Frequently Asked Questions

This F.A.Q. is divided into two main sections: "Origins", and "Goals and Philosophy".

Q. When and why did this project start?

A. In my mind, it began back in 2004 when I began to perceive that I was going to have to move beyond my work in documentary photography to explore the city. As interesting (and for me, compelling) as documentary is, I recognized it was not going to be enough to answer the questions that were forming in my mind about the nature of the city. Though I didn’t launch this website until 2008, it was in 2004 that I began to formulate on paper the theory as to why this was true and a plan for how to move beyond the realm of documentary. I began experimenting with painting and mixed media about a year after that.

Q. How did you do that? Begin experimenting, that is.

A. I purchased a lot of inexpensive art supplies, set up an area in my basement that I could refer to in my mind as my ‘studio’, and just started trying to make whatever I felt–drawings, paintings, and so forth, from my reservoir of documentary photos. I started on a very instinctive level, yet it was ‘instinct’ conditioned by considerable thinking about the city from a sociological standpoint.

Q. So this project is a direct descendent of your work in Picturing Chicago?

A. Yes. Both materially and philosophically. It literally uses the products of that project–the photos themselves–as the impetus for everything that is created in this project (even those things like ‘abstract’ works and new stylistically-manipulated or created photos that do not appear on the documentary website). Further, it makes use of the knowledge I have acquired and questions I have developed because of that work. Finally, it shares the same basic concerns, beliefs, goals and influences as those described for that project (which is why both websites share the same ‘About’ document). Though these are technically separate websites, they are literally and philosophically linked to one another and should be understood as two components of one unified (if large and far reaching) project.

Q. Let’s talk about some of those things–goals and beliefs. Can you describe the basic goal of the project?

A. Basically, I am fascinated with the idea of the city. I am in love with it. It is a fascination that has been with me as long as I can remember; one that has grown in importance for me over time to the point that it is now an overriding concern, both intellectually and emotionally. I think we all carry around with us certain ideas or themes or concerns of central importance in our lives, and I don’t believe that these are ultimately ‘explainable’ in terms of referencing a single, root cause or spark. They just are. And one very large theme/idea/concern for me is the city. I am riveted, in every way, by cities. I am riveted by the idea of the city. I want to study them, experience them, analyze them, live them, feel them. I want to explore the city in all of its configurations and moods and to go about conveying what I discover from that exploration through pictures. I want to ‘figure out’ the city. I want to do this via pictures because long, careful consideration leads me to conclude that pictures are the best way to go about it–the exploring and the conveying. It is the same goal I had when beginning my work in documentary photography. I have simply expanded the means to achieve it.

Q. Is that how you get to the idea of the ‘mystical’ city? What does that mean, exactly?

A. The idea of the mystical is at the heart of the philosophy of this project. It accounts for the elements missing (or at least not as readily apparent) from what I think of as ‘phase one’–the documentary work.

Given my background as a sociologist, this was the field to which I obviously turned my attention when trying to figure out why the city has, for so long now, been a fascination of mine. In Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), Georg Simmel was among the first to attempt to grasp the fundamental nature of the modern city. Also a sociologist, he viewed the city as a ‘social form’ in opposition to the rural; a set of patterns of behavior and institutional strategies that promoted both personal freedom and social disorganization. Mental life of the city dweller was characterized by intellectuality, individuality and emotional reserve.

Lewis Mumford (1938) continued this exploration of the connection between the city and mental life, arguing that the city is an artful reorganization of space and time with the power to condition mind. "Mind takes form in the city . . ." Years later, he extended this point through the metaphor of city as ‘magnet’. Here, the city expands its reach beyond inhabitants because, as every magnet does, the city also consists of a ‘field’ and thus the possibility for ‘action at a distance, visible in the lines of social force which draw to the center particles of a different nature . . .’

