‘Danish photographer Asger Carlsen began his career at 16 when he sold a photo he took of the police yelling at him and his friends for burning a picket fence to the local paper. For the next ten years Asger worked as a crime photographer before moving on to shooting ads for magazines. Then one day while messing around on his computer he created an image of a face with a bunch of eyes that led him to the distorted photographs he has become known for. His eerie and often humorous work makes you question what is human, and has been exhibited and published internationally.
‘The images of Carlsen occupy the hazy cloud-cuckoo land between analog and digital photography. His pictures maintain an interesting haphazardness, a truth-before-the lens aesthetic, which is combined with eerie digital manipulations. The apparent on-camera flash and black and white tones further heighten the disconnect between the “real” and the fabricated. Carlsen often employs the visual cues of snapshot photography to suggest a physical, temporal connection between the photographer and the subject. His images depict a version of reality that is both firsthand and dissembling.
‘Persons with prosthetic legs fresh from the wood-shop, or those who may be blessed with backward-bending knees are shown as ordinary as anyone else. One image, similar to William Eggleston’s photograph of a man touching delicately an orange United States Air Force craft, depicts a man kissing, groping a towering mound of otherworldly ectoplasm. Carlsen’s microcosm equalizes all disparate activity; lycanthropes and Janus-faced characters coolly inhabit scenes lit by the glare of the camera’s clinical flash. All of which suggests both the degree to which the camera normalizes and objectifies experience, as well as the reticence of viewers to accept as factual all forms of photographic vision. Carlsen grafts a truthful and authoritative aesthetic upon deliberately fanciful constructions.’ — collaged
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Extras
Asger Carlsen exhibition
Asger Carlsen’s Mind Bending Photographs
Asger Carlsen graces the armchair for episode 13
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Further
Asger Carlson Website
AC portfolio & interview @ Whiteloup
AC interviewed @ Vice
AC portfolio & interview @ Empty Kingdom
AC @ we are CASEY Agency
AC’s book ‘Hester’
AC’s book ‘Wrong’ @ Carlson Projects
AC @ Twitter
AC portfolio @ tinyvices
AC portfolio & interview @ Dazed Digital
‘WE BET YOU’VE NEVER SEEN NUDES LIKE THIS!’
‘Artists Asger Carlsen and Alex Prager Kibitz About their Corporeal Selves’
‘Asger Carlsen: Skræmmende og manipulerende’
Downloadable mixtape by Asger Carlsen @ Sound Advice
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Interview
from APhotoEditor
I read in an interview that you were a crime scene photographer?
AC: People sometimes get that confused. I was a crime scene photographer, but that was when I was out of high school. So I was 17, and then did that for ten years.
Who did you work for? A police department?
AC: Newspapers. I was a full-on newspaper photographer. I started out as an intern, and saw how it was done. Then I bought a police scanner, and would respond to the calls. Car accidents and stuff. Eventually, I did photograph a bit for the police.
You’ll have to forgive me a bit here. My wife is a therapist, and my mother-in-law is a therapist, and now, being an interviewer, I’ve kind of morphed into this guy who tries to read the tea leaves. It sounds to me like there was a lot of darkness going on in your job, and in your head, and all of a sudden, it popped up out of the shadows, into this style that became yours.
AC: Certainly, there is an understanding of how those crime scene scenarios could look like. The work certainly represents my time as a newspaper photographer.
You can dig into that. You can see how I was standing in front of a car accident, photographing it. It’s just different objects.
I have some students, and we were looking at some work last week that was really super-digi. Over-saturated, hyper-real, hopped up, textured and degraded. I talked about that, and these are younger students, and they couldn’t see it. That archive that we have in our head, of the cinematic and celluloid look, they don’t have that baseline. Their baseline is digital reality.
They can’t tell the difference between the super-saturated color look on the screen, and what you see when you walk out your door. Their brains are just different now.
AC: They are different. Do you think they understand my work differently than you understand it?
Sure. I would think they have to. I showed “Wrong” to students last year, and they ate it up. Ate it up. I’m curious to see what happens when this generation of students, who has only grown up in the digi-verse, when they’re mature enough as artists to make shit that we can’t even imagine.
