Summary of the progress of my project work during the Surfaces and Strategies module
Surfaces and Strategies: Leaflets and Zines
In my week 9 reflection I spoke a little about the process that led to me trying to put together a small zine. This was an interesting activity that I certainly intend to develop further, as there is a lot of potential for variations in content and layout, as well as technical aspects such as paper choice and printing process to explore (geeky, but I love that stuff!!).
Having had access to a double-sided printer this week, I was able to create slicker editions of the zine that reproduced the photographs in a much more pleasing manner than my home printer had done.
Zine printed on a better printer than my Canon all-in-one!
Following on from the zine, and reflecting my desire to produce something that is as instantly accessible as possible, I developed a couple of leaflets to see how far this idea would go.
Two leaflets!
They were very easy to put together, with the main challenge being the need to be economical with space and limit any unnecessary content (I am prone to ramble, so that wasn’t as easy as you might think!). I’m really happy with how these turned out, because they feel so practical and simple, reflecting the approach I want the project to take.
Useful contacts
Being self-critical, I would say that the first iterations have possibly subjugated the photograph too much, with a preponderance of text. And the trick will be to arrive at a layout that does justice to the strands of the project so far (images and text submitted by collaborators, musical influences etc) while also being a practical source of information about what the project entails and how to seek further support.
They aren’t stuffy or ‘arty’ at all really. My idea is to refine this format further, potentially using the leaflets as an introduction to the project, as a sidekick when inviting people to be collaborators or simply as a way to raise awareness of the issue of urban solitude and the organisations that offer help and support.
I have left a few in random public places (e.g. buses, tubes) and have handed some to people that have already contributed to the project.
Sneaky Tube leaflet!
In my fantasy world, the ideal outcome would be to follow the journey of a leaflet left on the tube and see where it ended up and who it connected with. But I will have to come back to GPS geo-tracking printing methods in a future module!
Surfaces and Strategies: Images and Text
One of the unexpected discoveries of this module has been the role that text has come to play in the production of the images.
For the first time, it has felt apposite to introduce text into the photograph, in a way that I could not have anticipated when I first sought to elicit the reflections of others on their experiences of urban solitude.
As the responses started coming in, and the tender nature of some of the reflections was noted, it seemed to me that there was a strand of emotion and information that would be potentially underused if words were not given a more prominent role in the communication of the ideas of the project.
How to do that of course is the challenge…
Words: Audrey Reglioni, Image: Justin Carey
I had originally imagined that words would be an important part of the project but had envisaged this being more in the sense of including my own musings on the subject. During this module, I have been writing sporadically to support the creation of images, but what quickly became clear was that nothing that I wrote, particularly of a fictional nature, could in any way match the honesty and simplicity of the words spoken by those who were kind enough to contribute to the project. Again, this shift in outlook reflects a more general broadening of perspective that has occurred during this last twelve weeks, where I have felt able to loosen my grip on the authorial reins and allow the perspectives of others to be more directly represented.
To me, using the words of my collaborators has required me to ‘get out of the way’ to let them communicate more directly with the audience. This has actually been easier than I thought, I have had little trouble stepping back and allowing people to speak for themselves. More surprising has been how liberating it has been and how the work seems to have taken on a different air, wider and clearer, without losing anything of the essence I feared might be diluted if I did not maintain my sole authorship role.
I can’t say that I know for sure how to fit the words into the work, or whether they will always be part of it. I can say though, that introducing them at this stage has certainly moved things forward and opened up another vista for further exploration.
So far, I have used direct quotes from collaborators in images, in project materials and the Searching for Meaning website. I have also used snippets of lyrics from songs that have inspired the work or have been suggested by respondents. This is another explicit statement of the influences that previously had been less visible (but always present).
This link between photography and writing has long been established and is frequently analysed (Beckman and Weissberg, 2013). While I am a latecomer to this discourse, I hope to continue researching this link and developing a greater understanding of how it relates to my own practice.
