A Passenger's Gaze (or I80@80) from Susan Moldenhauer

My work in the panorama format began one day in 2014 while traveling between Laramie and Jackson Hole, WY. Overnight the speed limit on Interstate 80 changed from 75 to 80 mph. What would happen if I set my iPhone on “panorama” and pointed it out the passenger window as I was moving at 80 mph? The first image was interesting, the second intriguing. It led to an ongoing exploration of image-making made from the passenger’s seat wherever I travel, whether into town, across the state and beyond.

For me, these panorama images are dense, compressed expressions of time and place. Embedded in digital capture are artifacts of bumps in the road which contribute to the image’s compositional undertone, or digital staccato, repetitions of technical clutter that contribute a rhythmic gesture to the composition. Fundamental to the image-making process is the element of chance which begins with the click of the shutter. What is captured cannot be anticipated and is influenced by such factors as speed, road conditions, light, and the vagaries of the iPhone panorama-stitching process. The painterly, lyrical and poetic, sometimes narrative, images are uncropped and unaltered in post-production.

Most of the works in this series are offered as unframed prints.

Two works are archivally matted in white metal frames:

Walm, 2014
a, 2015