Maybe they really do just want to get to the other side.

::

This has been a preview of The Understanding Monster, Book One; Available someday from certain locations.  If you love Theo’s art, check out the Thought Cloud Factory.  If you don’t, maybe you will enjoy this site about boring numbers instead.

Kip Sikora is a photojournalist, multimedia producer and digital artist based in Missoula, MT. Prior to moving to Montana he was quite sure he had left a large part of his heart in Latin America, but after five years, Big Sky country seems to have made a compelling argument for sinking roots. Aside from art his interests include dogs and music. Check out his website at www.kipsikoraphotography.com

(Have you read Part 1 and Part 2 already?)

Photo: DE

By the time I get to the schoolhouse, I can make out Vlad’s voice as he guides the rest of the group through the destruction. There are several floors to explore and I tread carefully over the rubble and smashed up remnants of furniture in order to rejoin the party. From there we move on to a swimming pool, which I had already seen in a couple of pictures online. The paint peeling off the walls. The giant clock near the shallow end of the pool. The moss and small weeds growing through cracks in the tiles. I wonder how long it will be before these buildings fall to pieces. Vlad refers to Pripyat as a paradise for photographs as he puffs on his cigarette. Indeed, everybody has a camera with them and it seems difficult to imagine some of the objects that we find laying around not to have been positioned strategically for photographs. Random gasmasks, children’s books and part of a broken globe lay distributed on a selection of surfaces, making for excellent photo opportunities.

Photo: DE

It is as though we are walking through a living museum, an encapsulated 3 dimensional archive of abandoned property and paraphernalia intertwined in a pulverised panoply of Soviet architecture. The fact that this area was occupied for less time than it has been abandoned, takes the whole experience to a new and fascinating plateaux of exploration. With birds, bears and other wild beasts being able to sustain the cycle of nature otherwise retarded in parts of the world that have become increasingly populated by humans, this concrete desert, this mangled detritus makes for a brand new insight as to what the world might look like if we human beings decided to pick up and leave.

We exit the school and traipse through several crèches, cloakrooms and classrooms, negotiating pitch-black corridors and dilapidated doorframes before reaching one of the most frequently documented areas of the city. The abandoned fairground in the centre of Pripyat hosts little else other than a small dodgem car area and the famous ferris wheel. The bright yellow paint of the compartments sparkles in the sunlight below the smashed wooden decking at the very base of ride.

The second swimming pool we visit is a lot bigger than the first, it is located in a larger complex that was also fitted with a basketball court. The walls are tarnished with a soil coloured cement and the hoops are missing from the backboards. I decide to split from the group once again and climb several flights of stairs where I find another box of gasmasks and a small series of rooms intertwined with cubbyholes. The damp air is ripe with asbestos, making it difficult to breath as I stagger about taking pictures. Vlad bellows from the ground floor that we have only a few minutes left and I work my way back down the skeleton stairwell, catching Johan’s eye for the first time since alighting the bus. There is little left to do but follow the group to yet another building that is filled with photographic delights, including a run down theatre and a dismantled gallery filled with painted portraits of great Soviet leaders.

Photo: DE

The tour promised a complementary lunch at Cafeteria Number 19, which I am thoroughly looking forward to. What I didn’t realise is that the dining hall is located opposite the power plant, but for some reason this does not bother me. Johan and I begin to discuss what we had just seen. As the coach passes by Reactor Number 4 and approaches the dining hall we have the inevitable discussion as to the feasibility of nuclear power and whether or not this is the way that was should proceed. Nuclear energy is the only way we can go, isn’t it? I suppose that depends who you ask, sure I have read Lovelock and appreciate what the man has to say, but whether one can come to a conclusion based on his argument, I am not sure. I do however recall that Lovelock predicts that most of Europe will be Sub-Saharan by 2040 and that natural resources will remain so very low that we will have to rely on nuclear power to support a specific ecosystem that grants living conditions in very small corners of the world.

Photo: DE

Our conversation continues after we are served dishes of chicken, cabbage and potatoes. The dinner ladies are most jolly in serving extra coffee and pastries as Johan and I move from the subject of nuclear energy to the nicotine infused pouches he places under his lip instead of smoking cigarettes. He offers me one and I suck at it awkwardly while trying to drink my coffee. Our conversation is interrupted by the man in charge of the trip who tells me his chip and pin reader now has a signal, I pay the $150. After stepping foot outside of the cafeteria, it is almost as though I had forgotten where I was. The coach brings the group to a statue depicting a large stone hand, the fingers pointing heavenwards, with a power plant emerging from the palm. Reactor Number 4 and the sarcophagus that supports it stand a couple of hundred meters in front of us. The Geiger counters go berserk.

