Lecture 3: Louis Porter

Week 4: Lecture 3

Louis Porter - Photographer

Louis Porter (b.1977) is British-born artist who works in the mode of a photographic flâneur, exploring a diverse range of themes including: 
- Urban space
- Photographic archives
- Leisure
- Violence 
His work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK, England, Canada, Austria, China and Australia including multiple solo shows at the Monash Gallery of Art and Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne.
In 2012 he established his own imprint Twenty Shelves, its first publication, The Anatomy of Business, won the inaugural Most Beautiful Books Prize

Overview of Porter's Work
- Photographer/Artist
- Most of his work was produced whilst he was living in Australia.
- The experience of going abroad spurred Porter's interest in photography, and in particular, street photography.
- Became interested in dystopian literature such The Other Side by Alfred Cohen and wanted to create a project around the framework of the city 'Pearl' from Cohen's book
- Carried out in the suburbs of Australia during the summer where the temperature averaged between 20-mid40 degrees.
- Due to the temperatures being so high, most of the suburbs were empty, almost ghost towns 
- Colours such as yellow and blue it's the fastest colour to perceive.
- The project took many years to carry out.

Makes his projects that he is hired to do commercially relate to his own personal projects.
- He aims to focus on the surfaces that are presented to us, looking at structures and frameworks of the environment.

When he was in Beijing, he carried out a project called 'Wires at Night' and 'Red Carpet Security Guards'. 
Another project was 100 flowers, inspired by a communist speech in 1956.
For the 2008 Olympic games there were many flower beds put up in Beijing and this is what Porter focused his project on.

Weegee photographer was a big inspiration for Porter.

Within the archives, there were thousands of mug shots of businessmen. Porter started to categorise these images by hairstyles.

The Small Conflict Archive
Became obsessed with colour, experimented with drum-scanning which are very difficult to use as there are no colour profiles, you had to make comparisons with real life colours.

He chose to photograph subject which are unfinished or poorly painted. He thought there was a hidden pleasure in their incompleteness. 

Other Projects:
- Rupture/Repair
- Signs of Struggle
- Paper Aeroplanes Unraveled
- Digital Wunderkammer
- Exotic Animal Enclosures
- Lost & Found
- The Wall
- Blackout

101 John Smiths
He collected 101 John Smith profile pictures
- By cars, fishing, uniforms, beer, music, guitars