AC: I’m sure in ten or twenty years, the files being produced by these random Canon cameras, that’s going to be a style that people will try to copy again.
The sci-fi reference in your work are so strong, and I don’t even consider myself a sci-fi geek. What did you read or see that ended up percolating into your work.
AC: I was inspired by painters, different art movements and all these obvious classical references. There’s a certain awkwardness in the work, and maybe that’s my attempt to try to fit into a photography style. Part of the reason why I became a photographer is that there was a certain loneliness in it, a searching for something. I think the work is a bit about that as well.
Trying to find my spot. Maybe I am a dark person? (Thinks about it.) I am a dark person.
You certainly have it in there.
AC: I felt like an outsider when I grew up, for sure. There are certain things I’m good at, and photography is one of them. But I was not a success in school, not a success in many things, but there was this one thing I could do.
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Show
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p.s. RIP Edmund White. ** _Black_Acrylic, Agreed! I don’t know that Madonna doc, but her trajectory certainly must be of real interest, and more power to her. I never really had a Madonna phase, but I’ve never thought ill of her songs either. ** Misanthrope, Probably. Interesting because my toe shit was seemingly caused by wearing my Timberline boots while in LA, even though I’d worn those boots for a year or something prior to that. Maybe my thing is gout too. Eek. *deep breath*, doctor. No, or I’m only vaguely aware that Roland Garros is going on. I’ll check in. Everybody here has been consumed by PSG’s pursuit and win of the European Championship, so I think that ate the news about other sports. Paris was festive when PSG won to put it mildly. ** James Bennett, He does seem like a good egg. He’s pals with my friend the great Lucy K Shaw who does Shabby Doll House and is assisting on that new literary fireball site Zona Motel. I suspect the Paris deep dish pizza will be woefully inadequate but worth a try. I have been known to both eat deep dish pizza with knife and fork and pick up the slab-like slices and force them into my mouth, but I think the former method is preferable. Great about the ‘welcome’ post. Just hit me whenever you’re ready. Book #2, and a booklet (!), nice. ** Carsten, Right, ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’, I forgot. I’m not sure that the US method of teaching youths poetry is any more progressive. Hence the general boredom and antipathy towards poetry for generation after generation. I’d like to think French institutions are more up to speed, but who knows. I don’t know Tough Poets Review, but I’ll have a look. I can’t imagine any reason for you not to submit to them in any case. ** Darbz 🦇🏓 🦇, Your name emojis are like a haiku! Cool. I’ll have a listen to Green-House when I’m freed up. Thanks, pal. My weekend was alright, I think, let me think back … yes. Exciting about you angling for a semi-modular synth. I’ve always thought having a sampler would be a major accomplishment and a creative dream come true. Wow. Synthesising and drawing can easily go together like soup and sandwich, as my mom used to say. It sounds like your situation is pretty fulfilling. No situation is ever ideal, right? Sure, Amoeba Records in LA is a total sensory overload mecca. If I don’t go there with a list of what I want, I get very overwhelmed and confused by the huge volume of opportunities. I’m not up on Paris record stores because I don’t have turntable or even something capable of playing CDs. It’s sad, but my ‘record’ store is Bandcamp, basically. The bats are out and about come dusk, yes. No, they fly so extremely fast that they’re just blurs. I should film them with my iPhone and slow the footage way, way down if you can even do that. ** Hugo, Great, thank you for the link to your friend’s game info. It looks exciting at a quick glance, and I’ll pore over it when I’m out of here. Weird: there’s nothing about Guadningo’s films that would begin to make me suspect he likes Arto Lindsay. That’s plus in his favor, but not a corrective one. Luckily I don’t really have much unpublished work. I tend to eventually finish what I start and publish it. There’s my juvenilia, but hopefully whoever in the future will recognise its shittyness and let it rest in obscurity. Yeah, the post-humous Didion thing is objectionable. I think publishing Foster-Wallace’s ‘The Pale King’ before he finished it is gross too. Sometimes novels being slow is just circumstantial and their fate and ultimately unimportant, you know. As long as you don’t totally forget about it and lose track of