::

Daniel Emmerson is currently finishing his master thesis, ‘On the Depoliticisation of Confucianism in Chinese Politics’ and is about to start his fifth summer managing the film and photography academy at Millfield in England. He is a regular contributor to High Contrast Review both online and in print. For more of his work, investigate www.danielemmerson.com.

Digital compositions for your viewing pleasure.

Kip Sikora is a photojournalist, multimedia producer and digital artist based in Missoula, MT.  Prior to moving to Montana he was quite sure he had left a large part of his heart in Latin America, but after five years, Big Sky country seems to have made a compelling argument for sinking roots.  Aside from art his interests include dogs and music.  Check out his website at: www.kipsikoraphotography.com

(Have you read Part 1?  Or are you looking for Part 3?)

Photo: DE

The coach pulls up to the 30km exclusion zone after about an hour and a half of travelling from the capital city. The sky is a perfect blue and only a couple of white fluffy clouds linger over this tortured landscape. The bubbly man from the first video announces that everybody needs to have paid in order to receive insurance and that we are only allowed through the barriers of the exclusion zone if we have the relevant insurance documents in our passports. Everybody scrambles off of the bus in order to take pictures of the sign at the entrance. I imagine photographs of the sign paint an eerie and grim atmosphere of the site thirty kilometres away from the exploded power plant. Though with the sun shining and birds singing in the nearby trees, this almost seems like the perfect spot for a picnic. I ask the man in charge if I can pay by card but he has no signal on his chip and pin reader. He hands me my insurance and I promise to pay him later on. The barriers are lifted and the coach crosses through into the zone.

We stop momentarily while our tour guide climbs on board. His name is name is Vlad and he will be our ‘informer’ for the remainder of the day. Johan wakes up and we begin to discuss our excitement for the trip amid our mild concerns for the possible dangers that continue to hang invisible in the air. Our first stop is on one of the main streets in Chernobyl, a city that over a hundred people still refer to as ‘home’. Abandoned houses crumble and rot next to occupied buildings as I flutter about with my camera, taking pictures of rusted streetlights strangled by ivy and stray cats pounding the dusty ground with their paws. A wild juxtaposition exists between the tormented buildings of old and the houses in which people still live, read, work and sleep. Although I am told to stay with Vlad throughout the tour, it is easy enough to wander off by myself and I take full advantage of that. The sun continues to beat down and I remain hesitant about consuming any water while I am in the zone, for fear of what I am unsure, but something wicked lurks in the air.

Photo: DE

I board the bus once again with the rest of the group and we head towards the 10km zone after passing through a small open air ‘museum’ that is gradually being put together for the tourists that pass through. So far it consists of a selection of armoured vehicles that were used to transport soldiers to the plant during the initial stages of the explosion. There is no information concerning any of the tanks or trucks that are littered about this unassuming field.

Photo: DE

When the bus takes off once again, Vlad explains that everybody needs to sign a consent form stating that we will not press charges against the tourist information bureau concerning any long-term illnesses we might get as a consequence of visiting the zone. He is careful to reiterate that Chernobyl is now very safe and in fact the level of radiation in Podol, a district of Kiev, is five times higher than that of some of the areas within the 30-kilometer exclusion zone. Johan and I exchange glances of curiosity as Vlad proceeds to tell of the dangers that we may face if indeed we decide to stray from the tour group. He announces that there are wolves and bears in the Pripyat area and that there have been instances of tourists being attacked by them, particularly one Russian man who proceeded to get drunk on the coach before leaving the group before he went missing for several hours. Vlad continues to inform us that everybody on the coach with the Russian man had to split into groups in order to look for him late into the night and that he was eventually found building a fire somewhere in the woods, covered in cuts and scrapes, drunk out of his mind.

We arrive at the entrance of Pripyat and take pictures of the entrance to the city. The pure white Cyrillic letters shimmer in the sunlight as everybody on the bus takes photos. A bizarre humidity forces me to turn my back to the sign and look down the road that leads to the abandoned city. I try and envisage what it must have been like for the 50,000 inhabitants who were told that they had to leave their homes as a consequence of an invisible threat that had already claimed so many lives. I wonder how they must have felt when the affects of both the radiation and the massive volume of lead that was dropped into the inferno began to take shape. We are hurried back onto the coach and journey continues deeper into the 10-kilometer exclusion zone.

