pROFILE_mUSEUM - the idaho collection

dISCREET pROFILES (the idaho collection): Your profile photo may be in my pROFILE_mUSEUM! Thousands of enlarged (custom, patented algorithms) and enhanced photographs (now, likely several hundred thousands, soon over a million,) mostly low-res cellphone, web-cam, and low-end digital camera self-portraits (self-packaging), culled from dating/social websites -- as you might expect, there is some explicit content (more than is permitted here unfortunately: you really should see them all, but it probably makes little difference) -- fascinating and occasionally disturbing. You may realize that this is not the first time I've collected anonymous found-public imagery: notably dumpster-diving at photofinishers' in the 70's. And of course, the "Insatiable Abstraction Engine" -- collections from newsgroups. But come to think it, nearly all my work involves repeated multiples or collections of imagery. Whenever possible I retained any color casts, cropping and lighting. The portraits are actually very considered, sometimes selections made/altered merely to obscure the identity that they wished to presumably portray initially. Sunglasses are a popular ruse, as are close-ups of cleavage, butts, tattoos, feet and groins. (Curiously, I've yet to see a picture of hands... ok, now I have: some intricate fingernails and the love/hate finger-tats.) Many feature-obilerating camera-flash-portraits in the bathroom mirror. And some, but surprisingly few, are filched from somewhere online, but this must be a risky choice in the event of an 'actual encounter.' How much introductory information/description do you want to put out there to begin with? There are some very creative, even artful, solutions to this dilemma. This massive PDF ebook/catalogue is $250 (sorry about the price but it was a hellish amount of work and I guarantee you won't be disappointed or YMB), and must be ordered directly. Use my verified Paypal account to have the DVD delivered at no charge: [bbrace@eskimo.com; http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/buy-into.html] (each part over 1,500 pages/photos; 6.94 x 6.94") Archival inkjet prints are also available for purchase ($500 each) or exhibit. The prints of course require different custom algorithms and some masterful retouching -- they look great!  Technically given the incredibly diverse range of imagery it was difficult to make them all equally legible; despite a variety of intricate processing directives, the scripts would inevitably crash or be unable to render a decent image. These were handled individually. The sequence, in the pdfs, is probably pretty much random: processing used whatever numbering systems were in place, and then renumbered everything so there was no trace of last origin. If I receive a reasonable number of orders, I'll offer additional states of the union or countries... but California had to be the place to begin. Sure to be a collectors' (socio-anthropologists') item! An amazing and compelling, collective portrait! The interspersed military imagery (or maybe something else), also introduces a new spin on the hopes for this already tenuous social culture. I've had to organize/sub-divide these in some fashion, so by state/country seem to be the prevailing approach. And given how often workers are compelled to move around, there's more of a local difference in cultural self-perception, body language, and social-sexual proclivity than you might expect. It really is a perhaps overlooked (overly-present), socially significant era when a massive proportion of the population is able to individually exorcise their self-imagery instead of being routinely dependent on existing systematized systems of portraiture and presentation -- which is not to say that it's entirely free from stylistic-cultural-corporate constraints and codification (and why, for now at least, I left the imagery in a nearly random arrangement), but the individual, probably for the first time ever, is seen freely negotiating a shifting porous skein of varied reception... well, something like that...

/:b

http://tinyurl.com/2g8th2u (california)

http://tinyurl.com/2da2mvo (oregon)

http://tinyurl.com/2bthsnq (washington)

http://tinyurl.com/2w5bwuo (hawaii)

http://tinyurl.com/39pco5q (florida)

http://tinyurl.com/33xheqp (new york)

http://tinyurl.com/2c3dw9h (louisiana)

http://tinyurl.com/29jajja (ontario)

http://tinyurl.com/29uk4z5 (british columbia)

http://tinyurl.com/2attzdj (idaho)