Documentarian and former Ohio State student Roland Andes will present his first foray into fiction and video tonight at the Blue Cube Gallery.
“No New Messages,” a video based on a short story Andes wrote in 1992, will be featured in a video showcase at Blue Cube, along with works from Sarah Cathers and Jonathan Smith.
“I wanted to come up with a short film about a relationship, but where the viewer doesn’t know what’s going on,” Andes said. “There are clues, but nothing too concrete. I want the viewers to fill in the gaps by projecting their pasts, personalities and problems onto the piece.”
Andes shot “Messages” over a couple of weeks, mostly at locations in the Short North. The video’s “femtagonist” is played by Sabrena Sally in her first acting role.
“When I approached her, I said, ‘I just want you to try to be as blank as possible.’ I want the viewer to project their emotions on her,” Andes said.
She has apparently done just that, as viewers have come away with an infinite number of interpretations as to what’s actually going on in the story.
“Some people said she’s on the verge of suicide, that she had a loss of a child, that she had an affair, that she’s into S&M,” Andes said. “Everybody had a different take on it; not one person came away with the same interpretation.”
Andes’ earlier documentary photography has been shown around the city, including 1997’s “Collapsing New People: Drama of an American family scarred, scared, sacred,” which follows a New York City mother and her three children who were living together after years of separation due to addiction and abuse, and 1999’s “In Visible City,” which documented the lives of the people who live in downtown Columbus.
His work is mostly social documentary, and his photographs are a plea for people to take notice of the world around them.
“I’d say my work makes changes incrementally. I can’t change the whole world, but I can make little differences,” Andes said. “I feel like I have a responsibility to give back, whether it’s through art or through my documentary.”
Andes became intimately involved with his photographic subjects, and has stayed in contact with most of them over the years. As he browses through some of the photographs of “In Visible Life,” he is quick to point out which houses are gone, which people have since died, and which people have turned their lives around … or fallen into the same old habits.
Around the time he was finishing up “In Visible Life,” Andes was mugged in the Short North.
“I was beaten, I lost my camera, my equipment. Somebody had my stuff,” Andes said. “I became paranoid, I was in a state of shock.”
Andes incorporated these feelings into the creation of his next project, “Black and Blue: A Menacing Peace,” a multi-disciplinary work that combines, among other elements, photographic stills, video and sculpture. “Black and Blue” explores images that appear to be safe and serene on the surface, but that have an underlying malevolence.
Andes studied journalism and creative writing while he attended OSU.
“I flunked a photography course because I thought it was boring,” he said. “I liked being out among the people.”
He became involved in photojournalism after graduating, doing freelance work for the Columbus Dispatch, the Associated Press and the New York Times, among others.
“I liked the immediacy of photojournalism, but I got very disillusioned. There’s a high level of cynicism in the media. It’s a business, and it’s based on advertising,” he said.
Andes was influenced by such great documentary photographers as Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus, but he found that the reality of the newsroom didn’t allow the time to engage in the kind of work he was interested in.
So Andes started pursuing his own artistic work.
“I don’t think I’ll run out of material,” Andes said. “I think this is the beginning of a whole new area of creativity for me.”
The video showcase begins at 7 p.m. at the Blue Cube Gallery, 761 N. High St. Call 291-7127 for more information.