Reference:
Beckman, K. and Weissberg, L. (ed.) (2013) On Writing with Photography, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 9 Reflection
The end of the module seems to be hurtling towards me. It’s always a bad sign when the weekly seminars and activities die down, indicating that we should be entirely consumed with final preparation for assignment submissions. I don’t seem to have anywhere near enough time to submit the work on time, so I’ve been distracting myself with cutting up pieces of paper and firing off a stapler for the first time in years…I’ve been making a zine!
Everything about my work seems provisional at the moment. The project I originally envisioned has been subconsciously evolving and growing throughout this module. This may not yet be entirely evident in the output I’ve produced so far in this module but the ideas continue to bubble up, with material changes to my methodology slowly resolving themselves in my mind as I keep moving forward.
Zine mock-ups
An example of this is in the creation of the zine. When I set out on this project, I envisaged a photobook submission as a key outcome of the project. The type of books produced by Hoxton Mini Press, for example, felt like the sort of direction I should be aiming for with my project. Where the work is at present, with so much in flux and an anticipation that there will be further significant changes in my methods and output in the coming months, producing a photobook with the attendant suggestion of a completed piece of work seemed inappropriate.
In addition to this, as the project has become increasingly inclusive and the emphasis has shifted slightly - being less introspective and towards more of a dialogue between contributors, the use of the photobook, which often denotes and propounds a determinedly monocular perspective just doesn’t quite fit for me at this stage.
Contacts page - signposting resources and organisations that are relevant to the project
I wanted the tangible product of the work to this point to feel accessible and without pretension to high art - rather a provider of information than an exposition of my personal view. I wanted it to feel like a class companion rather than the course lecturer, something to be discovered and that hopefully stimulates further inquiry, but which doesn’t pretend to have all the answers.
’m aiming for three one-off zines at this point, with a variation of content, layout and paper type. Putting the first one together was in some ways more complicated than predicted, while in other ways it was quite an intuitive and rewarding process.
This...
became this!
In the week 9 reading, an interview with Daido Moriyama (2009) I was struck by his flexibility when approaching the physical output of his own work, taking varying degrees of direct ownership of the processes of collating, sequencing and printing his images at different stages of his career and as the particular project dictated at the time. He certainly hasn’t been wedded to one particular form of production and has a great awareness of the role the physical production of the work has on the way the images are received. Moriyama states:
“An actual photographic print creates one type of world that is totally different from the world that comes about from printed matter. That difference is something I really like. Sure enough, I still think the same thing. The photograph comes to life through the printing. My photographs are made complete on the printed page. Even if the same photograph appears in different magazines, and differs based on the printing method of the particular media, the way in which the photograph is seen also changes. That transformation is something that I find really interesting. That is why the same photograph can have a different look based on the media that it passes through. It takes on a different meaning. It has a different way of coming to life.”
Kaneko et al (2009:27)
Having produced the first zine, I understand what he means and can see this exemplified in my own work. Putting together the zine has given me a different view of the work and how it might best be presented. Holding something in my hands has also triggered various thoughts about paper type, page size, printing method etc that all cumulatively contribute to the effect of the work as a whole. Having produced a book via Blurb in an earlier mini-project, I can’t help but be more interested in being more hands-on in future printing of my work when comparing the Blurb book with my homemade zine, which though a shambolic amateur affair still seems to have more to say than the glossy professionally printed Blurb effort.
As always, much to reflect on, and hopefully I’ll aim to experiment more with papers, and printing techniques in the upcoming module break.
Reference:
Kaneko, R., Vartanian, I., Moriyama, D., Martin, LA. and Wada, K. (2009) Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s, New York: Aperture.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 7 Reflection
Week 7 focused on challenging us to consider how we would put together a publication to accompany the project exhibition. This task follows on closely from the mini-project we were set between module one and two, which ended up with me putting together a rubbish little book.
