24 year old Brooklyn-based Ryan Pfluger describes his work variously as "fabrications, idealized relationships, memories, re-creations, and relationships that may or may not have existed". The work here is from three bodies of work. "Not Without My Father" a series of photographs of both new and recreated memories of his once estranged father. "About a Boy", a series of self-portraits exploring and re-evaluating his issues as a gay suburban teenager, and "Men I've Met", a series of portraits of friends, lovers or strangers.

Weston Bingham: I think we need a soundtrack. Pick your song.

Ryan Pfluger: That's a tough one, depends on my mood. But something like "Ceremony" by Joy Division, "Hounds of Love" by Kate Bush or "Free Money" by Patti Smith.

Weston: Joy Division it is.

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Lets start a few short years ago with your teen years in suburbia. Give us a little background.

Ryan: Childhood... childhood. Well, I had a very interesting childhood/teenage life. Without going too deep into specifics, I was a huge outcast. Not that it's very unusual for any teenager, especially a gay one, but my family life made it more difficult at the time for sure. I took care of my mother for about nine years because she had breast cancer, and both my parents had serious drug and alcohol addictions. I was beat up a lot. I grew up in a very Italian neighborhood - pretty much if you weren't a manly man who played football or soccer you were beat on. I, on the other hand, was the President of the musical and did the Olympics of Visual Arts... aka, big faggot.

Weston: Suburbia tends to engender a lot of... issues. How do these play out in your work?

Ryan: Well, especially with my self-portraits, which is what I focus a lot of my energy on now, it's a big part of the work. I revisit places and re-evaluate what my life was, what shaped me into who I am today and pay homage to that. Pretty much taking a negative and making it into a positive. Embracing my awkwardness and geek-like nature, such as the photograph of my X-Men comic books, which as a young kid I would fantasize about - being a superhero or rather, having sex with a superhero. Same goes with the photograph of me playing with my action figures. They were my real friends growing up.

Weston: One of the dominant qualities of your work is its insistence on visual honesty, but your subjects are "fabrications, idealized relationships, memories, re-creations, and relationships that may or may not have existed". How does that dichotomy work for you?

Ryan: I say it all the time in artist statements and whatnot... I am a very socially-awkward person. I think it's interesting especially as a portrait photographer, to be that way. I use photography as my way of connecting to people. It's a situation where you have to be at least in physical proximity - close to someone. My camera is kind of my safety net. A lot of people think I sleep with all the boys I photograph or things of that nature. I don't, but it doesn't mean I dont fantasize about it. I fall out of touch with a lot of people I photograph, and then am able to reconnect by photographing them again. It's an interesting process for me.

Weston: I think one of the most interesting things about your work is your choice of subjects. You and your models share the same physical presence, similar age, superficially the same sort of look, build, posture. Mostly gay I'm assuming. Even the underwear is very much the same. In multiple ways they are your peers. You are photographing your generation and your culture, no?

Ryan: It's so great that you brought that up. I was meeting with Hali Feldman, the photo editor at Details last Friday, and she said the same thing. I'm very very conscious of who I photograph, and seek them out - internet stalk even. I kind of look at them as different facets of myself - personality traits I'd like to have, different subtle physical traits. Almost as if it's self-portraiture through different people. I think five or ten years from now, I'll be photographing the same people, just older. Gay culture has so many different facets now, that I photograph what closely relates to me. Bears or musclemen just don't do it for me. However, I am really into gay skins at the moment.

Weston: What do you see as your role or agenda as THAT photographer?

Ryan: I'll probably talk about this again, but I think I bring something different than other gay artists/photographers who are working now. I am very nostalgic and sensitive and I think that's a driving force in my role as an artist. I don't think, as a gay artist, I need to show sex or hard-ons to show how my sexuality affects my work. I want people to be able to look at my work for awhile and reflect about their own lives and relationships, whatever sexuality they may be.

Weston: Are you photographing yourself even when you're not the model? What do you get from yourself as a model that you don't get from your models, and vice versa?

Ryan: Yes, 100%. I'll leave it at that.

Weston: Would you date you?

Ryan: If I had a gay twin who was attracted to me, I'd be the happiest person in the world. I think I only say that because I'm an only-child and don't really know the whole brotherhood thing. But, in reality, no I wouldn't date me. One of me is enough to handle.

Weston: You've said before that you're playing with the idea that your subjects may or may not have been your lovers.

Ryan: I mostly say that because when people see nudity, for the most part people automatically see intimacy. Intimacy leads to becoming lovers sometimes. I love the fact that I can photograph people I'm intimate with exactly the same as those I meet on the day of a shoot. Again, it's all about the connection with the subject.

Weston: In a most of your work you can really sense a dialogue going on between you and the models.

Ryan: The dialogue for the most part is silence, at least when I'm taking photographs. I'm very very quiet and don't give any direction at all. I talk in between rolls, but I actually think the silence helps make the work what it is. It becomes almost a comfortable tension. There's an oxymoron for you.

Weston: Would you describe your work as sentimental? Maybe nostalgic?

