Five years ago an elderly cousin of my mother gave me two hours of 8mm family film c1940. I was surprised to discover titillating interactions among adults performed for the camera and filmmaker, along with sexualized representations of children, all in the setting of a family holiday party. Viewing the footage in slow motion and ultimately frame-by-fame playback I isolated the details of interactions among my immediate and extended family members and their friends alongside incongruous responses to children. This brought to mind the ‘uncanny private space of the home’, which Freud described as the ‘heimlich’ homely/concealed space [in this case found in a stilled film frame], easily distorted into the ‘unheimlich perverse, revealing the secrets of deviance’.*

I was interested in highlighting these enigmatic appearances in life-size versions of the still frames. Since there is no existing software to create even a 1000% increase in scale [dimensions of 8mm film frame: .10”x.13” to 20”x30”], I contacted Dr. Yiannis Aloimonos of the Computer Vision Laboratory, the Center for Automation Research at the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland who considered incorporating the still frames into his research developing an algorithm to create a similar visual impression to an original photograph at a much greater scale. It became clear however that the attempt was futile with material in such degraded condition as the old 8mm film. I then began working to enhance the general structure and content of the image with digital painting, resulting in 15x21in. reproductions. I created each image in the MEMOIRE INVOLUNTAIRE series by arranging antique furnishings in my studio including one or more chairs facing a RCA Victor TV made in 1950. With a 20 ft. projection of an enhanced still frame on the wall and my camera on a tripod and timer, I entered the frame of the photograph to sit in front of this television that is similar to the one I once viewed sitting alongside living counterparts of the ghosts I recognized in the original family film.

The aged family film I worked with had elicited ‘memoire involontaire,’ a term Marcel Proust used to describe the operation of memory itself, as everyday sights and senses of the present moment stimulate a recognition of the past. In a similar vein, I have been particularly inspired to create this series because in the digital transition of photography and cinema away from film, the relationship of the digital photograph to physical reality has fully slipped. In the words of D.N. Rodowick, digital capture is now a calculation in which time is only light converted into numerical code, breaking the physical link to space.** Once the culture of film is fully extinguished however, it will not be constructed again since photographic film fabrication represents a consumer product of the highest technology. In creating the MEMOIRE INVOLUNTAIRE series I have valued the opportunity to incorporate authentic film artifacts in the exploration of a memory, and at the same time raise the consideration of what we lose when film itself becomes an artifact.

With these film stills, I was selected to participate in a Master Photobook Workshop at the International Center of Photography NYC. The award-winning Heijdens Karwei Photography Book Design Agency from Amsterdam, Netherlands designed my artist book MEMOIRE INVOLUNTAIRE The Essence of the Past, which will be available in a Limited Edition Set of twenty (20) in 2019. http://cindykonits.com/memoire-involuntaire-artist-book/.

MEMOIRE INVOLUNTAIRE #5 and MEMOIRE INVOLUNTAIRE#6 were exhibited at Aqua Art Miami/Art Basel Dec. 2018

*Freud, S. (1919). The ‘Uncanny’. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,
Volume XVII (1917-1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, 217-256. 
**The Future is Now: The Virtual Life of Film by D.N. Rodowick.

Two hours of color and black and white 8mm family film c1940 (comprising over 100,000 still frames) viewed in slow motion to select the most intriguing, enigmatic and/or aesthetically appealing clips to review frame-by-frame, resulting in a collection of images to enhance and enlarge over 1,000% from the original size .10″x.13″ to 15″x21″. This was accomplished with algorithms and digital painting resulting in a hybrid 8mm film still c1940 and digital painting.  Shown Here: Samples from Series of thirty-five (35) 15x21in; 38x53cm Archival Pigment Prints.

http://cindykonits.com/memoire-involuntaire-still-frames/

THE WAY I SEE IT
Synopsis
 
My mother’s first cousin, Dr. Henry Abrams, was Albert Einstein’s ophthalmologist and friend. The morning after Einstein’s death on April 18, 1955, Dr. Abrams removed the eyes from Einstein’s corpse. “The Way I See It” is an exploration of the legacy of this decision by the adult who was haunted and disturbed when learning of it as a young child. Until his death in November 2011, Henry Abrams retained the eyes in a jar in his dresser drawer.
 