As I’ve intimated in entries about other aspects of the work, I feel like my ideas about any publication arising from this project will evolve as the work does. My ideas about the project and the work I want to produce have already shifted significantly since the beginning of this module and my views about publication have developed accordingly. Prior to commencing this module I had pictured a bound hardback photobook as the pinnacle of my ambitions. I had visions of a selection of my images being presented, along with some writing by myself and possibly a selection of quotes from my interview subjects. This would have been a very monovisual book, with only my perspective presented. This no longer seems like an appropriate way to present the work that I aim to produce during this project, mainly because I’ve accepted and increasingly encourage the input of others into the creation of the work. As such, I hope to present more of their work alongside mine, either unfiltered or in some way composited with my work or that of other project participants.
One of the other questions posed this week is whether the publication will contain non-photographic content. As stated, I always envisaged my publication containing text, and have already started experimenting with how this might work best.
Having bought a selection of blank books of different sizes to try putting together a mock up, as the submissions came in from my contributors I changed tack. At this stage of the project, particularly considering the provisional nature of the ‘Searching for Meaning’ exhibition, I am working on a small, almost disposable zine format. The emphasis at the moment needs to be more on the essence of the project to this point, with a significant component of work from the contributors as well as a sample of the charity and organisational contacts that are pertinent to the project. One of the key aspects of this project for me is that it offers some way to open a dialogue on the issues covered and also hopefully provides some clues to where support might be available. The format has to be such that the content provided by my contributors has sufficient prominence alongside my own work, to demonstrate that the idea of solitude can be subverted by a more collegiate attitude. Something that, again, is developing in my own practice as I proceed with this project.
This week’s reading, from Parr and Badger (2006) emphasised that the photobook has a long and illustrious history. I also couldn’t help thinking that to contribute to this heritage one should strive to produce something that is not a generic repetition of what has gone before, but is rather a sincere object that faithfully represents the individuality of the project it accompanies. Ideally too, the book adds something to the other strands of the output of the work and I can only hope to eventually arrive at this destination in my case.
Reference:
Parr, M. and Badger, G. (2006) The Photobook: A History, Volume II. London: Phaidon.
Music of our Minds
How do you describe or evoke an emotion in music? This question has of course occupied musicians around the world for hundreds of years. My images have always been heavily influenced by music, largely because I’m always listening to it and so most of my thinking and feeling occurs to some sort of soundtrack. In widening my efforts to engage with others and their own experiences of solitude, I chose to invite respondents to suggest songs that they felt were relevant to the theme for whatever reason.
I’ve been really touched so far by how willing people have been to provide what is in some ways a more personal insight into their own emotional world than just responding to a questionnaire. The variety in responses, some of which are included on this page, has been a real eye-opener and again validates the decision to elicit responses to the theme in as varied a manner as possible.
It’s also been incredible how multiple respondents have chosen the same songs in some cases, confirming how powerful music can be both in short-circuiting and universalizing our emotional responses. The insight and resultant inspiration and moods that the songs have triggered exceeds what could have been expected by conducting interviews alone and for that I’m so grateful.
Having attended an exhibition earlier this year where the work of the late Malick Sadibé was accompanied by a curated soundtrack evoking joyous parties in backstreet Bamako bars, I thought that I’d one day love to be able to present my own work in some way augmented or accompanied by music. This seems like a natural consequence of a practice that is already so heavily dependent on music for its fuel and its energy.
For the forthcoming work in progress exhibition ‘Searching for Meaning’ I've compiled an exhibition playlist comprised of songs submitted by my kind respondents as well as songs that have directly influenced my own images. This playlist will be accessible from the exhibition webpage and will continue to evolve with the project moving forward.
