ARTIST STATMENT
OUT THE WINDOW (LAX) 2001-05

The question of how to photograph Los Angeles has been central in recent work -
how to approach a place that moves in shifts and perpetual motion with no 
real center, no point of concentration.  Movement in LA is not a walking-motion; 
it breathes in anonymous transit, spread and wide, seen through passing cars 
or from airplane windows.  This project investigates LAX and its surrounding 
infrastructure as a point of non-center, a metaphor for Los Angeles, captured 
from surrounding satellite positions.  Consisting of 27 photographs of planes 
coming in to land, the images are shot from the inside/back of hotel/motel 
rooms from all hotels surrounding LAX  (including hotels next to the runway 
as well as cheaper motels beyond LaCienega-a dividing line-deep in Inglewood.) 
 
Images are large and window-sized, 27x27”, mounted and laminated.  
Although planes in descent, framed by the hotel windows, are the main 
subject of the photos (and are the only things in focus), they are always 
difficult to see. The majority of each image consists of an anonymous 
interior of a slightly-out-of-focus room –overlooked foreground of edges 
of beds, sides of chairs and clashing curtains. Within these almost-forgotten 
details there exists a charged potential for narrative, both within the room itself 
and what may exist beyond the windows (acknowledged references to Sept 11th).  
 
I photograph what is peripheral, not what centrally is, paralleling the mundaneness 
of a forgotten and sprawled LA.  It is through this repetition and unravelling of this 
structure, pushed by narrative punctuation, that there emerges an animated sense
of this perpetualized motion.  LAX as metaphor/Out the Window (LAX).


HOTELS INCLUDED:

(west of la cienega)				
The LAX Radisson					    
The LAX Courtyard by Marriot   
The LAX Sheraton Gateway        
The LAX Crowne Plaza               
The LAX Sheraton Four Points    
The LAX Embassy Suites            
The LAX Rennaissance Hotel       
The LAX Marriott                        
The LAX Hilton 
The LAX Travelodge                          
The LAX Westin Hotel                 
The LAX Quality Inn                  
The LAX Holiday Inn 

(east of la cienega)        
The LAX Dai Chi
The LAX Caesar’s Motel
The LAX Best Western Suites 
The LAX Comfort Inn
The LAX Seabreeze Inn
The LAX Ramada 
The LAX Rodeway Inn 
The LAX Hotel Tivoli
The LAX Marietta’s Hotel
The LAX Hampton Inn
The LAX Super 8
The LAX Econolodge
The LAX Microtel