Immaterial Voices

About Immaterial Voices

Immaterial Voices is the podcast of Immaterial Books, an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice. Hosted by photographer, writer, and sociologist Brian O'Neill, the show consists of interviews with artists, scholars, and practitioners about contemporary image making, theory, and history.

Publisher

Brian O'Neill for Immaterial Books

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

7 Oct 2024

Latest episode

14 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

14 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   14 Sept 2026

   Learning It by Doing It: A Conversation with Bryan Formhals

   How does our “eye” develop, or even change through time? Along what dimensions do changes, both proximate and seemingly distant, inform our vision of the world? In this conversation with photographer, walker, and artist Bryan Formhals, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill discusses these and many other questions. Growing up in the Midwest, Bryan eventually found himself in major metropolitan areas and art hubs: Los Angeles and New York City. Eventually ditching the car, Bryan began to find his voice amidst the intersections of walking arts, photography and photobooks. An early pioneer of the photography podcast with the LPV show, and mobilizing digital platforms like Flickr, Bryan’s career has spanned multiple different locales, but also moments in the recent history of photography and photobooks. The discussion focuses on the practice of photography and photobooks, wherein Bryan draws upon insights from his New York City Public Realm project, which spans more than a decade of work. Throughout, the conversation offers insights into strategies and maneuvers surrounding book-making and the pursuit of one’s vocation. Notes: LPV show - https://photography.bryanformhals.com/lpv-show/ (https://photography.bryanformhals.com/lpv-show/) Photographers sketchbooks - https://slate.com/culture/2015/02/the-book-photographers-sketchbooks-shows-the-creative-process-of-photographers-from-around-the-world.html (https://slate.com/culture/2015/02/the-book-photographers-sketchbooks-shows-the-creative-process-of-photographers-from-around-the-world.html) Peter Van Agtmael - https://www.petervanagtmael.net (https://www.petervanagtmael.net) Richard Long - https://www.richardlong.org (https://www.richardlong.org) Akasegawa Genpei and Thomasson - https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/01/18/the-inexplicably-fascinating-secret-world-of-thomassons/ (https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/01/18/the-inexplicably-fascinating-secret-world-of-thomassons/) Alex Wolfe, “Pedestrian” - https://atwolfe.com (https://atwolfe.com) Joshua Dudley Greer – The Makeshift City - https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/makeshift-city (https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/makeshift-city)

2. 

   17 Aug 2026

   Whose Stories are Ours to Tell? A Conversation with Brooke C. White

   What stories are, and are not, ours to tell? And, how do archives work through, and speak across, multiple generations, informing memories and identities? In this conversation with artist and photographer Brooke C. White, we tackle these and many other questions. With work exhibited internationally, White utilizes an approach to image-making that incorporates analog, digital, and historical photographic strategies. For more than twenty years, she has made work about the landscape, nature, and human relationships to place. In this conversation, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill discusses White’s most recent book, published with Immaterial Books, titled What She Saw. The project interweaves slides, photographs, drawings, journal entries, and travel logs inherited from the women in White’s family, which together, coalesce into a multi-generational familial collaboration. Throughout the book, the complexities of queerness, womanhood, and motherhood are made visible through small acts of resistance in the form of travel and photography. Part historical, part speculative, What She Saw reclaims the archive as a site of feminist inquiry, where familial ephemera is not merely received but actively re-imagined solidifying transient histories into newly re-imagined ones. Notes: Brooke C. White - https://www.brookecwhite.net/books (https://www.brookecwhite.net/books) What She Saw - https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/what-she-saw-brooke-white (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/what-she-saw-brooke-white) Allison Grant - https://www.allisongrant.com/within-the-bittersweet (https://www.allisongrant.com/within-the-bittersweet) Immaterial Books - https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Wyoming Toad - https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail)

3. 

