Pete Seeger

Sam Rosenthal

Rob Rosenthal

Long an icon of American musical and political life, Pete Seeger has written eloquently in a diverse array of publications but nowhere is his life story more personally chronicled than in these, his private writings, documents and letters stored for decades in his family barn. Pete Seeger: His Life in His Own Words, collects Seeger's letters, notes, published articles, rough drafts, stories and poetry - creating the most intimate picture yet available of Seeger as a musician, an activist and a family man. The book covers the passions, personalities and experiences of a lifetime of struggle - from the pre-WWII labour movement and the Communist Party, to Woody Guthrie, the Civil Rights movement and the struggle against the war in Vietnam. The portrait that emerges is not of a saint, but a flesh-and-blood man, struggling to understand his time and his place.

Pete Seeger in His Own Words

Sam Rosenthal first used the Internet as a confused and closeted gay teen who longed for an online escape from his offline reality. Rosenthal explores the alienation he experienced socially and the refuge he found on the Internet by appropriating images from real-time network cameras, known as "netcams." The cameras are accessed through unencrypted servers on the world wide web and are available to anyone with an Internet connection. Information such as geographic location and ownership of these netcams isn’t provided, leaving the cameras without identity or clear intention. Yet, still, the artist sees them as an escape. "I believe I've visited these places even though I don't know where they are," he says.For Here Nor There, Rosenthal sought out camera feeds displaying uncanny scenes; the ones familiar and mundane, yet unidentifiable and dreamlike. The book features fantastical imagery of palm trees, pastel colors, and vibrant sunsets that conjure up feelings of an idealistic world. But Internet connections are imperfect and data loss often translates into visual flaws of pixelation and static, breaking those idealistic illusions. This assault of dropped packets disrupts the fantasy and grounds the images in reality. The Internet can never provide a permanent escape, leaving both the artist and his viewers lost somewhere in cyberspace, neither here nor there.

Sam Rosenthal

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