Photo: DE

The city is scattered. The buildings that still remain after 25 years of disregard appear to have been carefully selected by Vlad with regards to which ones we are allowed to visit. He proceeds to take the group through an open concrete square and towards a multi-story building, possibly a school, and I decide to explore on my own. I hang back in a derelict warehouse that is full of broken desks and smashed glass, cables creep out of cracks in the ceiling and I watch my step while walking over shards up to 30 centimetres in length. As the group approaches the school in the distance, I veer to the right and peer up, with only a slight sense of trepidation, at another building. A mural of a girl on a space-hopper, a schoolboy pulling faces and an abandoned shopping trolley all make for particularly odd photographs that just about capture the feeling of emptiness. Unable to see the group, I decide that I will try and catch them up later, if worst comes to worst I can see the coach parked off of the main square and will listen out for the engine. In the meantime, I head up a flight of stairs and come to a concrete platform, the floor is absolutely covered with smashed glass. I tread over it carefully and catch a glimpse of an entrance to the roof of the building. I walk across a wooden beam and climb a third flight of stairs which leads out onto the open roof, which itself has two levels. From here I can see the iconic ferris wheel in the background over a series of crooked rooftops, though I need to clamber up a small coalbunker in order to be able to see the entire city behind an amalgamation of solid metal Cyrillic lettering I am unable to translate. I stand motionless on the rooftop, looking down at the scattered buildings below. The group are nowhere to be seen and I can almost imagine the wild fire, scorching the sky as it blasted from Reactor Number 4. I take one final picture from the rooftop before shimmying my way back down to the ground floor.

Photo: DE

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TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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Daniel Emmerson is currently finishing his master thesis, ‘On the Depoliticisation of Confucianism in Chinese Politics’ and is about to start his fifth summer managing the film and photography academy at Millfield in England. He is a regular contributor to High Contrast Review both online and in print. For more of his work, investigate www.danielemmerson.com.

(Don’t forget to read Part 2 and Part 3!)

The languid fellow from Vladivostok looks over me with a sobering expression, casting a shadow over my cappuccino as I flush fresh caffeine down my throat. There are more people waiting than I had expected, most of them speaking English and flashing across at each other nervously as one by one we approach the registration area. I can feel a warped tension in the air as I hand my passport over to the fresh-faced lady inspecting the list of surnames. As she scans her index finger back and forth up the list, I wonder exactly what the day will bring. Chernobyl. Ever since I was a boy I can remember this word being synonymous with danger, disaster and death. I was only two years old when the nuclear reactor exploded and consequently have no memory of hearing about it about it for the first time, regardless though, the name of that once prosperous city has always made me feel as uneasy as it has curious. The excitement I feel for this most unique adventure utterly demolishes the remains of my hangover. My name is not on the list.

Photo: DE

I look up at my Russian companion and he shrugs, while handing his passport over to the same lady. She finds his name and he pays his $150 before retreating back to the end of the line completely oblivious to my plight. The woman looks up at me bemused and unsympathetic as I fumble with the name of my Chernobyl contact, which I find scrawled in biro on a map of Kiev. I hand it to the lady and she sighs before directing me to another hotel at the opposite end of Independence Square. I hurriedly locate it on the tourist information map and gallop towards the hotel full speed ahead. The sun is already beating down on the concrete laden square as I dash past the statue of Archangel Michael looking over the capital city. The man from Vladivostok calls my name from afar; I twist around and wave back at him while simultaneously spilling coffee all over the place. A taxi driver calls out to me and asks where I am going. The front wheel of his automobile is deflated. He points me in the direction of the hotel and I continue with my sporadic bounding until I see another queue of tourists huddling over a similar looking table to the one I had just left, a couple of people checking passports and taking cash from foreign travellers eager to witness the sights of Chernobyl and explore the abandoned city of Pripyat.

There are still plenty of people waiting to be found on the list of surnames and the whole thing seems particularly disorganised when taking into account the magnitude of the adventure we are about to embark on. I smoke a cigarette on the curb and wait for the queue to die down before handing over my passport. I am guest number 41. Unable to pay the man in cash, I explain that I will sort out the payment with him later on, an arrangement he seems perfectly happy with for the time being. I board the coach and wait another couple of minutes before being joined by a guy with black spiked hair and sunglasses. He introduces himself as Johan and abruptly falls asleep on my shoulder. We are on our way.