   15 Dec 2025

   What is a Photobook?: A Conversation with Hans Hickerson

   What exactly is a photobook? This episode is with longtime artist, bookmaker, photographer, writer, translator, and editor Hans Hickerson. For the past five years or so, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill has been working as a critic, or at least, writing about photobooks, as Contributing Editor at The Photobook Journal. Hans is the Managing Editor of that publication and agreed to come on the show to share his experience. In this conversation, Hans and Brian delineate the characteristics of the photobook, and in so doing, discuss numerous famous and lesser-known examples. They discuss how they evaluate books and some that have surprised them. They especially home in on questions that concern image-text photobooks and connections to literature, such as how photobooks represent places, historical epochs, and cultures. For example, how can text be used to complement, rather than dominate imagery? In approaching these topics, Hans also explains how he got into photobooks decades ago, what it meant then versus today, and how the field has changed. He also relates some fascinating stories and insights from his encounters with the likes of Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Jim Goldberg, and more. During the conversation, they also talk about the challenges of distribution, art book fairs, and gallery curation. Notes: Fishpond Press - https://hanshickerson.com/books (https://hanshickerson.com/books) Kevin Cooley’s Wizard of Awe - https://www.eriskayconnection.com/the-wizard-of-awe/ (https://www.eriskayconnection.com/the-wizard-of-awe/) John Volynchook’s Faultlines - https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/faultlines (https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/faultlines) Jordan Baumgarten’s Family Tree Removal - https://smog-press.xyz/collections/frontpage/products/family-tree-removal (https://smog-press.xyz/collections/frontpage/products/family-tree-removal) Kult Books - https://kultbooks.com (https://kultbooks.com) Sleeper Studio - https://sleeper.studio/INFO (https://sleeper.studio/INFO) Michel Tournier - https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803244306/the-mirror-of-ideas/ (https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803244306/the-mirror-of-ideas/) The Yearbook Committee - https://www.theyearbookcommittee.com (https://www.theyearbookcommittee.com) Jordan Gale’s Long Distance Drunk - https://photobookjournal.com/2025/10/03/jordan-gale-long-distance-drunk/ (https://photobookjournal.com/2025/10/03/jordan-gale-long-distance-drunk/) Gary Alan Fine’s Talking Art - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo28263673.html (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo28263673.html) Brian O’Neill - https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books - https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Wyoming Toad - https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail)

4. 

   19 Nov 2025

   Bookmaking and the Art of Observation: A Conversation with Ryan Searl

   In this conversation, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill, sits down with photographer and artist Ryan Searl. Based in Illinois, Searl explores the places that seem off the beaten path, but that are not often too far from home. Across the seemingly endless horizon of industrial agriculture in the American Midwest, Searl locates the coordinates of poetic meaning, but also questions them, attentive to its many appropriations. In Searl’s multivalent landscape, we encounter, through his persistent approach, a place that evolves and to which he responds, as new issues, risks, and quiet joys unfold. O’Neill and Searl talk about inspirations in the history of art, as well as from the Farm Security Administration photographers, independent filmmaking, ambient music, and more. Searl explains how he develops his projects and the tensions of when and how to include portraits, as well as how to engage and deepen one’s commitment to diverse communities over time. As they discuss, photobooks and zines, in particular, can offer a potential window into art and art worlds for those without formal art training and multiple publics, free from social pressures associated with traditional galleries. Searl has an extensive bookmaking practice, working with risograph and other printing techniques. The latest project from Searl published by Immaterial Books is Primary Wires. Notes: Blurred Horizons Exhibit - https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025 (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025) Ryan Searl - @ryan_ramsey Primary Wires by Ryan Searl - https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/primary-wires (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/primary-wires) South of Chicago by Tim Carpenter and Nathan Pearce - https://www.micamera.com/en/prodotto/south-of-chicago-tim-carpenter-nathan-pearce/ (https://www.micamera.com/en/prodotto/south-of-chicago-tim-carpenter-nathan-pearce/) Democratic Vistas by Jason Lee and Tim Carpenter - https://smog-press.xyz/products/democratic-vistas (https://smog-press.xyz/products/democratic-vistas) The Triggering Town - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69402/the-triggering-town (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69402/the-triggering-town) Russell Lee archive - https://lib.arizona.edu/special-collections/collections/russell-lee-photograph-collection (https://lib.arizona.edu/special-collections/collections/russell-lee-photograph-collection) Analog Gallery - https://analogwines.square.site (https://analogwines.square.site) Brian O’Neill - https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books - https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Wyoming Toad - https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail)

5. 