Photo Elicitation
A key aspect of my project proposal was identifying and interviewing people about their personal experiences and perspectives of urban solitude. Quite early in this module however, I was challenged to review the way I’d proposed to engage others with my project to avoid unduly influencing subject’s responses and so narrowing the potential scope of the responses I might receive. Initially I planned to use my own images and set questions to provoke dialogue about the topic, aiming then to feed the interview responses back into the ongoing work. It didn’t take long to realise this approach would be too directive and could hinder freedom of response to the theme.
Image by Rupa Dawar
I was keen to ensure that the interviews didn’t simply end up as my own views being reflected back to me via someone else and so I needed to loosen my approach.
I therefore switched from the idea of straight interviews to a more flexible approach to capturing responses to the theme. I decided to offer various strands to respondents to express how they felt about solitude in the hope that a less structured approach would allow people to choose the method that suited them best, encourage people to be more honest and allow them to more easily access their own feelings on the issue. Aside from the questionnaire, which remains a part of the process, I also offered people the opportunity to submit images that they felt were relevant to the idea of solitude or in some way reminded them of times when they had felt this way.
It’s been really interesting to see how varied these submitted images are. Of course this was to be expected, but it has highlighted how a wide avenue of investigation would have been lost if I hadn’t chosen to open out the offer to respondents in this way.
My own response to the submitted images has been interesting too, both in terms of an instinctive reaction to dismissing images that don’t immediately resonate with my own perception of the theme but also how, in reacting in this way, I’ve validated the absolute importance of having sought out perspectives that diverge from my own and how I'm obliged to honour those perspectives and not allow my own individual bias to dominate, as this would ultimately be to the detriment of the project’s aims.
Image by Leanne McMahon
When all is said and done, I of course retain a curatorial role and I’ve chosen to represent the submitted images in different ways, guided by no particularly criteria. Some images have been used to accompany text or quotes from the respondents, others have been used as projected images to be re-photographed while others have been composited to create entirely new images (allowing me to improve my processing skills too).
Composite of two images by Leanne McMahon
When deciding to ask for images I hadn’t thought about what I would do with them or how they might be useful to the work. I suppose I imagined them being inspiration in some way to the ongoing creation of my work, simply feeding into my own vision. I did not envisage that they might ‘become’ the work themselves. This has been an unexpected but very welcome discovery in the project so far. As I collect more images there’s much scope for developing this further.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 6 Reflection
This week, which continues building towards the end of module exhibition, explored the way images can be displayed and experienced by the viewer. The interview with Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale of the Caravan Gallery covered their own journey developing and using a non-traditional exhibition space to promote dialogue with communities and inspire photographic activities around the world. Their enthusiasm for what they do and their willingness to simply have a go and not allow themselves to be limited in the pursuit of their artistic objectives is an inspiration. Also, their willingness to collaborate and their flexibility of vision in even deciding that a small caravan could be used for their purposes are big lessons.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I might, at this late stage, try and mount an exhibition for this module. The gallery space seems less and less appealing, as well as feeling less appropriate for the work at this stage of its development. I’m unsure whether the gallery space might ultimately be the best place for this work to be shown, but certainly in its current inchoate state it doesn’t seem to merit the elevation that being placed in a gallery space almost inevitably confers.
I think photographs unavoidably respond to the space in which they are displayed. This effect can occur independently of the artist if the space is chosen without consideration to the intentions of the work and whether the space/light/ambience are conducive to, or congruent with, that intention. Where possible then, it is important for the artist to consider where their images are best placed and seek to influence this if possible. One must accept that the message the viewer receives from your work is somewhat out of your control, and may be at variance from that intended, but it remains important to control as many variables as possible to give the work the best chance to communicate clearly and the space where it is displayed and the audience who might be exposed to it are such variables.
Of course, one of the key aspects of my project is the concept of being alone and considering how people are affected by that state. It could be argued then that considering the images in neutrally coloured spaces where a single photograph occupies a single wall might give the images the space required to be considered clearly, but I’m not sure this is quite what the work needs. For sure, my original ideal for this project has gradually shifted to become one that is less clear cut, more accommodating to blurred definitions and uncomfortable contradictions. These feelings don’t seem best suited to the gallery space at the moment. I am sure as the work develops the ideal location for it will become clearer. As I continue working towards the end of this particular module I hope to be able to make a coherent provisional choice.
