ShoegaZzzzzz, 2015 In Arvo Part’s seminal work Spiegel im Spiegel, he presents the listener with an unending tonic triad. The title itself references the infinite mirroring of two parallel planes suspended indefinitely. In the series ShoegaZzzzz, it is transcendence through music that I am interested in.  Music can have otherworldly effects on the human psyche...This computer generated world creates a scene that is hyperreal in nature, one were for example, the ultimate gesture of shoe tossing is coupled with a vista of clouds in the sky. These tableau's signify what was, the ephemeral, the fleeting but the familiar. See more here: www.untitledproof.com/shogazzzzz

Gus van Sant: Gerry (2002), 103 min

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US Letter, 2012 In this series, US Letter, I relied on images and documentation from television, the internet, and print news to create my own photo-realistic pictures based on an "imagined" 9/11 - one where ubiquitous objects become fragments of the past, the living, and the once occupied. This digitally fabricated series was inspired by Don DeLillo's novel Falling Man.  My images are based specifically on a moment where DeLillo describes a scene of disarray and chaos on the day The World Trade towers disappeared from the New York City skyline on September 11, 2001. This description was so vivid that it provoked me to reevaluate my own memories of the 9/11 attacks in present day... My recollection of the catastrophe was one of objectivity. I recalled papers and debris falling from the sky. Seeing footage of these papers over and over again was unnerving for me because it represented the physical evidence of people. And somehow I felt a connection to this evidence, to their sheets of 8.5" x 11" paper. See more here: www.untitledproof.com/us-letter

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In their own words... My practice is very much a processed-based labor. Recent works physically mimic the unfixed and constructed digital image and seek to make it physical by using in-camera techniques, cut paper and studio constructions to reflect a reality where the digitally constructed, fluid and altered image imposes itself on our notions of space, place, intimacy and self. My work, as I copy the feel of digital imagery and make a physical version for it, attempts to hold onto the ever fleeting possibility of contentment and satisfaction. I am interested in re-creating an image that shifts in meaning and context as it exists in many places at one time as data (a .jpeg) or as an object in physical space (on a wall or in print). If an image can be in more than one place at the same time, its meaning can never be fixed. This open-ended image has also influenced the texture of our reality and person. As temporal experience now exists in a state of constant flux, shifting between a physical reality, and the seduction and distraction of the more desirable alternatives forever available to us, I too can be in many places at the same time. Capitalism and technology have led us to a state of constant image consumption and it is in this state that objects of mass production and consumption can become vehicles for transcendence and beauty as they are re-contextualized, reshaped and dispersed. If my current reality disappoints, I can easily find a better option that delivers me to another alternative - even if only temporarily. And if I can make physical version, maybe I can hold onto it longer. [vimeo video_id="159228108" width="1000" height="562"]

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Photography. Photographs have appeared in various publications and online including The New York Times, Self Publish Be Happy, VICE, Visual Studies Workshop Journal, and Musee Magazine. In 2014, Costa co-founded the artist-run publishing collective Silent Face Projects.

www.josephdeslercosta.com www.silentface.org Instagram: @josephdeslercosta

In their own words... Every couple of years I seem to want to start from scratch on something new - something new that seems exciting at that time…but often in spite of yourself, you see stuff returning from previous ways of working and projects, an image, a concept that I was trying really hard to work hard out before returns and works in a different form. In the process trying to do something new - you end up resolving something old. But as far as what that my vision is most concerned with I guess it is something to do with the psychological reading of images.

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Bill Sullivan (b. 1965) lives and works in NYC. In 1988 he graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in English and Fine Arts. His prints, books and paintings have been widely shown in both US and international exhibitions and are in the permanent collections of MOMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. He has completed several large bodies of work in the past 10 years including 3 Situations - made up of 30,000 photographs taken clandestinely of people, culminating in a major installation at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto in 2012. Since 2009, Sullivan has worked on a series of books of his own design, including "MATTER" (2013), "Forest Hills" (2014), "Reckless Spring” (2015), and “Permanent Fun” (2016). In 2014 he helped found S U N, an independent publishing company based in New York City. He has helped design and publish over 12 books for artists over the last 2 years. BILL SULLIVAN - Books, Prints and Paintings is on view through April 15, 2016 at 57w57arts www.billsullivanworks.com instagram: @bill_sullivan