   13 Nov 2025

   Photography En Plein Air: A Conversation with Ciel Baptiste

   In this conversation, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill, sits down with photographer and artist Ciel Baptiste. Based in Illinois, Ciel has been exploring and experimenting with film photography, especially black and white, as a means to connect with the landscape and region. In this conversation, O’Neill and Baptiste talk about inspirations in the history of art, as well as from the Farm Security Administration photographers, press photography (e.g., Jack Bradley), the history of documentary photography in Illinois, inspirations in cinema, garage sales, Instagram, and more. Throughout, Baptiste discusses the importance of experimentation and exploration in photography in the creation of projects. The most recent project of Baptiste’s work that has been published by Immaterial Books is En Plein Air. While many photographers busy themselves in the studio, Baptiste is drawn to the airy landscapes of central Illinois. Charmed by waterlogged fields, termite-ridden barns, and the symmetry of phone lines and cornfields, Baptiste’s workis a collection of rural vistas and landmarks, moments frozen in time. For them, these images allude to distant memories of a once-bustling hub of agriculture, left to decay as the country aged. And yet, it remains a place of new questions and possibilities. Notes: Blurred Horizons Exhibit - https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025 (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025) Jack Bradley photography archive - https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/bra_jack/id/1714/ (https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/bra_jack/id/1714/) Ciel Baptiste - https://www.cielbaptiste.com (https://www.cielbaptiste.com) Ciel Baptiste - @crrrrl En Plein Air - https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/en-plein-air (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/en-plein-air) Champaign Urbana Small Press Fest - https://illinoislibraries.wixsite.com/smallpressfestcu (https://illinoislibraries.wixsite.com/smallpressfestcu) Analog Gallery - https://analogwines.square.site (https://analogwines.square.site) Brian O’Neill - https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books - https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Wyoming Toad - https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail)

6. 

   14 May 2025

   Photography and Traversing Borders: A Conversation with Jeff Smudde

   How can we work at the boundaries of the landscape as well as our perceptions? How can we work across multi-media within the context of still image-based projects? How do our projects mobilize a certain poetics? In this conversation, Brian O'Neill and Jeff Smudde discuss paths through higher education like MFA programs, as well as the importance of the mentors one can meet along the way. They also cover questions about work-life balance and how to navigate the seemingly ever-present desire to be pushing one’s work forward. Jeff discusses his background in design and music and how he got into being a photographer, and the connections and disconnections between fine art photography and journalism worlds regarding concerns about what documentary photography is and can be, more broadly. The conversation also covers the challenges and skillsets involved in making portraits and photographing in a variety of scenarios, as well as how to construct larger bodies of work and the levels of planning/degrees of premeditation that can be involved. Throughout, the conversation explores the use of multiple methods of working within the same project, like sound recording and text alongside still images, all with an underlying theme of zine and bookmaking. Printed Matter LA – May 15-18, 2025 Jason Reblando - https://www.jasonreblando.com/CV (https://www.jasonreblando.com/CV) Jin Lee - https://jinleephotography.net (https://jinleephotography.net) Juha Suonpää, The Forest is on the Move - https://www.morainebooks.com/pages/books/2258/juha-suonpaa/metsa-liikkuu-the-forest-is-on-the-move-skogen-ror-sig-der-wald-bewegt-sich-signed (https://www.morainebooks.com/pages/books/2258/juha-suonpaa/metsa-liikkuu-the-forest-is-on-the-move-skogen-ror-sig-der-wald-bewegt-sich-signed) Vanessa Winship, Snow - https://deadbeatclubpress.com/products/vanessa-winship-snow?srsltid=AfmBOopsHBmxvcq-pLILCRoRDsReaAqmcUnWl29c3SdpExPJc-A0OFen (https://deadbeatclubpress.com/products/vanessa-winship-snow?srsltid=AfmBOopsHBmxvcq-pLILCRoRDsReaAqmcUnWl29c3SdpExPJc-A0OFen) Christian Patterson, Bottom of the Lake - http://www.christianpatterson.com/bottom-of-the-lake-book/ (http://www.christianpatterson.com/bottom-of-the-lake-book/) Kristine Potter, Dark Waters - https://www.kristinepotter.com/dark-waters (https://www.kristinepotter.com/dark-waters) Jordan Weitzman, Magic Hour Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/magic-hour/id1122201914 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/magic-hour/id1122201914) Tycho - https://tycho.bandcamp.com (https://tycho.bandcamp.com) Jeff Smudde - https://www.jeffsmudde.com/perennial (https://www.jeffsmudde.com/perennial) Ready for Mistakes, Jeff Smudde’s Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-for-mistakes/id1477842413 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-for-mistakes/id1477842413) Brian O’Neill - https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books - https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Explicit rating: low-level profanity