Ryan: Yes, yes, yes. I cry looking at my photographs sometimes. But a good cry. I feel lucky to have known the people I've photographed, whether we had a relationship for just that day, or if I've known them for ten years. So yeah, very sentimental.

Weston: The expressions on your models - their eyes - almost sad or melancholy. Some of them look like they're about to cry.

Ryan: I know, and I love it. I'm obsessed with the gaze - have you noticed? It totally has to do with how my photographic sessions go. I think the silence, and the fact that it's always just me and the subject leads to a real vulnerability. I rarely photograph couples or groups of people.

Weston: People always discuss the photographers gaze, but what I find striking is what you just mentioned - your subjects gaze.

Ryan: Well, I always like my subjects to look at me. There is something that transpires through that interaction and onto the photograph.

Weston: What sort of response, rational or emotional, are you trying to elicit form your audience?

Ryan: I just want people to think. That's what makes art in any form such a beautiful thing. I don't have expectations of my viewer, except to take time with the work. Society today is so much about instant gratification. I can look at a Peter Hujar photograph over and over again and still get something out of it. That's what I want people to take away with my work.

Weston: Who do you want to photograph that you haven't yet?

Ryan: The list is very long actually. Mostly women, surprisingly. I have a real obsession with actresses - Naomi Watts (who I have a tattoo of), Toni Collette, Jennifer Jason Leigh - it goes on and on. BUT, at the top of the list is Gaspard Ulliel. I want to get him naked, photograph him, and then have my way with him.

Weston: What's your next concert?

Ryan: I don't go as much as I used to. I was big into going to shows when I was younger. However, last night I saw The Gossip. I photographed them like two years ago, and they're all such amazing people. Great show, and Nathan is looking hot these days.

Weston: What's your next tattoo?

Ryan: I'm actually getting two next week. An old-school Mom and Dad tattoo. One on each side of my neck.

all photos ©Ryan Pfluger. Ryan is represented by Envoy in NYC. Check out his great blog.

Once upon a time, long, long, LONG ago, DIY meant you hauled your candy shop down to the local club, and hoped a dj might sample your confections. If you were lucky, and they dipped their chocolate in your peanut butter, you might get played and have a hit. Nowadays, you can do all this from your bedroom (and you don’t have to open your candy shop unless you want to!).

That’s exactly what Microfilm are doing. Hailing from Chicago, Matt Mercer and Matt Keppel admit they’re not much for nightly parties, but they’ve managed to garner global kudos for their music. They’ve turned in remixes for Ladytron and Sarah Nixey (of Black Box Recorder) as well as a cover for the recent Magnetic Fields tribute album. They’ve even been featured on BBC Radio 1.

They sent us their new track, 'BFF', for EVB readers to sample. It’s a new direction for the duo, hardening their sound with a dark buzzing hum and vocoded vocals. I say it’s a direction they should keep going.

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In New York, My Robot Friend is currently doing it for himself, shopping around for a partner to release Robot High School, his eagerly anticipated follow up to 2006’s Dial Zero. It makes one wish they had some green to a help a brother out. Personally, I’m spending my wait replaying my favorite remix of his dictionarioke-tastic cover of Blondie’s 'Rapture'.

My Robot Friend - 'Rapture' (Freelance Hellraiser Remix) (Soma Records)

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Through his portraits, Giovanni di Mola says he is revealing the vulnerability and the poetic, visual and spontaneous unspoken truths of his subjects. Despite abandoning the East Village for swimming holes and open fields (sounds crazy to me) 130 miles North (even crazier still), we still somehow love his work.

Weston: How's life in the Hudson Valley?

Giovanni: A mixed bag. Great because of the convenience of being able to walk to most of my jobs and friends, not spending most of the day traveling back and forth from work, having time to focus on my art, living healthy, getting fresh fruits and vegetables, seeing nature on a regular basis. Bad because it can be a bit isolating - harder if you're a single guy - you have to create most of your entertainment.

W: Why did you leave New York?

G: Needed change - and to simplify things... had lost inspiration... too many billboards and advertising on every crack and corner including the damn bathroom stall... bring things down to their core so I could restart... try to remember why I was in New York City... many years of drugging and clubbing fried me... I forgot who the fuck I was... felt more like a machine part - a cog in the wheel of industry... got a bit bitter... needed to be excited by life again.

W: How do you find your models up there?

G: It's different up here I build up friendships over time and repeated introductions before I ever ask them to pose for me. I never ask anyone to pose nude. They feel comfortable enough to introduce the idea when they're ready. It's a smaller community so you eventually see the same people over time at friends places and outdoor gatherings. I meet many on nights that I throw my alt dance party. Some are just passing through living in Hudson until they figure out their next move.

W: An alt dance party in Hudson?

G: It's a once a month bash that mixes up the Hudsonians, northern New Yorkers, the Berkshires, New York City weekenders, drag queens, trannies, homos and lesbians to party and dance together. Many times based on a theme. It was my way to cure my homesick and melancholic feelings about Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, SqueezeBox, and that incredible mix of people from completely diverse backgrounds.

