“Holiday” is a 56 page digital print newspaper photo-zine. The story told in this publication came out of a body of work that unfolded when I detached from expectations of outcome while traveling through Europe.
– Work in Progress –
Sight and representation are linked to memory. It goes without saying, the invention of photography has influenced and mediated this process. The question of "how" and "why" humans see is affected by experiences, cultural beliefs and assumptions as much as it is by the mass consumption of technologies of sight. The way a society attempts to portray itself is essential to my concern as a participant, photographer and observer in an image-saturated culture. In this ongoing body of work, I examine the tools of these attempts.
Mass: an installation project about creating visual disruptions in places of mass.
The way we consume images perpetuates the abyssal production-consumption cycle. This has contributed to a flattening of space and culture into “non-places,” as evidenced by the proliferation of the “Big Box” store (supercenter, superstore, or megastore). Mass is a series of installations that capitalizes on and intervenes in an ecosystem of already existing objects within the retail landscape. Components for site-specific installations are culled from products in the store and arranged for their formal relationships--repetition in color, form and type. The products are altered only in their relative position, yet their actual context remains the same. Using the very environment of their economy without permission or purchase temporarily lends them an aesthetic, punk quality, but this disruption has a very short lifespan before being dismantled and restocked by store staff and/or shoppers, dissolving back into the consumer goods lexicon they emerged from. The installations are photographed prior to being disassembled, printed in the store’s photo department, placed in unpurchased frames and staged as unsanctioned exhibitions in the store’s home department. Any given exhibition contains images of dozens of different installations; the longest running show being 30 minutes before the frames were ultimately purchased by attendees--i.e. consumers.
Unlike art objects that function similarly in a market of purchasable goods, Mass installations are cannibalizing the environment of these products and isolating them in their native non-space of consumer capitalism. They exist within their intended context and market, and the items ultimately serve their intended use: to generate profit and perform for consumers--something that in the end is unhindered by their fleeting life as art snapshots. Mass highlights, uses, and ruptures this system from the inside, without a net loss or gain and takes advantage of the ready-made showroom floor that is the florescent lights and endless aisles of the consumer landscape.
Please visit the project website for more information: MassProject.biz
Press
Guate International Photo Festival
Fast Company
Slate
National Public Radio
Gestalten
L.A. Times
Month of Photography LA
Issue Magazine
Mn Artists
Visual Supply Co.
Humble Arts Foundation
Client: Herman Miller
Director: Carson Davis Brown
Art Direction: Kelly Mier O’Hara
Editorial: Amanda Koellner
Styling: Grace Kelly
New American Quilts (NAQ) is a site-specific installation and photographic project simulating branded edifice and the promise of abundance, inspired by the tradition of American quilting and the performative technique of détournement.
Adopting the formal conventions of the big box store as constraint, the patchworks are built on-site from found materials and products. These highly geometric arrangements are made without permission and left until disassembled by consumers and staff. Photographs of the patchworks are then “woven” into blankets with the assistance of W@lm@rt's personalized gifts department.
New American Quilts has been awarded a grant from the VSCO Artist Initiative™.
“Workplace Communities That Inspire and Innovate!” or “Where Life and Business Meet, Everyone Prospers!” or “Creating the Most Vibrant Workplace Communities to Help Businesses Flourish!”
“Workplace Communities that Inspire and Innovate!’ or ‘Where Life and Business Meet, Everyone Prospers!’ or ‘Creating the Most Vibrant Workplace Communities to Help Businesses Flourish!” is a performative exploration of the non-space: anonymized, alien structures that permeate the landscape of our post-global society. Utilizing the gaze of a compromised security feed to document colorful arrangements of fruits and balls, I transform otherwise mundane, ordinary spaces such as office building lobbies, bringing forth plucky absurdity and confusion for viewers IRL or elsewhere. Recorded remotely, my presence as an artist is ambiguous. I work in-parallel to these monotonous architectures instead to forge a process-oriented play-space antithetical to the dominant mode.
Another way of saying this could be: I’m an unsanctioned banana in a highly sanctioned world.
Director/Editor: Carson Davis Brown
Art Direction: Mark Beard
Producer/Stylist: Grace Kelly
DP: Carson Davis Brown, Brett Carlson, Craig Harmer
Gaffer: Casey McClurken
Color Grading: Chop and Hue
Sound Design: Grant Floering, Cameron Boswell
Cabin-Time is a roaming creative residency to remote places. In April of 2017, Cabin-Time took a group of 14 artists to the windy Tuttle Creek Campground in Inyo County, California. This is a short film about the artists involved.
