A Event

Artist talk: John Milisenda

About

Stream of Consciousness: an inner dialogue of photographic journey.
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Biography
John Milisenda’s photography has appeared in over 150 shows and in many publications including Smithsonian and the New York Times. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Harry Ransom Collection, Brooklyn Museum, Museum Of The City Of New York, and the Bibliotheque Nationale. in Paris. He has taught basic photography, The Zone system and Photographic chemistry at Drexel University The New School and Parson school of Design. He has lectured on many different photographic topics.

Website: johnmilisenda.com

About the Talk:
Selecting photographs from the thousands taken during John Milsenda’s lifetime for this lecture was a daunting task. However, it highlights the central role of the stream of consciousness in his creative process.

Photographers often question how they arrive at particular images, frequently discovering unexpected insights during the development process. This creative unconscious functions as an underlying stream that artists continuously draw upon. For Milsenda, two quotations provided inspiration for this exploration, not as definitive answers but as sparks for thought and creativity.

One quotation comes from William James’ 1892 essay on the Stream of Consciousness:
“Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.”

Another definition expands on the concept:
“In literature, a technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence. The writer attempts by the stream of consciousness to reflect all the forces, external and internal, influencing the psychology of a character at a single moment. The technique was first employed by Édouard Dujardin (1861–1949) in his novel Les Lauriers sont coupés (1888) and was subsequently used by such notable writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.”

These perspectives, combined with metaphors from James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, served as guides in curating the photographs for this exhibition. Each image represents an act of free association, yet together they flow in a seamless confluence. Appropriately, the exhibition has been titled Streams of Consciousness.