Still, compelling as the ideas of such theoretical giants may be, something felt for me as if it was missing from the equation. One might agree completely with the ideas above, yet remain unconvinced that they tell the full truth of the thing. ‘Yes, but . . . ‘ might describe the sensation. Perhaps Martindale (1958) put it best: "When one examines the urban books it is not immediately apparent where they are deficient. It is certainly not in their statistical tables–since every city is a somewhat untidy statement in applied mathematics. . . Nor can one say the urban books are deficient in the kind of items they include. What is a city without political parties, bosses, machines, chambers of commerce, . . . playgrounds, slums, main streets . . .? One may find anything or everything in the city texts except the informing principle that creates the city itself. Everything is present except the one precise essential that gives life to the whole. . . The theory of the city somehow cannot account for what every journalist, poet, and novelist knows– the city is a living thing. . . . "

Yes, I realized, that’s it. The city is a living thing. It most assuredly works to form the minds of individuals, as Simmel and Mumford argued. But what is missing from the equation is the converse argument; the city itself is also formed by those same minds. It is a living thing not only because it forms the life of the mind, but because it is alive in (formed by) the mind at the same time. It is alive because, above all else, the city is an imagined phenomenon. Imagination is Martindale’s missing ingredient–the informing principle that creates and gives life to the city. Imagination in its most expansive meaning explains the city as a reality beyond reason, logic and analysis. It explains the city as a mystical entity.

The mystical is that which is spiritually symbolic, mysterious. A spiritual reality not apparent to rational intelligence. The mystical is beyond ordinary understanding grounded in empirical perception, and for this very reason, constitutes the unknowable within the frameworks like those described above. Yet the mystical is central to the mind that forms in accordance with the ‘artful reorganization of space and time’, for the mind includes not only rational intelligence, but intuition, perception, instinct and imagination. This is the truth that the poets and novelists (and I would add, artists) know. All of these components of mind, not rational intelligence alone, take form within the context of place and conversely, place as we envision it, takes form in the mind that spills over the edge of rationality and into the realm of the empirically unknowable.

These components of mind work in concert to form the alive city, the imagined city–the city of myth. By this I mean myth in its classical sense; myth not as a statement about truth or falsehood, but myth as an archetypal truth. Myth not as the opposite of ‘the real’, but as an ultimate reality, the kind which is accessible only by embracing those aspects of mind that go beyond rational intelligence to create a unified whole. Reason indistinguishable from imagination: the mythical, mystical city.

Q. So the content presented on this website is designed to go beyond the original Picturing Chicago project to achieve these goals?

A. Exactly. The idea of this website is two-fold. First, it is to group pictures together in interesting ways to explore facets of the city that remain unexamined in the strict organizing framework of Picturing Chicago. That is the first ‘new’ use of the documentary photographs amassed so far. Second, it is to create entirely new pictures from those documentary photos (directly or indirectly), with luck opening up yet more possibilities for understanding the city.

Thus the website is organized around the general idea of the ‘creative process’. That is, the galleries display works according to the creative (mental and literal) processes used to create the content. There are galleries of photo essays, which serve to literally regroup and thus psychologically re-present the photos from the Picturing Chicago website. That is one process of creation. There are galleries of photo albums, which are arranged ‘stylistically’ because photographs are created in deliberate styles with the aim of rethinking the city. Then there are galleries that depict how individual photographs serve to spawn a range of new works, each of which is a different take on some particular aspect of the city. Still other galleries are albums of photo-derived works all presented in a distinct artistic style, which are designed to give ones mind a more thorough re-visioning of a place in ‘bulk’, so to speak. And then there are galleries that are derived from photos only in the most indirect way; those that present the city in its fully imagined form.

All such ideas are attempts to go in a number of directions at once. One direction is a fuller exploration of an individual city in as many different ‘ways of seeing’ as can be imagined. Another direction is the comparison and contrast of multiple different cities in order to ascertain both their distinct selves and their overriding commonalities. Still another direction is to examine ‘the city’ (either individually or as an idea) as a manifestation of space-time that yields up to us who we are, how we are, and why we are, both individually and collectively.