Screenings Mattin Arts Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Maryland.
 
TV India F.I.C.T.S. Film Festival, Mumbai India.
 
Bare Bones International Film Festival, Muskogee Oklahoma,
NOMINATED Best Documentary Short.
 
Tribeca Underground Film Festival, New York City, New York.
 
Anthology Film Archives, New York City New York.
 
Long Island International Film Expo, Bellmore New York.
 
Expresion en Corto, San Miquel de Allende, Mexico.
 
HollyShorts Short Film Festival, Hollywood California.
 
FilmFest Reloaded, New York City, New York.
 
Eberswalde Film Festival, Eberswalde Germany.
 
West Chester Film Festival, West Chester Pennsylania.
 
Small Town Film Festival, Ontario Canada.
 
Queens International Film Festival, New York City, New York.
 
Short Film Festival of India, Chennai India.
 
International Film Festival, Washington, D.C.
 
NewFilmmakers, New York City, New York.
 
Swansea Bay Film Festival, Swansea, United Kingdom.
 
 

The DIGITAL INTIMACY installation provides a glimpse of what we give up in exchange for 'likes' and 'thumbs up' while trillions of gigabytes of personal data are exchanged secretly, without our consent, and with virtually no oversight. DIGITAL INTIMACY affords a visceral awareness of otherwise invisible and intangible daily assaults on personal boundaries in the digital age.

Visitors entering the DIGITAL INTIMACY exhibition space designed a familiar interior room in a home reminiscent of the past look up at old family film projections and photographs on the walls to discover their personal data such as contact lists, photos, full names, passwords and more filling their shadows and following their movements throughout the space. Sensors embedded in the installation gather information from visitors’ cell phones, iPads, fitness trackers, and wallet card RFID chips while sweeping the audience with WiFi, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication and RFID technologies. Hidden servers continuously run Bluejacking, Bluebugging, Bluesnarfing, and RFID skimming processes while WiFi access point systems gather additional information. Social engineering exploits, facial recognition and fingerprints are engaged. Query stations use this data to gather additional information from comprehensive Internet searches. Device security holes are discovered daily and ability/willingness of manufacturers to retroactively fix flaws in consumer hands is limiteded. Andrew Cole, musician and composer, designs algorithms for the DIGITAL INTIMACY installation space linking harvested data to 1950 oldies tunes, resulting in data-driven, processed oldies compositions. These nostalgic samples of oldie radio stations move between multiple speakers, twisting slowly to unrecognizability in response to visitors' data The surreal soundscapes resonate and contrast with home comforts.

www.digital-intimacy.com
Engaged in Fundraising Campaign

“DIGITAL INTIMACY is an excellent medium to make these security risks more tangible. I believe that by employing the established techniques and common, ubiquitous technology pervading the online experience, e.g. location tracking, as well as physical spaces, such as shopping malls, the installation has great potential for awareness, especially when juxtaposed with training workshops or a hands on security fair. I will be quite interested in running such an installation at COMCAST to make our staff aware of their responsibility to protect the company and its infrastructure.”

Vaibhav Garg 
Technology Director of Cybersecurity Industry & Policy Affairs at Comcast,  
Visiting Researcher Collaborator at Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University
Editor in Chief of ACM Computers & Society 

“In the Usable Security and Privacy research space, researchers have studied multiple mechanisms to increase users’ security and privacy awareness (e.g., through warnings, nudges, cues and etc.). It seems that none is super effective… Some researchers are now advocating more “creepy” ways to trigger users’ sec/priv awareness levels. I can imagine how the audience’s creepy emotion could be trigged by such art installation, which may potentially better increase the public’s general security/privacy awareness.”