Photo: DE

I am desperately eager to find out what else the Ukraine has in store other than whopping Soviet buildings, gilded churches, black angels and face control on the door of every night club in Kiev. The bus ride through rural areas on the way to Chernobyl provides a landscape littered with all sorts of tiny villages and farmyard settings. The sun beams overhead as quaint wooden houses are swallowed up by enormous corn fields and a tremendous blue sky; an apparent reminder of what the Ukrainian flag is supposed to symbolise. Before becoming too entranced by the scenery however, my attention is drawn not only to Johan as he profusely head buts my shoulder, but to the television screen at the front of the bus. Our ‘in flight’ entertainment consists of a short film depicting the guy who checked my passport back in Kiev as he runs about Chernobyl with a Geiger Counter. According to the video, he has been arranging tours for the past ten years within the exclusion zone and thoroughly enjoys his work. This troubles me somewhat as I was under the impression that the government approved tours only a few months ago. The next few shots portray this bubbly Ukrainian chap bouncing about the nuclear reactor as his counter goes berserk… he does not seem to disclose any expression of remote concern. The film finishes abruptly and a second production begins as we speed through several other anonymous rural settlements. The opening shot of this production is of Reactor Number 4 at the Chernobyl plant; fierce jets of fire are depicted spraying into the night sky with disturbing force. The documentary then elaborates on what happened in Chernobyl and how the Soviet government went about dealing with the disaster while having very little clue about the consequences of what happened. According to the narrator of the film, the root cause of the explosion involved some ‘experimental work’ that was carried out at 01:30 in the depths of Reactor Number 4 on April 26th 1986. This then led to the eventual evacuation of Pripyat, which took the authorities all of three days to organise. By this time, a huge number of the people living there were severely contaminated and would spend their final days watching the flesh peel from their bones in a special medical unit somewhere in Moscow.

(-)

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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Daniel Emmerson is currently finishing his master thesis, ‘On the Depoliticisation of Confucianism in Chinese Politics’ and is about to start his fifth summer managing the film and photography academy at Millfield in England.  He is a regular contributor to High Contrast Review both online and in print.  For more of his work, investigate www.danielemmerson.com.

Intro – Basic info / Personal history?

I was born in Victoria, BC, shortly after raised till thirteen in Japan, then eight years in Hawaii, all over. All over. Growing up in Japan, just that being my formative time as a human shaped my views, it’s different, I hold that with me, and run into a lot of things within myself that I find conflicting … I’m thirty now. I have a deep love for Missoula, find it a great place, but I’m not attached here. I’m definitely attracted to bigger cities, because of more extensive art communities, and excitement. That might be overwhelming but I find that I’m now more than ever prepared to be there with a new series, a new body of work, see where I can take it.

Noah Ptolemy - 'Time clock heart beats' - 24.5" x 18.5" - Acrylic ink and India ink on paper - 2009

1. Time clock heart beats - A content and properly detached non-working class, though some dig graves, sits in the flowers while the factory dudes with tools wear crowns and wave balloons in the haze…  Seems nicer outside the fence to me.  Will you tell me a bit about your work history aside from making art, what jobs you’ve done hourly?

Oh man. I currently do a dishwashing job at a Thai place. I’ve had like thirty two jobs in my past, it’s almost like you name it. Mover. Hospital courier. Dairy queen. Hospitality. I think in the beginning, when I wasn’t painting and didn’t realize the creative part I would always have a job and look at it like a possible career, get raises, get a decent life. But once I started painting and knew that was my direction, every job became something to support my painting. A room. Some paint, a couple drinks and some food. I think that painting in particular to me speaks of brutal time spent in jobs that I really did not enjoy but had to be there. One was working in a jeans factory in the hills of North Carolina, totally secluded, looks like a prison. Twelve hour overnight shifts, miserable, but my situation wouldn’t allow me to quit. That painting speaks of stress and people who can’t find any other way aside from what they’re perceiving to be stuck in. The people flying out of the chimneys are examples of people wanting to be free, not being told what to do. Follow your own instinct. It’s funny you see the other side as positive but I meant they were digging their own graves on their lunch break. Can’t take it anymore.

Noah Ptolemy - 'Many times my lies' - 55.5" x 32.5" - Acrylic paint, Acrylic ink, and India ink on wood panel - 2011

2. Many times my lies - This question may seem strange – I think I get the picture’s meaning, what with the dudes crawling up for wealth and promises, falling in pursuit of jewels, or ending up in a loan monster’s belly. My question would be, what would those little characters have to do to get out of the cage? And why did they end up there to begin with? Who are the loan prisoners?!