In their own words... I conduct image-based experiments, looking for ways to destabilize photographic images and use them as locating devices to understand a world programming, and programmed by, images. Extending the ways photography has historically shaped and manipulated the way we see the world to include scripted software actions, I set elements of an image against itself and place multiple images into conflict. Frequently working with advertisements and family snapshots, I locate a human figure in relationship to a picture by a process of removal or displacement through generative software processes. Software such as Photoshop and After Effects is used to create new content to expand and fill in the gaps between an image and unrepresented information. I seek out the brief moment before an image completely falls apart as it unhinges from its source and previous locations. Finding ways for an image to betray itself, where it will be broken and unable to act in self-interest, I examine how anticipation and expectation proliferate throughout image culture. Through scripted software actions incorporated with my own personal gestures, I look to collapse any distance, perceived or real, between a camera, an object and a viewer. The new pictures I produce work as camouflage, concealing the world while reprogramming our understanding of it.

[vimeo video_id="116167267" width="1000" height="562"] video copyright Zach Nader courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery

[vimeo video_id="116786756" width="1000" height="562"] video copyright Zach Nader courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery

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Zach Nader is a Brooklyn-based artist originally from Dallas, Texas. His reworking of existing photographic imagery has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including a month-long nightly video installation on 23 advertisement billboards as part of Midnight Moment in New York’s Times Square. Nader recently completed an Art & Science Residency The Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation in Brooklyn, NY, and is represented by Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Nader's someone to see is included in the Fractured Gestures screening at Haus der elektronischen Künste in Basel, Switzerland on April 26. www.zachnader.com Instagram: @znader

In their own words... As a painter I've always been drawn to depicting the body in my work and that foundation has shaped the way I approach portraiture and my interest in the form within photography. With the "I Heart Girl" series I was inspired by the inherent strength and beauty of the female form and to work with women to create images that can explore both femininity and masculinity was very intriguing to me. I am interested in how we choose to define ourselves as women but more importantly as individuals. As a woman and an artist, I feel that it is important to acknowledge and discuss this idea of individuality within the context of gender fluidity. So for me this particular series represents more than a facet of women of a certain age, living authentically, and expressing their gender accordingly, it represents and celebrates this shift in culture as we begin to reexamine and rethink gender. And with that we can refer to the subjects of this series as "alternative," "androgynous," "masculine," or "feminine," but that doesn't fully capture what I feel the project represents which is largely about a human vulnerability that can't be defined and categorized easily.  [vimeo video_id="155000789" width="1000" height="562"]

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Jessica Yatrofsky is a brooklyn-based photographer and filmmaker, known for film and photographic work exploring body politics, beauty, and gender. She received her MFA from Parsons the New School for Design and published her first photography monograph, I Heart Boy, with powerHouse Books in 2010 and her second photography monograph, I Heart Girl, in 2015. Jessica's photographic work is part of the permanent collection with the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Her photography work has been exhibited overseas and her film work has been both televised and screened at film festivals internationally. www.jessicayatrofsky.com instagram: @jyatrofsky

In their own words...

My work is an exploration of the ordinary with a twist, disturbing the line between the artificial and real. I work to capture intimate details of cultural cues by way of landscape, still life, portraiture, and various multimedia techniques. At its core, I present a visualization of a change in culture. Photography, painting, sculpture and collage collide creating a kaleidoscope vision. I love when you can’t tell how or when a piece was made, and creating a fantasy, or an escape, is a big part of the process.

