Found photographs from the Research Center, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY

The visionary historian and photographic archivist Paul Vanderbilt is the patron saint for our investigation of the 3rd Effect using a large picture collection. Vanderbilt envisioned the use of archives as an exploration rather than the routine selection of illustrations to accompany prescribed arguments. To encourage an open-ended, imaginative use of pictures, Vanderbilt worked out a long-term habit of creating combinations of images, usually in pairs, that were unrelated to each other by the usual archival categories, such as photographer, time period, geographic location, genre, and subject matter. Escaping the regulation of these controlled vocabularies, the pairings would reveal an unexpected line of interpretation and lead to larger associative patterns of imagery and ideas. He later used these picture combinations to make unique table-top "exhibitions" and have conversations with like-minded visual researchers.

Go to 3rdEffect #2

The members of the "Working with Visual Information" class are pleased to enter into this wider conversation using the Internet. We hope our pairings enhance the use of picture collections as a speculative adventure and will add to the 3rd Effect.

credits

Matthew Walker, 1-9; 57-9
Yichun Lin, 10-18
Marlene Seidman, 19-27
Chris Burnett, 28-36
Alex Cole, 37-48
Sara Segerlin, 49-56
Dave Mount, for his assistance