7. 

   19 Apr 2025

   Species of Mood: Urban Atmospheres, Mobilities, and Art with Brian O'Neill

   How, and by what means, can we capture urban atmospheres and mobility? What can we learn about cities, ourselves, and our societies through these dimensions? Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill becomes the subject of this conversation for the podcast, guest hosted by Tim Hale. They discuss Brian’s book-making work from the past few years and its connections to his training in the social sciences. Brian discusses his first book project, Beach Boulevard (Immaterial Books – 2021) and his forthcoming one - A Desert Transect, drawing connections between the two. While not premeditated as such, the books have become a kind of sequence unto themselves. In both instances, Brian unpacks how different types of mobility, such as walking and train riding, afford distinctive viewpoints on urbanism in the American West. Where Beach Boulevard took on a region nearly over-photographed - Southern California (and more specifically Huntington Beach), in A Desert Transect, Brian discusses how he approached Phoenix, Arizona – a place that is comparatively undertreated by photographers and storytellers. In so doing, he discusses his forays from photography into image-text work, and even field recording and video. Brian also talks about his side projects, such as a self-published book on the Paris metro system, which further illustrates his commitment to visual and textual modes of investigation and experimentation. Brian and Tim also discuss the issue of whether to work in sequences or series, and what kinds of projects such systems of presentation serve. Throughout the conversation, Brian emphasizes the curiosity necessary to work through the world, and one’s own ideas, often invoking his approach through various literary and social scientific texts and concepts. For example, the idea of a transect – which in biology refers to the systematic study of a landscape along a line to assess species richness – was used as an heuristic inspiration for Brian’s exploratory project on the Phoenix Light Rail, which emerged as much out of personal interest in urbanism amidst climate crisis as from the simple everyday necessity of commuting in the United States’ 4th largest metropolis. Links: A Desert Transect: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/a-desert-transect (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/a-desert-transect) Tim Hale: https://www.timhale.net (https://www.timhale.net) Beach Boulevard: https://photobookjournal.com/2022/04/15/brian-oneill-beach-boulevard/ (https://photobookjournal.com/2022/04/15/brian-oneill-beach-boulevard/) Brian O’Neill’s Paris book: https://www.blurb.com/user/brianfoneill (https://www.blurb.com/user/brianfoneill) Brian O’Neill on Anima Loci: https://animaloci.org/walking-the-toxic-triangle/ (https://animaloci.org/walking-the-toxic-triangle/) Alex Wilk, designer: https://alexwilk.com (https://alexwilk.com) Arturo Soto: https://www.arturo-soto.com/#1 (https://www.arturo-soto.com/#1) Natura Urbana: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262551335/natura-urbana/ (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262551335/natura-urbana/) Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com)

8. 

