe de bo ng nie 24 rachel fallas 25 valentina grajales 26 burak canpolat 28 zach castedo 29 marco puccini WR ITIN G: SH OR T ST OR Y/P OE TRY
by author: 18 scott mccloskey 20-22 wes kline 27 jenny ge
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UNTITLED : ELENA GALLOTTA
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UNTITLED : ELENA GALLOTTA
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(THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE) THE LONER’S ROOM : ASRUL DWI
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I feel like "I" is a word too much in my vocabulary; I can't stop saying it or thinking it I am I think I know I want. Look at how I can't stop saying it. Okay, "there is a certain person" who thinks too much of herself; her id is so large it blocks out the sun and all the tiny people depending on it.
THIS PAGE GENERATION (ANOTHER WORD FOR SELF) : ANONYMOUS
EGO BRUISE : ADARA SĂ NCHEZ
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BLACK AS COAL : ROBERT ALMEIDA
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UNTITLED : ASHKAN SHAFA ATI
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FROM THE SERIES “MY LITTLE WONDERLAND” : RAQUEL FUKUDA
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RELIGIOUS IDENTITY : CASEY FELDMAN
CONTEMPLATION : HELEN BURNLEY
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interview with jayanti seiler
Artist’s Statement:
As soon as I saw Jayanti Seiler’s series entitled “Environs” in my inbox, I fell in love with her rich, whimsical images. I just had to ask Jayanti, an MFA Candidate in Photography at the University of Florida, about her the making of these fantastic, thoughtful photographs.
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This 3-year series of photographs signifies a hybridized adult perspective of childhood that hinges on the mystical and the surreal. I use photography as an extension of the inventiveness and curiosity that was such a powerful reality for me at that time. The thematic framework for the images evolved through a process of interviews and collaborations that allowed me to join in an expressive dialogue with children as they experimented with role development through play and fantasy. With the advent of adolescence comes tremendous pressure for role conformity verses an equally powerful need to establish a unique identity. Thus, my work with children between the ages of 4-15 pivots upon my interest in representing the child’s sustainable imaginative presence despite the impressionable stages of adolescence. The luminous large-scale color photographs play up the façade of a commoditized childhood; an archetype of mass media that threatens to permeate it. My intensions were to utilize the vehicle of photography to celebrate subtle details and intricate gestures by subverting strategies used in media culture that are capable of extinguishing valuable characteristics of youth.
What relevance does this series have to your life? Any direct inspiration from memories or daydreams? I was extremely imaginative and inventive as a child which played a huge part in my daily life. I am interested in a time when fantasy seemed so real and I am inspired by my own memories of that. Imagining myself as numerous characters in a natural environment was endlessly entertaining. I was also very influenced by movies, such as, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal and Legend. What is it like to work with kids? Do they take direction well? Are the children you photograph those that you know, or do you have to seek out models? Children are incredibly fascinating natural and candid performers. I am not only interested in how easily they forget they are in front of the camera, but I also how uninhibited and unselfconscious they are unlike adults. That’s a characteristic that I miss. They also have an innate sense about interpreting direction. When I set up a shot it’s only a matter of time before they are absorbed in what’s around them. I only need to direct them slightly, they seem to know pretty quickly how to be natural even though they are in front of the camera. I photograph a combination of children that I know, but I mostly work with people that I have just met. I send flyers out to schools and people I know in the community spread the word about my project. I have a had great luck, many of the families and their children love participating in photographs that celebrate imagination. Interview continued on pg. 16
Images displayed: Opposite page: “Cactus”
This page, from top: “Blue Room” “Snare” “Stigmata”
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interview with jayanti seiler
> Continued from pg. 15 Please describe, from ideation to post-processing, your image-making process. My image making process is very intuitive in the beginning. I might see an image in daily life that inspires me, something subtle like a gesture or small exchange between people. I also get ideas for a location when I see natural scenes that possesses some sort of energy, drama or presence. But more often I like to get ideas from people’s familiar surroundings at their homes where they are most comfortable. When I meet with a family I show them my photographs and explain what interests me about imagination. I also talk to the children about their ideas, what games they play outdoors and what dreams they have. We collaborate on ideas and then I set up lights and my medium or large format camera. I give the children simple directions on where to go within a scene or what they might try. Then I have them interact with some element in the location and when their gestures appeal to me I ask them to hold still or recreate them. I usually shoot for several hours which allows the models to relax into the role and often something more revealing immerges in their body language. The shadow in the werewolf image—is this something you planned ahead of time, or was it a spur-of-the-moment idea? A large part of my process comes after the images are made with the camera. For instance, I often composite several negatives in the computer to give the images an element of the fantastical. The shadow in the “Werewolves” image came to me later when I was looking at images together. I decided to add the shadow digitally from another image in the shoot to reveal an aspect of the children’s imaginative fantasy world.