That’s interesting… I have to bring up the topic of loans. The word loans. It’s got a lot of financial ideas behind it, owing financially but also to me represents friends or peers you owe non-monetary things to. You can owe thing to people, and people can perceive you as owing to them without you even agreeing to it. It can end up with an imbalance. They say closeness breeds animosity. The guys in the cage symbolize personal debt and debts that are unaware to you – how do they end up there? I place all my characters in such conditions and situations so they are all sort of telling their own version of reality. The caged ones, they are examples of people that are carrying around way too much baggage, stuck in the past, can’t move forward, stagnant, but not willing to make a change. It goes beyond the financial. Everyday weight you can’t really get off you. How to get out of the cage?… You know, I guess all my pictures are ultimately always triumphant. These characters I created are trying to come to terms with something larger than themselves, set in this certain environment. To get out, my hope, would be to say that you can pull that out of you, that inner strength, switching that certain way of thinking and turning it into something more positive and productive, not necessarily as physical as it is metaphysical.

Noah's Brushes - SK

3. All the way through - At first I was going to ask some question about social studies stuff like economics and politics and all, but really now that I look at this piece I’m way more curious about technique. Can you kind of talk me through your process for a piece like this?

Noah Ptolemy - 'All the way through' - 48" x 72" - Acrylic paint and India ink on canvas. - 2010

Absolutely. Sure. At this point, I have a completely down-packed process. It’s taken years trying this and that, different tools, what pops, all these things. Point being, I’ve reached a point where my tools are: A quill pen; India ink; Acrylic inks (in a variety of colors), I use HW brand, seems to be the best, the most pigmented; And acrylic paint with smaller to medium size brushes. Every piece starts with a sketch, then I might use graphite paper to transfer it, but usually larger pieces (especially ones that are gonna end up on canvas) I just draw right on the wood or canvas, right to scale. I don’t bother with the whole blowing up thing. Basically what happens is that the drawing informs the painting. This means what colors I’m going to use and where I’m going to use them. I don’t use a lot of shading, just straight colors and start filling it in.  This consists of the acrylic inks and paints. Once all the color is down, which generally takes three layers a piece to get the color I want, then I go in with my quill pen and outline everything. That’s where the graphic nature of the work comes in, but it’s slight. Just using a small nib. I can’t say it’s unassuming but it gently lifts everything up to where it needs to be without making it erratically graphic. The India ink is what I use to do the faces with of the little guys, the details, the buttons. It took me a while to find my tools and process but they are very simple. Good things should be simple.

Noah Ptolemy - 'Jessica' - 36" x 36" - Acrylic paint, Acrylic ink, and India ink on wood panel - 2011

4. Jessica - It could be too easy to ask a question about who Jessica is here. It would be more proper to ask something deep about radiance and beauty. But really, just tell me all about Jessica the person. Can’t resist.

(Laughs) So like, she’s an ex girlfriend of mine. I obviously don’t paint realistically, so I can’t do a normal portrait, so I came up with the oldschool method of placing a light on a model and getting her profile as a shadow. So Jessica though, Jessica was basically the first portrait I was able to do in relation to the new idea of making a larger portrait not just cut off at the neck, having their bust, and also using a larger surface. I blurred the lights to make her shadow proportional to the square I was working with. Hers was the first example I was able to complete and use and say, “This is the type of portraits I do.” Everything in there, even when I do a portrait in general, all the actions in there reference the person, and in one way or an other, have to do with the person. It could seem vague to somebody on the outside but those actions being depicted by the characters inside are indeed being carried out.

Noah Ptolemy - 'God Speed' - 10" x 10" - Acrylic paint, Acrylic ink, and india ink on paper - 2011

5. God Speed - Have you ever drawn, or do you have plans to draw a set of your own designer playing cards? Anything like this?

You know what, I’ll tell you this: As long as I have complete artistic freedom, I have no opposition to putting my work on clothing or luggage. Apparel. I have no qualms with it. I think it would look beautiful. I guess I should add that it would have to be something good, not on any cheap little trinket, but more something associated with absolute quality and ingenuity. Playing cards, belts, mugs, I would not want. I want Louis Vutton luggage. Serious.

Noah Ptolemy - 'Shoes' - Men's Size 10 1/2 - Sharpie on shoe - 2011

Outro – Thematic cues / Most hopeful views?

I’m poking fun at the hierarchy of society, using lots of royal colors, gold, purple, striping, elegant. But the content is sometimes more dismal. Quite serious and not what you’d think about when you talk about a royal conversation. I want to show this new series when I’m done.

What could come of my work? You know, I hope it continues to evolve to where it needs to be. If that’s never having a finish line, so be it. My biggest hope? I feel like a lot of people might be afraid to say this type of thing but I hope that I find channels and ways within my life and time as an artist to spread my images to the farthest reaches of the world. That’s what I want.

Ptolemy rolls a cigarette in his studio - SK

See more of Noah’s work at his website.