what you wanted to do, it should be okay in the long run, I think. Two of my novels, ‘The Sluts’ and ‘I Wished’, ended up taking me about ten years each to finish. The best back to you. ** Steeqhen, I don’t remember Zac ever recounting a dream he’s had. I think he might be like me and almost never remember them upon awakening. Ultimately your body is your god, so if it wants to chill for a summer, I don’t know if you have any choice unless you want to force infuse it with cocaine or drugs or something, which is probably not wise? My mom watched soaps every day for hours and hours, and I think watching her sit there like a lump gazing at the TV which appeared to be full of overly orchestrated and acted life mini-dramas kind of put me off the form. Congrats on the return of your Ritalin. ** pancakeIan, Well, at least Florida is good for something, haha. Other than theme parks, I mean. Said by the guy who’s only been to Orlando. And, wait, to some coastal town on the panhandle where they famously filmed ‘The Truman Show’, I can’t remember its name. ‘Moonrise Kingdon’ is my favorite Wes Anderson too. With ‘Life Aquatic’ and ‘Rushmore’ in the runner up positions. But I love all of his films. ** Steve, Ultimately I’m sure having the whole estate resolution on your shoulders is worse than sharing the duties with a greedy, vindictive sibling like I did. We haven’t found a documentary idea that seems doable yet. Well, actually, we shot a lot of footage for a documentary we were trying to make at one point about the fog sculptor Fujiko Nakaya, but I don’t know if we’ll ever finish that. Long story. Curious sounding, that doc you mention. ** Uday, Yes, as you found out, I have seen that lovely Les Blank film. Beetles on my windowpane sounds craveable, thank you. I’m not sure they could climb all the way up the fourth floor (where I live), but … wait, some of them can fly, right? ** Right. Today I fill my galerie with the odd works of Asger Carlsen, all of them made pre-AI, by the way, if that matters. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Hello, I was going to reply yesterday, but I got very wrapped up in other adventures. I had coffee for dinner so now I’m up to respond to this one early. I have an acquaintance from school who’s a really magnificent painter and Carlsen’s work reminds me of his. If I get the chance I’ll have to show this to him. Maybe the curse of Robert the Doll is what doomed my parent’s marriage. Do you believe in ghosts at all? I’m agnostic about them, as I am pretty much everything else as a rule. Would’ve felt very left out having missed the VU live, especially during the Nico/Exploding Plastic Inevitable era.
Hey Dennis, I always enjoy these days… feel like I’ve said that before, and of course it’s interesting as you say that Asger made them before ai… not that there is anything wrong with that, some of my best friends are ai. So the plot thickens with the soft territories stuff. It looks like wetdovetail will house a vr version of the exhibition/showcase which something appeals to me about that sort of decentralized a disparate structure and maybe others? Anyway I was just wondering if you’d have any interest in including any of the GIF sequences as loops especially in the vr install? Think it would be cool and easy for them to do in that environment… and it’s be cool. haha
Dennis, Yes, while we were watching the tennis, fireworks were going off in Paris every time PSG scored a goal. It even made one lady double fault, haha. I think there were other fireworks going off willy nilly, too.
When we saw one of your pieces in Manchester (I think it was Jerk), Man U was playing Chelsea in the championship. That place was fucking nuts. It was like WWIII. Thank God they won, haha.
Yeah, it’s one thing after another, these health things. Now I suddenly have a bruise on my lower left side and some sort of hard little knot under the skin. I have no idea what it is or how it got there. It doesn’t hurt or anything, so I’m not going worry about it, at least not now. Erp.
Asger Carlsen is a new name to me and I am really enjoying his work. There used to be 90s horror magazines such as Fangoria that featured fun gross-out images such as these.
Unique stuff, that’s for sure. Udo Kier & a head in the fridge go together like coffee & cigarettes.
I get frustrated about the state of education sometimes because I know how easy it would be to change things up. Administrators & politicians will tell you a thousand reasons why it’s impossible, but it just isn’t. They simply don’t care. I ended up in education by accident & solely as a day-job (plus I taught adults, not kids), but any & all changes I made to business-as-usual were easily & quickly implemented, not to mention enthusiastically supported by my school’s admin.