   20 Jan 2025

   The Rail Way: A Conversation with William Cope

   How do we learn how to see? How is that images take us over time and space? What modes of practice, and of travel, introduce new ways of seeing? In November of 2024, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill had the opportunity to sit down and have a coffee in Illinois with photographer, writer, and scholar Bill Cope. Initially, the plan was to cover just Bill’s four titles with Immaterial Books, all collected in the series, The Rail Way. However, as tends to happen when curious minds get together, the conversation took numerous turns into other territory. Bill recounts some of his early photographic history and memories of when he got his first cameras, heading off to India as a young man with two medium format bodies and film in tow (which has now led to the books in The Rail Way series of books), and how he continues to be fascinated with the developments in camera technology, from digital to artificial intelligence. However, always more interested in the act of photography and what seeing does to us and our minds, Bill and Brian discuss the visual ethnography of figures like Claude Levi-Strauss, and the lesser-known work on train systems of Colin T. Gifford. For Bill, Gifford’s images in particular were revelatory, because they were capturing the emotional qualities of train travel, which opened up a new way of seeing for him. We also get into the role of text in informing images in books and galleries. Across all these topics, an engaging conversation emerges that emphasizes the enduring quality of images, their relation to memory, and photography as a profoundly social practice. Links: Bill Cope: https://newlearningonline.com/kalantzis-and-cope (https://newlearningonline.com/kalantzis-and-cope) The Rail Way series at Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/the-rail-way (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/the-rail-way) The Rail Way Facebook (Meta) Page: https://www.facebook.com/@WWCopeRailPhotos/ (https://www.facebook.com/@WWCopeRailPhotos/) Colin T. Gifford’s Each a Glimpse: https://rivetingbooks.com/products/each-a-glimpse-gifford-colin-t?srsltid=AfmBOoqqEjDvr9-dL2DmwxkfBfMldEKDBqGY3DdYVpfItC6KuDrxGMXa (https://rivetingbooks.com/products/each-a-glimpse-gifford-colin-t?srsltid=AfmBOoqqEjDvr9-dL2DmwxkfBfMldEKDBqGY3DdYVpfItC6KuDrxGMXa) Claude Levi-Strauss: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Levi-Strauss (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Levi-Strauss) Saudades Do Brasil, by Claude Levi-Strauss: https://www.abebooks.com/9780295974729/Saudades-Brasil-Photographic-Memoir-Levi-Strauss-0295974729/plp (https://www.abebooks.com/9780295974729/Saudades-Brasil-Photographic-Memoir-Levi-Strauss-0295974729/plp) Frank Cancian – Visual Ethnographer: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2021.2008815 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2021.2008815) Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com) Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Brian O’Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net)

9. 

   18 Dec 2024

   Immaterial Books and Mid-Continent Modern: A Conversation with Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

   Immaterial Books curator Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, a PhD in Politics and image maker, discusses the role of photobooks in contemporary art, exploring the intersection of digital and print, and the power of community-driven creation.

10. 

    13 Nov 2024

    The Visual Politics of Elections: A Conversation with Matt Schneider and Gizem Melek

    The Visual Politics of Elections: A Conversation with Matt Schneider and Gizem Melek Are visuals biased? Is the media biased? Is it possible to be politically neutral? What is the role of “fairness?” How do visuals make themselves felt in elections and who is giving them their meaning? In this episode, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill sits down with two scholars to understand the visual politics of elections. First, Matthew Schneider of the University of North Carlina at Wilmington discusses what President Trump means in terms of the visual culture of American Presidential elections, getting into topics about race and racism in America, the role of whiteness in the election cycles of recent memory, and the limits of news media communications. Then, sociologist and former journalist Gizem Melek of Queen’s University Belfast, discusses her research on the media framing of elections. In so doing, we talk about the rise of social media and the polarization of politics and society in the United States. And, she also draw parallels and contrasts with election politics in Turkey. Taken together, we hope this episode provides a well of insights about the role visual media in elections globally and across different visual and political regimes. Additional Notes: The opinions expressed here do not reflect the position of the University of North Carlina Wilmington, nor do the opinions that might be expressed reflect those of Queen’s University Belfast. In the same way, the opinions expressed here do not reflect those of the University of Washington. This episode contains explicit content, because profanity is used to describe signage visibilized (meaning, there is profanity on the signage) on some of the images that the conversation unpacks. Links: Matt Schneider: https://mjschneider.net (https://mjschneider.net) Gizem Melek: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/gizem-melek (https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/gizem-melek) The Grift: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift) Matt Schneider’s Review of The Grift: https://photobookjournal.com/2023/06/14/andrew-kochanowski-the-grift/ (https://photobookjournal.com/2023/06/14/andrew-kochanowski-the-grift/) Gizem Melek’s article on US elections: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2023.2209050 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2023.2209050) Gizem Melek’s article on Turkish elections: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15551393.2023.2232292 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15551393.2023.2232292) Music provided by Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com) Brian O’Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com)

11. 