Repeat
One of the techniques I’ve wanted to experiment with is repeat photography, to see if there’s a role for this practice in articulating and exploring the themes of my project. In an effort to break out of a creative and motivational lull I figured I’d start at home and give this process a try.
One of the things I’ve considered is how to use an image to change the character of a scene and/or to help tell the story of solitude or absence in a space. I’ve also become interested in how I might use light to enhance or alter how a scene reads. This image is my first attempt at some of the above, using a previously taken image as the basis for this shot, but translocating it elsewhere to see how this changes the meaning of the image. There was also a smidgen of light painting going on in this photo, something I have never tried before but would possibly like to experiment with again in future. Using light creatively is something I’m always concerned with and hope to be using projected images shortly as well.
Overall, I feel that rephotography can be a useful tool to tell the story in my project and will hope to develop this idea further.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 5 Reflection
This week we were introduced to the task that will take up most of our efforts for the rest of the module, that of preparing for an exhibition, publication and workshop to be presented in August. There is great potential to see the work develop and find new direction in this process. I’m interested that we are being asked to mount a workshop, as this formed a key part of my project proposal in the last module. I feel however that the greatest possibility for development for me lies in the exhibition and publication aspects of the task.
One of the key lessons for me in this module has been that there is so much space for my work to develop into. Up till now I’ve only ever considered the peak output of my images in terms of a single photograph, hopefully as well-constructed as possible, presented in a frame on a wall. The inescapable realisation is that the medium of photography is so much more robust and versatile than this. It can withstand pressure from ambitious and audacious practitioners and be stretched and pulled into various forms that are born from the camera but don’t necessarily end up in a standard or easily recognisable format. The simplest example of this is probably the fact that images are now consumed largely in virtual screen-based formats, so already the traditional medium of the physical photograph has been subverted. Once this constraint has been escaped, the question becomes ‘what next?’… the answers are potentially endless.
The role of the curator has been introduced this week with some of our cohort taking these roles in our own forthcoming exhibition. I remember the words of Lynn Smith, who said to me some time ago that developing relationships with curators was one of the most important things a photographer could do to move their career forward.
Reading interviews with curators from prominent institutions around the world I was struck by their common challenges, their knowledge and their protective love for the medium of photography, while they simultaneously acknowledged the changing landscape in which they are working. As an individual practitioner it’s easy to be so preoccupied with one’s own work and perspective that you’re unable to appreciate the rolling waves engulfing you, the tide of which is changing the context in which your work exists without you even knowing. So curators can be a vital resource to the practitioner, helping to contextualise the work and present it to an audience that the practitioner themselves may not be able to access. I believe the individual practitioner must maintain a clear sense of their own direction and their own motivation for producing the work, but be open to the additional ‘big picture’ perspective that a curator can provide and be prepared to be challenged by, and respond to, their objective expert view.
The more I consider how I envisage my project developing with broader parameters in mind, the more exciting the possibilities seem. I’m not sure if I will have all the time and resources necessary to explore everything but I want to try some things and see where I end up.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 4 Reflection
"If nothing else, the advent of post-photography is an uncomfortable reminder that the present we all embody, the photographic presence that is the very guarantee of our being, is no more than one ephemeral effect within history's own ongoing and inexorable processes of reproduction and erasure."
Geoffrey Batchen, 2002: 127 (1)
"The task of a philosophy of photography is to reflect upon this possibility of freedom - and thus its significance - in a world dominated by apparatuses; to reflect upon the way in which, despite everything, it is possible for human beings to give significance to their lives in face of the chance necessity of death."
Vilém Flusser, 2004: 82 (2)
Freedom!