My half-brother wants me to come in one day & teach a guest-course on avant-garde & ethnopoetics. Why the hell not… If that ever happens, you’ll get a full report.
Tough Poets Review looks pretty good to me. I dig the cover, the mission statement, & so yeah, I think I’ll submit a couple of poems today. I wanted to reach out to Ugly Duckling as well (for the aforementioned chapbook) but they’re not open for submissions at the moment.
Hi Sonny boy. Long time no see. I haven’t been commenting but have been reading, except had a hiatus lately because (story coming) couple weeks ago I had insane pain, got to hospital, many tests, morphine (thank Dionysus), surgeon got ticked cause she thought they ran an unnecessary test to confirm gall bladder crisis, sent me home, back in hospital 6 hours later with a new surgeon who said, we’re moving you up the schedule for gall bladder removal.
I’ve had worse pain I guess, and recovery has been easy, but the moral for me was the first surgeon got to let her wounded ego get in the way of appropriate treatment for a suffering patient, and that’s the story of what’s happening everywhere all the time here, too much power in the hands of a “leader.” Yes, my gall bladder attack was a political lesson! Also, everyone and everything else was super super nice. Surgeon said gall bladder was kind of shot to hell. I saw a picture of my liver and it looked just like liver in a butcher shop. No surprise but still …
Longer recovery from the anesthesia that the laparoscopic surgery. Interrupted my preparation to give a talk on Winsor McCay, my hero, and serve on a panel on how dream studies have been affected by digital communication but I’m back now. Revising poems and sending out. And funny thing, someone just wrote me to say check out Tough Poets, they might suit you, so I’ll try that.
Carsten, if you see this, I don’t know the context of your search for cannibalism in the cinema, but if documentary is on the table, you might check out Keep the River on Your Right, about my old late friend Tobias Schneebaum, the only person I’ve known who had eaten human flesh (at least admitting to it). When Tobias came back from the Amazon and wrote about his experiences, he was accused of fantasizing; the documentary takes him back to the Amazon and to Papua, where he lived among Indigenous people.
My favorite cannibalism crappy comedy is Blood Diner, followed closely by Eating Raoul. I don’t personally find Bones and All or Raw very gripping. I used to teach a class about views of Indigenous peoples among colonizers and vice-versa and one of the topics was accusations of cannibalism and actual cannibalistic practices, which I presented in the context of modern psychodynamic theory, especially Melanie Klein.
Yes, so thinking of Ed White today because it feels like end of an era, and to some extent, there’s hardly anyone left much older than us–from the generation that kindly gave us a start. >>> Your 5 books and Pink Dust, which is brilliant. I love that Ron went to his childhood for a train of poems, almost like a tribute to Joe Brainard, and I love that it’s a New York Review of Books book, along with others who are moving up in prominence and audience. Joe Westmoreland’s book has been on my radar; ordering it now along with David T’s Hollywood Cemetery. Spoon River Anthology was probably the first modern poetry book I loved, and I probably imitated speaking for the dead a great deal. Someone asked about David: Sleeping with Bashō was one of my favorite books of poetry in recent years, partly for the delight at how he undercuts all those underdeveloped haiku poets out there.
I have 4 cool scars now–small but cool. Love to you. BTW your toes sound a lot like sciatica but you probably know that.
Incidentally, I’ve been trying to get back into Madonna again. I kind of dropped her off my “top music artist” list entirely as temporary punishment for her doing a song with Sam Smith (an almost unforgiveable sin/lapse in taste), but I think that was almost two years ago now, so perhaps the time has come to issue a pardon.
Hey Bernard, the interest stems from my obsession with the old Egyptian Cannibal Hymn & the “savage” gods of various pagan traditions (Ogun, Shango, Anat—the blood drinkers club as I call them). Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check out that doc. Sounds fascinating, not just for the cannibal aspect but the indigenous perspective.
Wishing you all the best after the ordeal you’ve been through.
Hi Dennis . I love photography like this, that’s mind bending. Very sci fi, all these distorted lumps of flesh. Even erotic, at times. Reminds me vaguely of H R Giger .