    4 Nov 2024

    Election Eve: A Conversation with Brian O'Neill + Tim Hale

    How do photographers deal with elections? What is the role of the visual in election politics? In this episode, Brian O’Neill interviews three photographers and scholars of visual arts and media to help contextualize the visual culture surrounding elections. Photographer and sociologist Tim Hale revisits the podcast and discusses two books little talked about together. The first is Garry Winogrand’s Public Relations, and the second is William Eggleston’s Election Eve. Tim, a one-time newspaper photojournalist, provides insights into his history of image-making around elections. Then, he sets that as the context for beginning to understand Winogrand’s concept of Public Relations. This book corresponds to what sociologist Erving Goffman called the interaction ritual at the “front stage” v. the “back stage” of social life. As Brian and Tim work through the book, they share stories from their experiences photographing the “spectacle” of the so-called “target-rich” environments that engender rallies and other political events. Brian and Tim then pivot to discussing Election Eve, a lesser-known and discussed project of lauded photographer William Eggleston. A book that emerged as a self-published artist book in an edition of 5 in the 1970s was re-released in 2017 and chronicles Eggleston’s journey across the South leading up to the election of Jimmy Carter. What was Eggleston looking for? What did he find? Tim and Brian discuss this elusive work, which they argue is interesting because of the way it speaks to a historical moment in a way that is rare for Eggleston, who, as it is widely known, seldom edited his own sequences of images or worked on what might be called documentary projects. Contrastingly, Election Eve makes one wonder what America Jimmy Carter had in mind, for he too was a man of the South, a place where the land itself was troubled, with histories of colonialism, racism, and slavery. Furthermore, and unlike Winogrand’s Public Relations, Election Eve presents an overall troubling ambiance, in which one can speculate about the societal impact of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Oil Crisis. Links: Tim Hale: https://www.timhale.net/about-the-photos (https://www.timhale.net/about-the-photos) The Grift: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift) Election Eve: https://steidl.de/Books/Election-Eve-0812354652.html (https://steidl.de/Books/Election-Eve-0812354652.html) Public Relations: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2372 (https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2372) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life: https://monoskop.org/images/1/19/Goffman_Erving_The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life.pdf (https://monoskop.org/images/1/19/Goffman_Erving_The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life.pdf) The Photobook Journal: https://photobookjournal.com (https://photobookjournal.com) Music provided by Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com) Brian O’Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com)

12. 

    31 Oct 2024

    The Grift: A Conversation with Brian O’Neill & Andrew Kochanowski

    Today, Brian O’Neill sits down to talk about “The Grift.” This was a 2023 release by Immaterial Books, and so with the upcoming election and events occupying life in the United States, we thought it an important opportunity to sit down again and speak about the project with the author, Andrew Kochanowski. In this episode, Brian and Andrew cover the book itself and its concept, and so much more: from how Andrew got started on the project and how it unfolded, to how he composes a frame, to how he thinks about the longer-term trajectory of a self-directed documentary project. The Grift is not a political book in the traditional sense. Instead, it takes a dispassionate look at a phenomenon enabled by conventional mass media, new digital channels, and informal word-of-mouth networks. It looks to actors playing their parts, but more broadly to mutual, bottomless need and dependence. Feasting off the spectacle, the speaker and the crowd crave one another. One will lie to the other, and both will lie to themselves. Who is grifting who? Andrew Kochanowski is a photographer based outside Detroit, USA. Since 2007 his work has appeared in both solo and group exhibits in Detroit, London, Paris, Warsaw, Berlin, New York, Brighton (U.K), Cardiff, Milan, San Francisco, and elsewhere, at venues such as the London Street Photography Festival, Street Photo Milano, and the Miami Street Photography Festival. His essays, images, and interviews have been published in numerous publications, including Leica Blog, Metropolitan Detroit, Eyeshot Magazine, and others. He is a founding member of Burn My Eye, an international photography collective that has been operating since 2011. Episode Links: Buy The Grift: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/grift) Andrew’s website: http://akochanowski.net (http://akochanowski.net) Andrew’s Instagram: @andrew_kochanowski The Grift Website: https://the-grift.com (https://the-grift.com) Review of The Grift at The Photobook Journal: https://photobookjournal.com/2023/06/14/andrew-kochanowski-the-grift/ (https://photobookjournal.com/2023/06/14/andrew-kochanowski-the-grift/) Jeff Jacobson’s work: https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/11/02/jeff-jacobson-life-photos/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/11/02/jeff-jacobson-life-photos/) Jeff Jacobson’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/My-Fellow-Americans-Photographs-1991-10-21/dp/B01HC12YBM (https://www.amazon.com/My-Fellow-Americans-Photographs-1991-10-21/dp/B01HC12YBM) Burn My Eye: https://www.burnmyeye.org (https://www.burnmyeye.org) Podcast hosted by Brian O’Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Immaterial Books Newsletter: https://substack.com/@immaterialbooks (https://substack.com/@immaterialbooks) Music for Immaterial Voices by Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com) Immaterial Voices is a production of Immaterial Books, an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice based in Champaign, Illinois.