Dr. Jeremy Epstein, Program Director, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) 

“DIGITAL INTIMACY is interesting and timely given that it is an artistic expression and demonstration of important but rarely (or viscerally) understood issues of sharing, security and privacy in the digital age. Raising awareness of these things in a proactive, artistic way benefits society generally.”

Dr. Richard Forno 
Director, UMBC Graduate Cybersecurity Program
Jr. Affiliate Scholar, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society 

The recognition of family in photography elicits an affiliative look, the ‘familial gaze,’ through which the image is adopted into the viewer’s own family narrative. Family photography can thus be either idealized or revelatory, or both, as it links private memory to collective history. Real time online collaborative video editing for the online project “Bits of Us” allows participants to explore an interior experience of self in memory by editing their family film, photography, and hand-drawn images within a video clip of the family film of the artist as the seed for an ever-evolving collective family film with no beginning, middle or end. Participants also upload recordings of their voice and object sounds that are then scored to the film periodically by a collaborating composer. The Bits of Us collective video provides a journey of self-discovery and freedom to experiment. The project experience can be liked to an endless scrabble game of visual associations. This is a unique opportunity for play by individuals in a broad range of demographics and age groups.

“My interest in video art dates back to the early 1970s, when together with Phyllis Gershuny I co-founded Radical Software – an early video journal. The journal’s debut issue was centered on creative editing of the answers to the questionnaire that was sent out to a wide audience of fellow artists and lovers of art. Radical Software was probably the first attempt by the artists to encourage a grassroots involvement in creating an information environment separate and free from usual constraints of the corporate media. Inherently, Radical Software was the first attempt to create video art through what has become known later as crowdsourcing. I see BITS OF US as a logical continuation and further conceptual development of our early creative efforts in video art. What makes this artistic venture even more exciting and meriting financial support from public funds is that the project will fully utilize new expressive means and tools offered by the latest digital technologies for the purposes of creating digital art through public participation. “

Beryl Korot
Artist and an early pioneer of video art

http://bitsofus.org
Project in Research and Development phase.

My grandparents came to this country from Byelorussia and Lithuania. My

parents assimilated rapidly into American life, moving from the Lower East Side

of New York City to Jersey City, New Jersey, and finally to upper

-

middle class,

Anglo

-

Saxon Westfield,

New Jersey. My grandparents were very different from

my parents. They ate different foods, wore different clothes, and spoke to each

other in a language I didn’t understand. They died while I was still a child, and I

was never able to ask important questio

ns of them.

As a teenager, my curiosity about this lost world was aroused by the plight of

the Jews remaining in the Soviet Union. The restrictions on the practice of their

religion and on travel within and outside their country moved me to participate

in

the effort to gain their freedom. Their story became a metaphor for my

personal struggles and for the missing links to my past.

My grandparents came to this country from Byelorussia and Lithuania. My parents assimilated rapidly into American life, moving from the Lower East Side of New York City to Jersey City, New Jersey, and finally to upper-middle class, Anglo-Saxon Westfield, New Jersey. My grandparents were very different from my parents. They ate different foods, wore different clothes, and spoke to each other in a language I didn’t understand. They died while I was still a child, and I was never able to ask important questions of them.
 
As a teenager, my curiosity about this lost world was aroused by the plight of the Jews remaining in the Soviet Union. The restrictions on the practice of their religion and on travel within and outside their country moved me to participate in the effort to gain their freedom. Their story became a metaphor for my personal struggles and for the missing links to my past.

Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, through the Maryland Humanities Council, Inc., the "Now I See Kiev in My Dreams": Words and Pictures of New Americans catalogue and traveling solo exhibition comprises a series of 22 30"x30" color portraits of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Baltimore 1992, juxtaposed with photographs brought from their former homes and bilingual excerpts from oral histories. "Now I See Kiev In My Dreams" was shown at The Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, Baltimore Maryland, and The Weiner Judaic Museum of The Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, Rockville Maryland. A selection of photographs from the exhibition are in the permanent collection of the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv Israel, and the Jewish Heritage Center Archives, Baltimore Maryland.

