R.E.M. Frontman Michael Stipe Is Also a Photographer. See Quirky Images From His Latest Book Here

Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has a new book of
photographs that looks at the wild and wacky world of digital
media.

The book, titled Our Interference Times: A Visual Record, is the
second in a series of diaristic publications put out by the Italian
publisher Damiani. Whereas the first entry, Volume 1, found
Stipe revisiting his early archives to compile a portrait of his
years with R.E.M., the new book takes a more conceptual approach,
focusing on the awkward junction where analog picture-making meets
digital technology.

“My boyfriend tells me I have no hierarchy of image,” Michael
Stipe told the New York Times
last month. “I’ll see something and think of it as insanely
beautiful, and it might be not at all something that would attract
a regular thinking person. And I’ll put it next to something from
Versailles—to me, they make sense together.”

Stipe tapped his longtime friend, the novelist Douglas Coupland,
who is credited as a coauthor, to winnow down a group of some 3,000
photos into the 190 or so that made the final edit.

“He knows me, and he knows my work and the way I see the world
really well. We’re very close friends, and we’ve known each other
for 30 years,” Stipe told the Times.

The book offers a smattering of mostly unresolved shots,
including pixelated pictures of old prints, phone snapshots of
architectural oddities and studio assemblages, plus video stills
and computer-rendered portraits. Although it is a disparate group
of subjects, pattern do emerge.

Moire—the rippling visual effect that occurs when you photograph
a screen—is a steady fascination of Stipe’s, and instances of
nature interacting with the human-made world are everywhere. Stipe
is especially good at photographing security cameras and
insects.

See more pictures from Our Interference Times below.

The post R.E.M. Frontman Michael Stipe Is Also a
Photographer. See Quirky Images From His Latest Book Here
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