Tim Soter… blog.

World of Darkness - Bronx Zoo – (1969 – 2009)

This week after forty years, the World of Darkness exhibit at the Bronx Zoo was permanently closed.

The World of Darkness, designed by Morris Ketchum, Jr. & Associates, opened in 1969 on the site where the zoo’s Rocking Stone restaurant stood until 1942.  The exhibit was the world’s first major exhibit of nocturnal animals; among them: bats, possum, bushbabies and night monkeys.  Darkroom-like lights (“red light experiments” as they Zoo billed them) illuminated the animals inside this windowless curving structure.  Attendees moved along in almost complete darkness; the exhibit reversed day and night so that visitors could see the animals in their active nocturnal state. Now, the animals will be relocated to other Zoos throughout the country. The exhibitions was closed due to budget cutbacks to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) which has affected all five facilities in New York: Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and the New York Aquarium.

I went there yesterday to see it one last time and I got there  to find that it had closed the day before.  Even the staff weren’t notified in advance as to the exact day – almost everyone was caught off guard.  I almost cried.  Nothing else looks like this dark slabbed windowless fortress.  It is truly extraordinary.

Thanks to Daniel for his valuable historical knowledge of the exhibit.

Shot in Florida in 2001 with an Olympus Stylus Epic.

I had the pleasure of seeing Throbbing Gristle play their first ever NYC performance a few nights ago.  Brief explanation, Throbbing Gristle, who formed in 1975 and last toured the US (West Coast only) in 1981, “pioneered industrial music; exploring death, mutilation, fascism, and degradation amid a thunderous cacophony of mechanical noise, tape loops, extremist anti-melodies, and bludgeoning beats, the group’s cultural terrorism.”

Genesis P. Orridge, the group’s transgendered front woman (front “being?”) is someone to truly admire.  I told a friend recently that when I think about what Genesis has achieved, everything that I do is something that has already been done.  And actually everything that most people do has already been done or is within a narrow preconceived space, relatively speaking.  Maybe that’s being overly dramatic and change occurs slowly, but when was the last time you were immersed in something that was beyond you, bigger than you.  Bigger than the way you think.  Broader than your capacity to imagine and then implement. That is not simply the sounds that Genesis (and friends) created but the entire path of living chosen by her.  Knowing that the body modification and cultural havok that she’s going to constitute will permanently alienate her from ninety percent of the population… and still continuing with fervor, is a new definition of bravery.  It’s personal for me because I’ve always struggled between a duality (not gender/sexual identity related) between who I am and who I present, as many of us do.  I feel there is an unprecedented unity to the interior and exterior of Genesis. It’s like wearing your head on your sleeve.

I encourage you to see them before they’re gone forever.

Below is an excerpt from the earlier set, the live score to the Derek Jarman’s 1974 film, ‘In the Shadow of the Sun.’  Performance at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, April 16, 2009.

THROBBING GRISTLE In the Shadow of the Sun score MP3 EXCERPT

Photos and audio from a recent visit to Toto, the manhattan karaoke den in Koreatown on 32nd street.  As mentioned before in a previous post I’m still enamored with my Sony audio recorder, the sound is so clear that the embarrassment is in 3D.  Still…

Dont Speak

The Boy With the Thorn in his Side

Biggest Part of Me

I chose these three tracks to post because one performance is done with the sweetness of a teenager in her bedroom, another from a hardcore fan… who also practiced way too much in his high school bedroom.  Lastly, a track that two men should never attempt.  These MP3s are best heard downloaded and in the closeness of headphones.  Again (if you’re a New Yorker) I encourage you to listen while on the subway because there’s something about listening to an ambient recording of an environment when you’re trapped on a train full of people who all pretending to ignore each other.

PS:  If you hear people reacting to something other than the performance, for some reason Toto was broadcasting a Celine Dion concert as the background visuals for the entire second half of the night.  Psychedelically distracting.

Yesterday, invited in by Brad Paris, I talked to a class at FIT.  Normally I would just give a little background about myself and how I arrived at photography, then roll right into my portfolio complete with the anecdotes about the shoots.  I decided to start off differently this time, and at the risk of sounding preachy, shared a quote by Duane Michals that I had found a few years ago – which I printed and LAMINATED, and now carry around in my wallet.

Duane Michals: Do it. You have two choices in life–doing and bullshit. I hate photographers who talk about photographs but never take any. And the only way you’re ever going to grow…two things, one you have to take risks, you have to be able to let go of all your preconceived notions of what photography should be, and open yourself to the possibilities. Otherwise you’re going to be spinning your wheels the rest of your life.

It’s pretty strong and practical philosophy that is difficult to refute.  I find myself trying to think my way outside of frustration with photography all the time and it’s never once been effective.  There is only trying and doing.  Read the whole interview with Michals here.

Thanks go out to the security team at FIT for giving me my new moniker, Tim Scoter, (pronounced “scooter” I would imagine.)  Sounds like I’m a member of the Burger King Kids’ Club.

These are photos made for Bloomberg Markets for a story on art warehouses in New York City.  Bloomberg Markets are one of my favorite clients, they give me a lot of creative freedom to illustrate their stories and I’m truly always excited to be commissioned to make the accompanying art.  Thanks goes out to Eric, Cody, Blakely and Beth.