Too-Small Photo Exhibit Catches Immigrants' Strengths, John Dorsey Baltimore Sun March 1994. The "Now I See Kiev in My Dreams" exhibit at the Jewish Historical Society has faults, primarily its limited size. But its virtues are many, including its overall look. Konits' richly colored photographs capture their subjects informally in various activities -- arriving at the airport, sharing a meal, playing chess, at their jobs, relaxing. There's a straightforward look about these people that makes you feel as if you could sit down among them and be at home. And their spirit shines through Konits' pictures; their faces tell us they're undaunted. This is all testament to Konits' accomplishments with her camera. But it makes the viewer want more than what is available here. Twenty-two of Konits' photographs are too few...  Better to have devoted the whole exhibition space at the Jewish Historical Society to "Kiev," if Konits has sufficient photographs; or, if she doesn't, to wait until she does".

Fortunately, women in the non-traditional roles depicted in this series are not entirely rare, though they are still strikingly rare today, 25 years after these photographs were created! The woman who was in 1990, and is today pursuing a career as an airline mechanic, railroad engineer, laborer, or carpenter is often defying the expectations of family, friends, and male co-workers. I would like this project to credit them for their courage and tenacity as role models for others, male and female, to make independent choices.

Traveling solo exhibition of 40 10"x10" silver gelatin prints with quotes from interviews, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts through the Maryland Arts Council. The exhibition was shown at The Baltimore Museum of Industry, Baltimore Maryland, The Slater Mill Historic Site, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and The American Labor Museum, Heldon, New Jersey.

Hammering out tough new turf
March 02, 1992|By Wil S. Hylton | Wil S. Hylton,Staff Writer
Cindy Gail Konits' pictures make viewers think twice about sexual stereotypes.

On display at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, her exhibit of 40 black and white photographs depicts 23 working women in fields historically dominated by men. The show, "The Best Woman for the Job," introduces women in fields such as construction, railroad engineering and steelworking, which the photographer hopes will expose viewers to non-traditional career options for women and "show young women that it can be done."

Exhibited through March 31 as part of Women's History Month, the portraits are accompanied by brief statements expressing the obstacles and challenges of working in these fields. "You have to put blinders on to a certain extent as far as what men's reaction will be," explained Ms. Konits, who has been documenting women in non-traditional jobs since 1990, "and you have to work hard to prove that you're a real good worker -- and a real team worker." The museum chose to present the exhibit to give the women recognition and shine the spotlight on the less-celebrated advocates of women's equality.

These women have opened many doors for other women, said the museum's assistant director, Ann Steele, "to make a niche for themselves in a field that's traditionally male."

Ms. Konits said, "I think that we're in a sort of transition period as far as women getting jobs in these fields. The numbers are still small even though we all thing, 'Women can get jobs where they want,' I think that by seeing it, it reminds you that there are still a few (women) there -- that we still have a way to go. It reminds you that just because (the opportunity) is there, it doesn't mean it's easy for these women."

Nearly all of the profiled women faced difficulties being included by co-workers upon entering their jobs, Ms. Konits said, but all were soon accepted as members of the team, as the men learned "how to work with a woman and the women proved that they were there to do the work." In the end, Ms. Konits said, learning to work together is what ensures equal treatment.

Sharon Eder, whom Ms. Konits regrets only being able to profile under one profession, doubles as a carpenter by day and a private detective by night. Working as a carpenter for seven years, she has faced difficulty being hired for some jobs, often being told that a woman could not handle the work. At her last job site, she was nearly denied a position by the boss at first, she remembered, "and then seven weeks later he made me a foreman!"

Ms. Eder believes her successful performance on the job has helped other women work as carpenters. The best way to teach people that women can work as well as men, she said, is "me getting out there and not only proving that I could do the work, but that I could be a boss, too." As an indication of progress, she noted that in the past year she has worked with more women than in her previous six years as a carpenter.