I guess I’ve just spent too many years in Florida . But there are some nice coastal towns, like the one you alluded to. That’s Seaside, where they filmed ‘Truman Show’. Another decent movie. For many years, whilst working at Disney, I lived in Celebration, which is another ‘planned community’ (like Seaside) . It’s very picturesque, if you feel like googling it. Supposedly Disney was behind it’s creation.
Neat, we have the same favorite W Anderson flick. And I’d place ‘Rushmore’ behind it as well . Bill Murray was good in that one. I remember reading a review where the critic said that Anderson keeps his characters in ‘ a constant state of ironic pose’ . Maybe a backhanded compliment ?
I saw you and Carsten lamenting the blandness of poetry in our school systems. I had the same experience in New Jersey public school , until a rather cool high school teacher introduced us to E E Cummings , whom I loved. I really need to revisit him . And recently, that young friend I keep bringing up reminded me about Eliot’s ‘Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ , and how it feels like a whole little world unto itself.
later
I love Asger Carlsen’s work! I think I first came across him in one of your blog posts, but kept forgetting his name for some reason. Interesting comments in the interview on how the technology has changed. I love these painstakingly artisanal approaches from 20+ years ago that had such uncanny and striking outcomes. (I try to adopt a similar attitude, with more humble results.) The new AI-generated stuff is flashy, but most of what I’ve seen seems so soulless in comparison.
Looks like he deleted his X account. I’m all for that!
RIP Edmund White. I can’t say I’m a fan of his work in recent years. But in the early 80s, I was catching a flight in LaGuardia and came across an issue of the James White Review, with an excerpt from A Boy’s Own Story. My first gay lit, one of those life-changing moments, sigh.
Bill
Hi Dennis
Thank you for looking at my friend’s game. There’s not a whole lot cuz it’s still in development, but I hope you find it interesting. They share a lot with me, but a lot just isn’t public. – I told them I posted the game here, and they were chuffed.
I was looking back on the trailer where I saw the album (film was called “I am love”, a title that exhausted me as soon as I read it) — and I was shocked to find that the presence of that album seemed to be the only interesting thing. Tilda Swinton is in it, I like her, but yeah, no interest at all from me.
I asked one question about death, and then I had a nightmare where a girl died of a stroke after trying to flirt with me, and I got all the blame for it. Then I woke up and found out first thing that Edmund White had passed. Maybe I ought not to ask about the subject any further. That or maybe I’m just naturally haunted. Dunno.
The Didion thing was extra wrong to me because they are just therapy notes, and Didion already had a hard rule against unpublished work in another essay on Hemingway. Maybe as a writer, one should just burn everything before you pass, just to be safe. I did read the one part of “The Pale King” that Wallace considered publishing as a standalone, but beyond that, I have never really looked at the rest beyond flicking through once or twice in a bookstore. I thought what I read was very good, but beyond that, I’m clueless. I am aware that he made sure his wife and agent would find the work, and I *think* he knew it would be published. I really don’t know. I remember reading Leve’s “Suicide”, and despite that book being labelled as a “suicide note”, I didn’t feel like I fully understood why Leve took his own life. I only felt parts of the argument that he had. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t really know the intentions or thoughts of people before they pass.
Blegh, that’s a lot, and it probably doesn’t cohere. Oh well. I’m surprised to learn that “The Sluts” took so long to create, it still feels very modern to me so I couldn’t imagine you starting it in 1995. I really love it. Though I do wish that critical biography of yours had more to say about “God Jr”, because “the sluts” overshadows it after one page and that book is never mentioned again. I still enjoyed reading it though. — I’ll try to keep track of my own novels, I’m currently trying to do two at the same time, one significantly longer than the other, just because there are too many ideas I wanna tackle with it. I’m also working on a fairly long poem called “mondo movies” that I really wanna make work, but I have yet to make it feel full.
I hope you have a lovely day. I will see to reading “Nocturnes for the King of Naples” tonight if I have the time. Love the photos too.
I received a press release today for a new single by Robin Zander’s son. I wonder if he inherited his dad’s vocal chops.