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How do you find the settings that you use in your photography? Does the land inspire the image, or do you look for an area that fits the concept? The settings are typically in or around the homes of the models or I find particularly interesting locations that I will revisit and use several times. It’s usually a place where nature stands in as a metaphor for inner turmoil experienced in adolescence or something that symbolizes what I like to think thresholds into another world would look like. I want the objects and places in the images to relate to the ways imagination exists through the everyday for a child. ◊
Many thanks to Jayanti Seiler for answering my questions. If you enjoyed Jayanti’s work, you may find more at her website, jayantiseilerphotography.com
Images displayed: Opposite page: “Jialu” “My Sister”
This page, from top: “Werewolves” “Myakka” “Dragonfly”
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“cutaneous text” scott mcCloskey Women should come with instructions printed on their bodies, a preamble to the text which follows. Certain your secret text – your “Fragile,” or “This end up” is written in the fine print imprinted on your skin, the body’s natural parchment, I explore its terrain. The bumps and ridges, smooth pastures, and firm hillocks speak volumes to me as bird song, lovely but incomprehensible. I study your script, committing to memory the symphony of markings during our various passion plays. Even amid the intermission of acts – the rest of our lives – I steal glances while watching movies or eating dinner or reading (how your eyes are intent on the page and your breathing is slow and unlabored, a perfect stillness, the calm of an autumn lake) or sleeping (how the muted pink of the Venetians
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color the light upon your skin and your beauty as sunlight flashes like a glare on the serene lake). In this breathing time of sleep I try to decipher your cutaneous text as a newly blind man acquainting himself with Braille or as a cartographer, mapping out meaning along your epidermis, this organ of misinterpretations, joints and bends inflamed due to weather or malaise until finally, at last, I am on the crest of understanding. Alas, a fleeting hope because in one month’s time, your Keratinized script sloughs off, rejuvenates, begins anew and rewrites itself, another draft on its way to the illusory final. Taking a cue from MacLeish, I accept my ignorance: Women should not mean But be. I realize: Women are texts and most men are illiterate.
LATVIAN IDENTITY : HARALDS FILIPOVS
UNTITLED : ANDREA LOPEZ
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untitled fiction wes kline Various micro fictions, around and on the idea of an ontology of Character, performing an identity whose voice it is, as Maurice Blanchot wrote, “to keep watch over absent meaning.�
1. Neighbors 1. The skulls of men are several microns thicker than those of women, as are their bones. 2. They are at essence inverted birds, dense, flightless and clumsy. 3. We could wink at the stupidity and brutality of the object. 4. Into the surge of the sea on the rocks, the lizards rush headlong. 5. The clothes are gone at this time of night; there is no material for us to touch. We hope to kill our neighbor, marry his son, eat his cattle, drink his blood, and vomit in the bed of his parents. But we are unable to fix any point, only continuous points. 6. Our neighbor's tomato grows on its vine. It has no understanding of any one thing surrounding it, yet it moves into space freely. Our neighbor plucks the fruit, moistens his lips and empties his bowels. To his mind, his force is not abstract, or deferential, but open and secure. Our neighborpictures his daughter, and knows, from this picture, that he possesses her. 8. Our neighbor opens his cupboard, finding it much as he expected it.
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2. Garbage Men Two guys, garbage men, grew tired of the language that they had been taught, and invented a new language. This in itself is unremarkable, and happens frequently. But this language, modeled on the trash compactor, was a compact language, fitting neatly into the spaces of words and letters in the old language. It was a model of efficiency, although it had to be spoken and written along with the old language, being dependent on the spacings. That was it's only flaw, really, if you believe doubling is a flaw. They couldn't think of a catchy name, and it never caught on.
3. The Baby He could not imagine the baby peeing in the mouth. That’s not something I should be thinking, he exclaimed but with a small sound. This exclamation did not adjust the tautness. There was no imagined play at rest here, this was for a real something. It is difficult to see the baby. As a metaphor, he remarked to her, but she was too angry to drop the lip into a new shape.
4. A Stretch There she sat beside the cabinet, the tooth angling abruptly. An exclamation or yell built up inside her, but it was unreasonable. However, later there were comments such as: I will not miss this tooth. Her hand touched the humid edge of the furniture while she commented. I am a young woman still, so there is plenty of time for more. The husband’s dog growled attempting to debone. The dog’s teeth were less yellow than a month ago, as new food had been bought. This had been his surprise plan, to change the food. It was unnerving to come home and find a food that was not the normal food; it was now a food that cleaned gums. The cabinet had also been his, some relative unloading old pieces on us, she had said, as a sort of aside. You’ll come to like it here, he assured her, knowing that was not the case. But what love is toothless or silent?
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untitled fiction, contd wes kline 5. Breadth This part has no one object to its own. This other has a cat, warm and full of imagined feeling. We say ‘imagined’ for the sake of our futures. So how small could this part make itself, he thought. There was an unconscious person laying there who could tell some things about the way it was made, although they were also barely there. There was, in fact, a fake part to him, more than one even. This part was not broken, but was gilt. Well, in his head it was. The other woman walked onto the scene and took stock. There were so many parts that she was unable to count them all, although some were sure to prove unreal. The varied pieces came together in an instant. There she heard some sound like pouncing. Oh! How that could be! Which part was it moving with its paw?
