about photography
I like to work in the field, I don't set up anything that I shoot, I like to shoot using available natural light. I work digitally, this allows me a huge amount of freedom with what I do. The speed that I can work at is very important, I like to work fast and I produce a large amount of work. For the 'being there' show in summer 2002 I shot over ten thousand frames producing over two hundred finished pieces for an exhibition showing just twenty four of them. The important thing becomes and issue of judgement and quality control. The more control I have the more time I have to reflect on the work that I produce.
I carry tools with me most places that I go, I don't generally go anywhere just to record things. If I see something that fires my imagination then I try and record what it is that intrigues me. When I return to my studio and find the feeling comes back from the material I have then I work into it. Trying to understand the things that pique my imagination.
I like to get out of the studio to work, often I will return to places that I have acquired material from and sit and work through images surrounded by what originally inspired me.
Generally a lot of the photographic work was done with with a Minolta Dimage 7 digitalSLR, a Sony p7 DVcam, a Sony s100 recordable minidisc, a Powerbook and a Mac Tower. I've also been using various Nokia and Motorola phonecameras, a Nikon D100 digitalSLR and a Canon XM2 DVcam. This gives me the flexibility to transport my studio pretty much anywhere. The software that I use is a huge mix of commercial applications, freeware, shareware and tools that I develop myself. Often a finished piece of work will have seen upwards of a dozen different applications and processes before printing. The more enabling a software tool is the more constraining it can be. Whatever application I use I always try to push beyond the boundaries that the software designer has imagined for the users of the tool.
For image output I currently use an Epson 790 for proofing and a large Epson sc3000 for final output. The sc3000 allows me to print 42cm wide up to 30m long on a variety of media. I use canvas as a print media often, the canvas has an excellent response to the grain and tones of the images I produce. Before printing, the canvas is proofed and prepared to accept the inks that I use and after printing is sealed with various finishes to both alter and protect the ink and canvas. Longevity, colour accuracy and lightfastness is a big concern and I use archival grade inks on the canvas. After printing and sealing I stretch the canvas on traditional wooden stretchers. I find that stretching the canvas transforms the disposable/industrial/mass produced nature of the medium I am working with and focuses the mind and the viewer on the individual piece at hand.
After working with digital tools for twenty years I feel that the digital nature of the work I do is largely incidental to the finished pieces. The tools are merely tools, a means to an end. There are as many facilities and ways of working that I enjoy about working digitally as there are drawbacks, however.
I don't always feel comfortable with the idea of working 'photographically' and have not yet described myself as a photographer and have difficulty describing my work as photography. This may seem a contradiction but I see the photographic element of the process more in terms of aquisition of source material than anything else. With the 'not being there' show in winter 2002 I bypassed the lens based aquisition process and captured all the source material from the internet, DivX, VHS, DVD and television, after this the judgement and process changed little from other work using a camera.
Traditionally the act of recording an image was the act of the artistry. Being in the right place at the right time with a camera was often the paramount element of the photograph. Perhaps it is the 'reportage' history of photography crossed with the 'reproductive' infant beginnings of daguerre that make me feel uncomfortable with photography. Perhaps it is just 'snobbery' to the 'low' art/commercial art status that photography has, even in today's art world. Perhaps it is a reaction to the speed and immediacy with which anyone can create images with photographic tools.
dan buzzo january 2003
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Over the last twenty years or so, Dan Buzzo has been to school, gone to college, ridden a skateboard, pointed cameras at things and people and edited the results, got married, danced, sent emails to people in America when it was still more expensive than telephoning them and more time consuming than paying them a visit, made sounds and noises, raised children, surfed, designed interactive multimedia before anyone knew what it was, joined the cult of Volkswagen, thrown parties, crafted toys for remixing with, redecorated, worn a suit, lived in Hong Kong and found it wanting, built websites, lived in Newmarket and liked it, become less married, driven cars at high speeds over short distances and cooked pizza. Although not exclusively.
This is what he has been doing more recently.
I think that my work is about my complete inability to come to terms with how inexplicable I find everything.
dan buzzo august 2002
Press
"stretched beyond cinematic, tinted, blurred, manipulated. stretched onto stretchers, ink-jetted onto canvas, eclectic, roaming, ordinary and mysterious ...a slow glimpse of a wonderfully ordinary world"
John Taylor, Decode Magazine UK
"creepy genius"
Mark Rodriguez, Revolver Magazine USA
"capturing those ordinary moments which somehow make a magical impression on our memories..."
Rebecca Gilbert, Art critic This is Bristol Magazine
selected exhibitions and events
Interactive Audio
Group Show Bristol Exploratory 1989
Ba (hons) fine art - gwent institute caerleon wales uk 1990
group show city museum and art gallery santiago chile 1990
group show 'act up' new york usa 1991
group touring show 'environment friendly?' leeds city gallery uk 1991-1992
exhibited Second International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) groningen netherlands 1991
Invited Speaker - Virtual Environments
Pharmakon Symposium Brighton 1991
Ma (RCA) royal college of art london uk 1992
solo show 'big dreams' lse cafe gallery london uk 1992
Invited Speaker - Interactive Music
In the City conference Manchester 1993
Invited Speaker - Interactive Music
In the City conference Belfast 1994
Invited Speaker - Interaction Design
Macworld Expo - London 1994
extensive work on interactive projects with artists including coldcut, apollo 440, utah saints, arcangel 1993 -1998
published work includes
'let us play' - coldcut
'11 track player' - nyack
'essential mix III' - pete tong
'tone tales from tomorrow' - ninja tune
'interceptor' - eat static
'generation g' - dave stewart and volkswagen gmbh
tribal gathering & big chill live performance & webcasts
Invited Speaker - Interactive Television
Max Berlin 1998
audio CD album 'it's still more fun to compute' released 1999
audio CD album 'MTR' released 2000
Invited Speaker - Interactive Television
Media Asia Conference
Manila, Philippines 2000
solo show 'being there' centrespace gallery bristol uk 2002
collaborative work 'online jungulator' with socket media collective watershed media centre bristol uk 2002
solo show 'not being there' centrespace gallery bristol uk 2002
solo show 'farewell to the hotel sarajaevo' at il bordello bristol uk 2003
solo show 'stock' centrespace gallery bristol uk march 2003
solo show 'petrolhead ' centrespace gallery bristol uk november 2004
'Louisa's Story' short film for BBC TV refugee week 2005
'Harm' short film shown BBC TV for Barnardos Childrens Homes 2005
'Binge Thinking' Short Film for BBC Wales 2005
solo show 'after the party' centrespace gallery bristol uk october 2005
short readymade films 'falling ' and 'looking ' shown in cube cinema bluescreen tent glastonbury festival 2007
short readymade films 'falling ' and 'looking ' shown at Ashton Court Festival, Bristol 2007
short readymade films 'falling ' and 'looking ' shown ATA Festival San Francisco 2007
Bristol FilmMakers Festival 2008
Selected and Screened at Watershed Media Centre
Arnolfinin Gallery
Management and Steering Comittee
Centrespace Gallery, Bristol
2004 - present