"I think [the photographic display] will open eyes in seeing that it doesn't matter what sex you are. I think it will help tremendously," said steelworker Kathy Damico, who is also profiled in the exhibit. During her 16 years on the job -- as one of only two women in the mechanical department at Bethlehem Steel -- she initially experienced difficulties, but co-workers gradually became more understanding, she said. Working beside men proved to them that she could do the work. "It kind of broke the barrier," she said.

The goal of the exhibit is to show audiences the struggle these women are experiencing to gain equality at work, Ms. Konits said. "Their access to the jobs of their choice is actually very limited because men simply don't know how to work with a woman. The women in these photographs are teaching men on a day-to-day basis how to work with a woman."

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-03-02/features/1992062207_1_women-in-fields-women-equality-women-can-work

My interactive CD-ROM entitled “The I for Pleasure” was selected by Joaneath Spicer, Curator for the Walters Art Gallery, Lisa Corrin, Curator for the Contemporary Museum, and Barry Nemett, faculty member of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, to be included in the "Going for Baroque" exhibition at the Walters Art Gallery.

Two weeks prior to the opening of the exhibition, I received a letter from Mariana S. Simpson, Chief Curator of the Walters Art Gallery, stating that the work could not be shown for reasons of content and was, therefore, censored from the exhibition.

Coincidentally, that same week the works entitled “Amuro Puro” by Kukuli Velarde and “Queen for a Day” by David Reynolds, were removed from exhibition spaces at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, along with AIDS/HIV informational posters and “A Day Without Art” announcements in preparation for Portfolio Day weekend, all for reasons of content.

Although the works were reinstalled in their appropriate exhibition spaces the following Monday morning, this incident triggered a highly public response from faculty and students, forcing one of the most prominent cultural institutions in Baltimore to examine its position on the issue of censorship.

THE VEIL OF INTENT is my personal account of the events surrounding the censorship not only of my own work, but also the work of fellow artists within this specific community.

The “Going for Baroque” exhibition at the Walters Art Gallery, created with the collaboration of the Contemporary Museum, juxtaposed Baroque paintings from the Walters’ collection with works of contemporary artists inspired by Baroque art. Cindy Konits’ interactive work on CD-ROM “The I for Pleasure” was curated for inclusion in the “Going for Baroque” exhibition by Joaneath Spicer, Curator for the Walters, Lisa Corrin, Curator for the Contemporary Museum.

“The I for Pleasure” enabled the viewer to explore the provocative sexuality of Baroque paintings, including several from the Walters’ collection, in the context of graphics commonly encountered on the Internet in the years of its early popularity when the multimedia interface called the World Wide Web was first introduced. The World Wide Web and Baroque art each emerged in an era of remarkable technological and scientific advancement.
















































In fact, images downloaded from “the Web” were compared directly with paintings from the Walters Art Gallery Baroque Collection itself, such as Francesco Furnini's "St. Agatha" painting.

All revolutions including the neolithic revolution, bronze age, iron age, or industrial revolution have been technical, simulating the physicality of the human body, but our new technologies such as digital photography, simulate the nervous system. Media philosopher Vilem Flusser (1920-1991) suggested this revolution is generating an immaterial ‘spiritual’ revolution in which linguistic communication, both the spoken and the written word, are no longer capable of transmitting the thoughts and concepts that we have concerning the world. New codes, such as the digital photograph, are being elaborated to ‘calculate the world’ and a new attitude toward the image is necessary and is developing.
 
So it is my firm belief, that if you want, nowadays, to have a clear and distinct communication of your concepts, you have to use synthetic images, no longer words. And this is a veritable revolution in thinking…which can be compared to the one which gave origin to history. (Vilem Flusser 1988)
 
The following excerpts from the ongoing series beginning July 2016  “HI, CAN I TAKE YOUR PICTURE?” illustrate the present sensibility of the digital photographic image as means of communication, interaction, and sharing of common humanity with a stranger.
 
 
Cindy Konits
 
Baltimore, Maryland
New York City, New York
London, England.