13. 

    7 Oct 2024

    Photography and Ethnography with Julie Patarin-Jossec

    The panel discussion features photographers and scholars from various backgrounds and fields (Julie Patarin-Jossec, Greg Scott, Jessica Hayes, and Micah McCoy) who blended expertise in contemporary photography, sociology, and ethnography to speak about Julie Patarin-Jossec's new book, released by Immaterial Books. The Thread of Water is a reflexive wandering in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. The photographs investigate the colonial politics of the underseas through the eeriness of subaquatic weightlessness and light contrasts: artifacts and bodies are altered, if not disincarnated, in undefined waterscapes that build a narrative of dispossession and perdition. From digital to analog photography, including thermal imagery, the collection curated for this book questions how movement can transcend landscapes to embrace affect. But, more than anything, The Thread of Water is an intimate narrative about trauma and queerness that navigates different forms of storytelling (photographs, drawings, poetry, fieldwork notes) to explore the in-betweens, the coexistent multiplicities, and the pervasiveness of liberatory praxis. ---- Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Brian O'Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Julie Patarin Jossec: https://juliepatarinjossec.com (https://juliepatarinjossec.com) The Thread of Water: https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/threadofwater (https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/threadofwater) Greg Scott: https://visualsociology.org/?p=1019 (https://visualsociology.org/?p=1019) Jessica Hayes: https://www.jessicahaysart.com/about (https://www.jessicahaysart.com/about) Micah McCoy: https://micahmccoy.com (https://micahmccoy.com) Wyoming Toad: https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com (https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com)

14. 

    7 Oct 2024

    Fields of Vision: Contemporary Photography in Central Illinois with Tim Hale

    Brian O’Neill walks and talks with Tim Hale about the upcoming exhibition, "Fields of Vision: Contemporary Photography in Central Illinois." What influence our orientations to photographic representations of Central Illinois? Are we oriented by geographical boundaries, the rhythms of agricultural landscapes, processes of collective myth-making, lived connections to land and place, or all of the above? How might the pre-existing shape our meaning-making processes? How do visual imaginaries, tracing their way back to midwestern industrialization as portrayed in the Regionalist Art Movement, or themes explored in the context of the Farm Security Administration and the New Deal Works Progress Administration documentation, or the now seemingly ever-present “road trip” trope shape visual practices? Often the focus of such experiences remains voyeuristic, capturing a kind of carnival of oddities as one passes from one point to another. What are “our” focal points? Are there unique perspectives speaking from the “inside” to “out” that might contrast prior imaginaries? What processes can allow one to speak from the “inside”? Is there a ? A unique, if blurred, spot, that is, an indistinctness between the visual representations of the past, what is contemporary, and what is the future that is now shaping contemporary photography in Central Illinois? ---- Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com (https://www.immaterialbooks.com) Brian O'Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net (https://www.brianfoneill.net) Tim Hale: https://www.timhale.net (https://www.timhale.net) Analog Gallery in Urbana, Illinois: https://analogurbana.com (https://analogurbana.com)

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