By
Kate VonderPorten
Arizona Daily Wildcat
CCP now showing interactive exhibit by photographer Lorie Novak
Photographer Lorie Novak is flipping through old family photos - only, they are not all her own.
Novak, chair of the department of photography and imaging at New York University, will show two of her exhibits consecutively at the Center for Creative Photography through April 29, including one interactive exhibit that will incorporate the use of collected family photographs.
Recently purchased by the CCP, the first exhibit, "Lorie Novak: Photographs, 1983-2000," is comprised of 30 large-scale photographs collected from throughout Novak's career.
The second - a multimedia exhibit titled "Collected Visions: An Installation by Lorie Novak" - involves computer-generated projections of 350 family photos from many individuals as well as audio excerpts of these people discussing the images. Novak said the photos and audio clips were collected over the course of five years from friends and "anyone who would be interviewed."
In the first exhibit, Novak used her own family photos to explore photography's role in conveying truth, personal identity and memory.
"I am interested in how family photos represent a family's experiences. Everyone in a family will look at a photo of an event and remember it differently - and then what is the truth?" she said. "I think it is different for different people."
Novak said she does not want to simply illustrate the specific events so much as the storytelling potential of the images. She would rather concentrate on the inherent role family photographs play in constructing memories, she said.
She added that she hopes those who view her work will be inspired to take a new look at their own old photos.
"I hope that people are moved (by my work) and it will make them think of their family photos differently," she said.
"The art of Lorie Novak gives new meaning to the family snapshots that fill basement boxes and dusty albums," stated CCP gallery curator Trudy Wilner Stack in a email interview. "She reveals their universal power to recall childhood and the relationships, events and material world that are the puzzle pieces to our life before today."
Using a high-resolution digital projector, Novak's computer-generated installation, "Collected Visions," is displayed on the walls of the gallery. The images are of family photographs that appear and fade as music and audio clips play in the background.
Novak included the audio component to not only complement the computer- generated images but also to provide a more meaningful experience for her audience.
"The music takes (the exhibit) to a deeper level in terms of emotion," she said. "I used the voices because I wanted to be specific about peoples' feelings regarding their photos."
As part of the installations, the public is invited to participate in a Web gallery and bring pictures of family members to the CCP on three special collecting days. The CCP will scan the pictures and then include them in an internet gallery called "Collected Visions" (www.cvisions.cat.nyu.edu).
Novak said she created this website both as a complement to her personal work and as a place for people to share their own family experiences and photos.
"My Web project is more of a neutral storytelling site -- my feelings and opinions are not involved," she said. "The Web site was inspired by people telling me stories when (I was) traveling."
Despite her detailed technological approach to artistic expression, Novak did not want to force her work into a specific classification.
"I'm an artist who makes photographs, installations and Web projects - simply put."