The bank is willing to pay the costs of my parents’ cremation out of their estate. The funeral home will send me the bill, then I need to forward it to the bank. hopefully, there won’t be any snags.
Increasingly, I’m attracted to the areas where body horror starts to become something positive. Carlsen’s images of these impossible bodies seem rather sexual, rather than representing death. The final photo you chose could be a fantasy of making out with Lovecraftian beings.
Tomorrow, I’m seeing a very rare screening of Warhol’s 1972 L’AMOUR!
Wow these photos are stellar. And that bit from the interviewer about his students being unable to distinguish between the celluloid and the real, made me think of all that shit ive been thinking about the internet and how it’s affecting my brain. I actually struggled to tell if some of those photos were edited or if they were ‘real’ (as in statues and staged).
I think the ritalin has been helping me. I did a lot of financial management today, cooked for myself, and cleaned up my phone so it’s less distracting instead of buying a different dumber phone. I realized earlier however that I have not spoken to another person today, the only physical connection ive had today is these snails that i uncovered in a bin and proceeded to watch and make sure they crawled out before i closed the lid. It was fascinating; I saw some larvae (whether a snail one im not sure) crawl inside the shell of one of them. That one ended up doing some crazy maneuver, going upside down and stretching itself thin so that it could reach a different part of the bin. I hope they didn’t get eaten by birds; I get very sentimental with animals, especially insects. I think the fact that they lead such short lives makes me want to stop them from suffering.
Going to start reading that Gluck book ‘About Ed’ tonight. A friend lent it to me back while I was working on my dissertation, and I told him to give me a deadline so I actually make time for it; the deadline is the 12th.
I’m in a weird state: I love being incredibly private, yet I also love to share and talk and write about my thoughts. I tend to do things in extremes, and I’m trying to find a compromise, which I think will be me doing memoirist blog posts, curated so I’m not just spreading my business for everyone to consume, but trying to find some point to it all. Hopefully it quells my desire for spilling my guts!
Hey. I was too depressed to comment the past few days; I didn’t want to bum you out. I won’t talk about it because I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t know, I just think that everyone is against me and that I don’t know what to do.
These Berrigan lines keep cycling around in my head and I don’t know why: ‘In Joe Brainard’s collage its white arrow / He is not in it, the hungry dead doctor. / Of Marilyn Monroe, her teeth white- / I am truly horribly upset because Marilyn / and ate King Korn popcorn’. That happens sometimes, a line from a poem or a song gets stuck in your head and you haven’t read the poem or heard the song in a while so you’re convinced that your mind is trying to tell you something but it’s probably nothing.
Anyway, being here always makes me happy so thank you, and the Galerie is really beautiful today and the exact sort of thing that excites me.
And yeah, RIP Edmund White. I own shelves worth of books he’s blurbed, so obviously a great curator of taste and someone who always seemed open to and supportive of fairly experimental literature.
*Poof*its me! I was resting and plotting then acting on plots in the moment when all seems lost and well poof a way sort automated it self into reality now I’m just coasting towards excitement’s end goal and my first time destination. New tone can you tell? it feels encoded. Whats been up and whats the last drink you had that you really remember maybe really fresh water? Ive only been drinking water and omg I found lousy cigs from a corner store finally so there to 4 cigs a day but it literally takes a couple miles to walk there and back so its worth it and fit I love It! I actually have to look at the old posts lol brb ttyl xoxo.
Today’s stuff is really cool. Thank you, Dennis. It’s giving me all sorts of queer ideas about form and language, especially because I had Nina Simone’s Vous etes seuls, mais je désire etre avec vous playing on repeat while I read it. And the pre-AI thing does matter, at least to me. I’m not by any means a Luddite, but something about the (perceived, if not real) replication of human consciousness seems different in a sinister way. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Many beetles do fly, yes. I’ve spent my whole life in apartments and have always had at least some come by my room. The worst was when we had a lot of ladybugs in my freshman year dorm. Their dead bodies were everywhere, and our room smelled bitter for months. Once one crushed itself into my mouth as I slept and I woke up and vomited.
RIP Edmund White. I remember reading A Boy’s Own Story as a kid, as I’m sure many of us here did. Any nice stories about him come to mind?