#9 Celebrity Room, Brainerd, Minnesota by Alec Soth from Dissolutions (Sleeping by the Mississippi)
I became a photographer to engage with the physical world. Photography gave me an excuse to drive around and watch light bounce off things. I also enjoyed the process of converting this light into physical emulsions. But the goal of bringing these documents together as books and exhibitions was much more ephemeral. I want my photographs to function as springboards for memory and imagination.
My first project, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was made out of a desire to drive along the Mississippi River, but I rarely photographed the river itself. By depicting a puzzling mix of people and places, my goal was to prompt the viewer to generate her own imaginary Mississippi. From static images I hoped to create meaning that kept flowing.
For my first commissioned NFT project, I wanted to make something that spoke directly to this transmutation of meaning from the physical to the ephemeral. Whether one dissolves the photographic emulsion or converts it to code on the blockchain, the heart of the art is not destroyed.
Edition: 1 of 1
Commissioned by Obscura