Cabin-Time: E. Sierras Film
Filmed/Directed: Carson Davis Brown
Edited: Carson Davis Brown & Scott Hanson
Title Illustrations: Geoff Holstad
Music:
Jo Jones drum solo recorded by Louis Panassie (samples)
Bedouins of the Middle East - Field Recordings by Deben Bhattacharya (1955, 1960)
Faramarz Payvar — Dastgah e Nava VIV
The Royals - Pick Up The Pieces/ Sound Dimension - Pick Up Version
Jean Kassapian - The Snake
On-Site Field Recordings:
Ryan Greaves
Micah Middaugh
Geoff Holstad
Mary Rothlisberger
Archival Footage:
Freedom Highway (Part 1) by Fairbanks (Jerry) Productions (Prelinger Archives)
Photography:
Carson Davis Brown
Photography: Carson Davis Brown
Producer/Stylist: Grace Kelly
Photo Assistant: Casey McClurken
Art Direction: Joshua Weichhand
Photography: Carson Davis Brown
Styling/Producer: Grace Kelly
Assist: Casey McClurken
Location: Nova Scotia
Very Fine Jewellery
Cabin-Time is a roaming creative residency to remote places. Taking artists from around the world to off-grid locations to work in collaborative, intentional isolation. As a Cabin-Time crew member CDB serves as documentarian, filming and photographing each residency. CT films are inspired by the experimental nature of the project and give a unique look into each residency.
Director/Editor: Brett Carlson
DP: Carson Davis Brown
Additional footage: Brett Carlson
Photography/Producer: Carson Davis Brown
Location: Oahu, Hawaii
AIGA is the oldest and largest professional membership organization for design. In 2015 West Michigan's AIGA chapter hosted the national leadership conference in Grand Rapids, Mi. CDB was commissioned to direct a film introducing Grand Rapids and it's design community to the conference attendees. The film is inspired by AIGA WM's design portfolio, its studio life and the city's grid. All imagery was achieved in camera.
Director/DP/Editor: Carson Davis Brown
Producer: Zach Runge
Gaffer: Casey McClurken
AC: Tyler Holman
Grip & Electric: Tyler Grimm
Drone Operator: Seth Carver
Choreographer: Marlee Grace
Projection Talent: Sam Gibbs, Michael Newsted
Music: Waldo - "N" (prod. by Sango), AGO Music
BIG Thank you to:
Conduit Studio, Gorilla, Michael Smith, Nick Stockton, and Ryan Greaves
Art Direction: Joshua Weichhand
Photography/DP/Edit: Carson Davis Brown
Styling: Grace Kelly
Assist: Casey McClurken
Video Music: Howard - Money Can't Buy
Location: Puerto Rico
Cabin-Time is a roaming creative residency to remote places. Taking artists from around the world to off-grid locations to work in collaborative, intentional isolation. As a Cabin-Time crew member CDB serves as documentarian, filming and photographing each residency. These are a selection of images from the past four CT residencies (Sheep Island, ME. - Green River, UT. - Santa, ID. - Wilderness, MI.)
Art Direction: Joshua Weichhand
Photography/DP/Edit: Carson Davis Brown
Styling/Producer: Grace Kelly
Drone Operator: Seth Carver
Assist: Casey McClurken
Production Assist: Zach Runge
Location: Oregon
Harvest season in Palouse, WA lasts about 2 months. In this time much of the town is covered by a blanket of dust. The dust gets thicker as you approach the grain elevator, where you'll find Rick and David. For the 2 months of harvest season, 14 hour days 7 days a week, Rick and David's lives are the grain elevator. Directing, unloading, loading, shoveling, sweeping, distributing, repairing, working. These photographs were taken at the Palouse grain elevator with a Polaroid Land Camera 250, late summer 2013.
High Desert Test Sites is a non-profit organization that supports intimate and immersive experiences and exchanges between artists, critical thinkers, and general audiences – challenging all to expand their definition of art to take on new areas of relevancy.
HDTS requested CDB to document various events throughout HDTS: Epicenter. This is a selection of imagery from a "screens free" (including digital cameras) sleep out project hosted in Wild Horse Canyon.
Director/Executive Producer: Mark Baas
Director of Photography: Carson Davis Brown
Editor: Aaron Carriere
Second Camera Operators:
Jay Irwin
Cassidy Bisher
Mark Baas
Drone Camera:
Tommy Knight
Eric Snyder
Colorists:
Chad Terpstra
Andrew Tingley
Sound: Stuart Poltrock
Line Producer: Mary Powers
Administrator: Carolyn Baas
Grips:
Alan Carter
Jeff Douglas
Brian Boniface
Jeff Long
Musicians:
The Other Side - Glass Drops
Safe/ /Sorry - Prism
Lee Brooks - The Golden Age of Equality
Sapient - Out From Under
Gangplans - Like We Never Have
Driver: Ryan Lenger
Director: Brett Carlson
DP: CDB
Edit: CDB/Brett Carlson
Additional footage: Brett Carlson
Cabin-Time 7 took thirteen resident artists to the Deer Isle Archipelago off Stonington Maine. We stayed on Sheep Island from August 28–September 4, 2015, and explored the islands tidal zones and interior. These are a few photos of island times.