6. The Pit What was that she was dragging? The pit was too close for anything good. Her black cap was fringed with sweat; the light did not catch it. We followed on her footsteps. On the counter some errant cardboard rested ahead of its use. Our hands felt groupings of one or the other, as the room was blackened to honor the defeat. We congratulated ourselves on our economy, so unsure up until this moment.
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SELF PORTRAIT : PHILIPPE DEBONGNIE 23
EMOTIONAL WEAPONRY : RACHEL FALLAS
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L’HISTOIREDUPRINTEMPS : VALENTINA GRAJALES
“I created this piece while I was in Paris. I started the image on my first day at the studio, which was within my first week in Paris. It was winter and imagery is actually what I could see outside of the studio in an old french courtyard. During the whole semester I worked on different stages of the plate in correlation with my experience as well as the transition of climate and life in the city. The image starts with the beginning of spring and it finishes with the end of spring and the start of summer.” — VALENTINA GRAJALES
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unthemed work: burak canpolat CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: APPLE AND EVE LONGING IN THE END OF THE WAY THE CONTRABASS GOODBYE
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“the teapot and the book� jenny ge Listlessly, I poured the tea Waiting for someone to place a cup underneath And catch me It didn't have to be a bucket or anything I would've settled for a spoon As long as there was enough room For me to explain what was in the bitter tea I caught your eye Or rather, you caught mine And I held on For a moment, you understood (Or so I like to believe) Because you unfolded Opening up your blank pages to save me from being burned By my own hot tea Vainly trying to hold it But instead, you soaked it up, though it tattered your edges And guilt salted my tea for hurting you But you told me it would dry And reassured, I continued to pour out my misery To a passerby The scene must've looked disheartening The teapot on her side The book, drowning in the teapot's mind But what I saw was Sacrifice And two friends sharing their stories Over a sweetened cup of tea
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MOVING BY THE EARTH BEING DISPLACED UNDER ONE’S FEET : ZACH CASTEDO
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unthemed work: marco puccini CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: INVERSO NEVE ALTA QUADRO TRAMA DI PESCE
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UNTITLED : ELENA GALLOTTA
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UNTITLED : ELENA GALLOTTA
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All I am holding is a pen or a paintbrush, but I feel like I'm supposed to re-create the Great Wall of China, only bigger and better and with, ya know, more pizazz? I feel like Saul, I came in chosen and somewhere along the line my faith was shaken and I built an altar the size of a computer screen and I sat, reflecting myself away from my worries and potentials until the whole world, whose first name is Samuel, told me I'd missed my chance. THIS PAGE EVERYONE ELSE IS A DAVID ANONYMOUS
OPPOSITE PAGE TO BECOME : ASRUL DWI
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the contributors BELGIUM
Philippe Debongnie http://philippedebongnie.be
BRAZIL
Raquel Fukuda www.rincondelpulse.blogspot.com
CANADA Jenny Ge
IRELAND
Elena Gallotta www.elenagallotta.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercoledinero
LATVIA
Haralds Filipovs http://haraldsfil.wordpress.com
SPAIN
Adara S谩nchez Anguiano http://www.flickr.com/imop
ENGLAND
Helen Burnley www.creativechaosart.com
TURKEY
Burak Canpolat http://www.dec85.com
GUATEMALA
Andrea L贸pez http://www.wireddotcom.com
UNITED STATES Robert Almeida
INDONESIA
Asrul Dwi http://thelonerimages.deviantart.com
ITALY
Marco Puccini http://marcopuccini.blogspot.com
IRAN
Ashkan Shafaati http://www.behance.net/ashkan
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Zach Castedo http://apollozc.deviantart.com Rachel Fallas Casey Feldman http://flickr.com/photos/caseyfeldman Wes Kline http://www.weskline.net Scott McCloskey http://anticcomposition.blogspot.com Jayanti Seiler www.jayantiseilerphotography.com
next issue: call for entries next theme: ridiculous. Just the most ridiculous thing you can think of. My friends have generated a list of possible ideas:
-an animal that rhymes with squicken -butts! -a family of shnoodles -Swiss cheese architecture -animals dressed as humans -protecting one’s Cadbury eggs, like a mother hen
visual art requirements
literary requirements
300 DPI images only!
Accepted art forms: short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, anything that happens to have words
Accepted art forms: EVERYTHING. Drawing, painting, photography, design, sculpture, etc. -up to 10 images per entrant -horizontal images: 6+ inches across -vertical images: 3+ inches across -include name, country, and URL
-word limit: 2,000 words -include name, country, and URL mail to: egobruisemag@gmail.com
mail to: egobruisemag@gmail.com
due date: march 31, 2010 Note: Submitting your work to Ego Bruise grants the magazine the right to publish your work (credited to you, of course!) in an electronic/PDF format, as well as a print version available for purchase. Unfortunately, contributors will not be compensated as the electronic version will be free of charge (print is only if you’d like a physical copy). I will not use your work in any other publications except Issue 3 of Ego Bruise.
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