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Born in New York in 1986, Charlie Rubin is a multimedia artist working primarily with photo-based projects. In 2013, Rubin was awarded the Foam Talent Award (Amsterdam), and published a book titled Strange Paradise with Conveyor Arts shortly after in 2014. Rubin recently had his first solo exhibition in 2015 with Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. Residencies include Vermont Studio Center and the Wassaic Project. Rubin has contributed commissioned work for The New Yorker, W Magazine, The Creators Project, Vice, and Hearst Magazines. He has works in the collections of the MoMA Library, Henry Art Museum (Seattle), and other private collections. He earned an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design (New York), and a BA at Haverford College (Pennsylvania). Rubin currently lives and works in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York City. Other endeavors include a collaborative publication called Yo-NewYork (yo-newyork.com) and Neighboring Walls (neighboringwalls.com), a bring your own art show series in friends' apartments. www.charlierubin.com Instagram: @charlierubin

In their own words... Outer space and the billions of stars in the universe are proof enough for me that there is no creator god out there, no grand design for life on Earth. There may indeed be some sort of mysterious power in the world, but surely it's indifferent to actual human life - things here are just too pointless and haphazard and statistically insignificant. And yet: there is a realness to our spiritual inclinations. We have a tremendous capacity to make meaning, to imbue our experiences with depth. We are susceptible to immense awe, to a sense of truths greater than ourselves. We feel connected to each other, to it. It's cool. So here we are, fixed in this world that's horribly tragic, and yet there's such a sublime beauty to it. There are religions less enamored with authoritarianism - Buddhism in particular - that speak to this greater life force, like this invisible state that floats above (or beneath? or through?) our daily drama. I'm curious. This flow, this oneness - perhaps it isn't so invisible after all. Sometimes I think I can actually see it. I want to slow down, to pay attention, to shut out all the noise of human arrogance and frustration. I let these things fade away so that I can feel the more profound energy hidden beyond all this. I like it. [vimeo video_id="118717671" width="1000" height="562"] [vimeo video_id="158989442" width="1000" height="562"] [vimeo video_id="114119228" width="1000" height="562"]

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Keith Telfeyan is an American writer and filmmaker currently living in Berlin. He was born in the Californian suburbs of the 1980s and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied film. Then he moved to New York, where he received an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design. His work is published, screened and exhibited internationally. www.keithtelfeyan.com instagram: @keithpictures www.everythingisawesome.tumblr.com

In their own words…

I am compelled to pull apart the photograph, to kill its power of strict representation. I do not desire to destroy the image, but to repurpose it, to release it and contain it anew in the picture plane, that malleable vise. The words of the poets and mages and philosophers ring in my ears as I work, and I begin to think of my sources, my materials, as parts of speech, characters in a grammatical play. These are Waves as sound waves, light waves, ocean waves, pulses of thought and of sensation, each wave’s return slightly altered, moving away from something, or toward it. These are seas leaden or heady; this blows as wind or smoke.

As I have moved, in my practice, farther away from the representational, as I have turned my practice inwards, I sometimes regard myself, as if from afar, making these incredibly personal deconstructions of the figure. Where does this process of re-building leave me, human-womanmaker? This is a process of transformation, of transfiguration, an almost sacrilegious transubstantiation, the conversion of flesh and blood into image and that image back into sculpture, and the object back into a photograph. These multiple layers, this removal from reality that comes with the repurposing and re-copying, is fundamental to the work.

In many ways, this is the most personal work I have ever made, though it does not address the typical – indexical – photographic relationship to the personal. That is, perhaps, it is not the subjects themselves that are so personal but rather the way they are treated; these works come from deep within, they emerge unexpected, as strangers, into my lap.

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Sarah Palmer was born in San Francisco and lives in Brooklyn. Her work has been exhibited, most recently in Original Copy at SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2016; Reflected - Works from the Foam Collection at Foam_fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam, which holds her work in its permanent collection. She was awarded the 2011 Aperture Portfolio Prize and has had solo exhibitions at Wild Project in 2010, and at Aperture Gallery in fall 2012, both in New York. Her writing has been published variously, including Foam’s What’s Next project in 2011 and Aperture's 2014 volume, The Photographer's Playbook. Her artwork has been published most recently in YO-NEWYORK vol. 2, the artist zine Queen by Silent Face Projects, Conveyor Magazine’s “Alchemy” issue, and London-based Plantation Journal issue number 4, “Sculptural Geometry,” and in late 2015/early 2016 she self-published her first artist book Waves. She is a member of the photography faculty at Parsons The New School for Design and The Pratt Institute. www.sarahpalmer.net Instagram: @sarah_palmer__