W: Your models are very unselfconscious. How do you get them comfortable in front of the camera.

G: The setting is very informal. I don't use assistants, makeup, etc. I use available light and my camera. Maybe a tripod. It's just me and them. Many of the models have a very strong sense of self-identity. A punk sort of attitude which I connect with since I was once the same - living and partying in the LES and the East Village in the late 80s and early 90s.

W: Were you a punk? What was your story back then?

G: I was a guido (not yet a fag) from Astoria Queens, that got to be a new waver/punk on the weekends in New York, which eventually became a part of who I am today. I used to see punk bands like Murphy's Law, Kraut, Black Flag and early Beastie Boys (Cookie Puss) at CBGB, doing too much acid and waking up on the sidewalk - but psyched I woke up in New York instead of Queens. Places like Boy Bar, Pyramid, The World, Rock and Roll Fag Bar were where I got to figure out who I was - or wanted to be. You could be gay and love rock, you could be straight and dance to disco, you could be a business man and wear your best leather gear out and beeeee.

W: OK back to your work. Can you explain what you mean when you say your work is "revealing and subverting identity"?

G: I like playing with the lines that separate gender, sexuality, the sort of roles that we play without knowing it. The person or identity you bring to a portrait session. I like peeling away at those layers, showing what I see, and hopefully sharing it with everyone else. People always say "Huh, I look like that? I didn't know I had that in me. Cool!"

W: How do you think that identity-play comes through in your work?

G: By whom I choose to photograph, and leaving the sitter/model in the room to do whatever they feel they want to on-camera. I project that freedom because I still am constantly challenged by inner battle of masculine versus feminine. Through them I get to work through some of that dialogue.

W: There's not a lot of manufactured idealism about your work. The models, the setting, the lighting - all very raw and 'as-is', but at the same time nearly everyone is posing for the camera.

G: It's that contradiction that I love so much. It's sort of like catching a word in the middle of a conversation that sticks with you. That's what my portraits are. Does that answer it or confuse it more? [laughs].

W: So, like a narrative fragment.

G: Yes, but without planning or setting up the image. Those narratives are played out through the natural personality and physicality of the sitter .

W: Seems like a stupid question, but most of your models are nude, or at least half-naked. Except for the women. Beyond the obvious, why?

G: I feel more like myself when I don't have my clothing (AKA uniform) or layers on. It turns out that many of my models and friends feel the same way!

W: You're black and white and Polaroid work have a very different approach. Simple backdrops, models vamping for the camera, fairly close-up, more controlled 'traditional' portraiture.

G: It's my earlier work. My first attempts at portraiture. While studying photography at SVA by day, and photographing the club scene - dancers, drag queens, performers - by night. Michael Formika Jones, Miss Understood, Sherry Vine, SqueezeBox and Michael Schmidt all gave me the chance to explore and document while partaking in all of it!

W: Some of your photographs involve multiple exposures of different poses. Are you trying to show movement? Ambiguity? Neither? Both?

G: I love playing with movement and time. I enjoy working with dancers - the freakiness and beauty of their bodies and movement. Brian Brooks Moving Company is what got me started. I don't shoot multiple exposures, but long exposures, so that after sitting still long enough something has to give.

W: You've said you are influenced by Caravaggio. In what way?

G: His light and subjects. The way he would paint with light. The purity and rawness. The contrasts between beauty, sacrilege, and undesirability. I found some of that light up here along the Hudson River, and my subjects - especially those passing through - carry many of the same circumstances that his models did.

W: The "same circumstances", as in they're hustlers?

G: Along the way some of them lived on the streets, some were drug dealers, addicts, petty criminals. I see real humanity and striking character in these people. They are beautiful to me in a way that fashion models and movie stars are to most people. Photographing them gives me a chance to place them on a virtual pedestal of sorts, which Caravaggio did with his religious paintings.

W: You've said lately you've starting to move more towards abstraction and ephemera. How do you go from very visually descriptive portraiture to that?

G: During the warmer seasons my outdoor portraits and landscapes get more of my attention. Hidden swimming holes, open fields in the middle of nowhere, reflections in streams, herbal supplements [laughs], etc. I do more self-portraits as well.

W: What are you working on now?

G: A portrait series of the people of Hudson, whether they were born here, passing through, or just starting to make a life for themselves. The ones I feel that really represent this place, and a bit of our future. They are all non-typical. Very individual. The lines of their gender and sexuality are blurred which I feel is much closer to many of our true natures - if we allow ourselves.

W: What's next?

G: Late Summer early Fall I'll be heading back to Israel to complete my project that I started working on in 2005 on Israel, specifically Tel Aviv and it's people, and then ending the trip in India to start a new project. I'm also going to head back to New York. I'd like to re-explore it and the characters and cast that make it up now. There is a whole new generation of New Yorkers, especially in my second home the East Village, that I'd love to connect with and capture.

all photographs ©Giovanni di Mola

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