This massive topic seems to have arrived at a bad time for me. It’s too big, the implications seem too profound. I’m trying to follow the light, but it only seems to lead to new cul de sacs of blinding confusion, with each turn confounded by a shroud of abstruse theory cast in language that leaves the deepest, blackest shadows on either side.
We are asked to challenge the very practice of photography, to seek to question the physical form of the image, how its representation comments on the medium or opens new horizons for further exploration. But, in a weird way, all I can think about is death and how photography predicts, reports and simultaneously defers this final state.
Maybe the death is that of the idea of human as autonomous photographer with a singular vision. Maybe the death is of the idea of someone seeing something they find interesting, deciding therefore to take a photograph of it, and being satisfied simply with having done so. Or possibly we should just accept that photography as we know it is dead (or soon will be) and so we should all just move along and find something else to do.
And what are we supposed to be free from?
A simple Google search of ‘freedom’ brings up two definitions:
- The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
- The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
I’ve never felt enslaved by my camera, nor have I ever felt my rights to act as I wish impinged upon by the apparatus of photography. Yet this week, I’m repeatedly reminded how tightly chained I actually am to the apparatus and it’s a thoroughly demoralising idea.
I understand the reason for a general anxiety to reframe the position and pre-eminence of photography and the physical photograph itself in the rising daylight of the digital age. I support this effort, while feeling somewhat removed from it, existing in a parallel place where the conflict feels a lot less pivotal.
For me, right now, the real struggle lies in simply clinging on to the thing that brought me here in the first place…the unaltered, naïve joy derived from taking photographs. I’ve lost it at the moment. I hope it’s buried underneath all this stuff and not gone for good.
References:
- Batchen, G. (2002) Each wild idea; writing, photography, history, Cambridge, Mass, London: MIT.
- Flusser, V. (2004) Towards a Philosophy of Photography, London: Reaktion.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 3 Reflection
This week we’ve been looking at collaboration and participation in photography and the practical and ethical issues arising from these methods of working. This seemed to be timed perfectly to coincide with a developing train of thought about my own project which made the reading and research this week of particular interest.
There are many, like Azoulay (2016) who have moved beyond trying to convince of the need for, or importance of, collaboration in photographic practice, arguing that it’s ‘unavoidable’1and thus no longer worth anguished discussion. They seek rather to analyse and codify this practice, examining the ethical implications and challenges that arise from creating work with the contribution of others.
Even in my own practice, which I’d previously considered to be a very self-centred and introspective one, I readily concede that I have had a long and very fruitful collaboration with my printer George, at Digitalarte who not only helps me to realise my prints in the way that optimises the visual impact of my work and stays as faithful as possible to my original vision, but who has also had direct and positive influence on my photographic practice and workflow over the years I’ve been working with him. So, I am easily convinced of the inescapable need to collaborate.
What I hadn’t previously considered in much detail, and what is increasingly relevant to my own project, is the dynamic of the relationship between collaborators and how that can influence not only the way that contributions are elicited and made to the work, but also the integrity of the results gained by this collaboration.
Like with anything, there’s always a power play at work and it’s important to acknowledge this as a photographer entering into collaboration, in order to mitigate it if that’s what will serve the project best. To use a topical example, a proposal to highlight the plight of the Grenfell Tower residents by giving them cameras and asking them to document their terrible experiences would be open to a number of very searching questions depending on who was giving them the cameras and what the proposed outcomes were likely to be – a project suggested by the Conservative Party publicity office would be received and interpreted very differently to one sponsored by an independent charity.
So, as the photographer I have a responsibility to consider this relationship with my potential collaborators and how I can create a framework that allows them to contribute in a free and unbiased manner, and that is also sensitive to how their involvement in the project might compromise their own integrity or privacy.
My project, aiming to examine urban solitude, originally planned to interview selected people about their own experiences and use their responses to feed into the work. The more I think about this initial plan the less comfortable I am with it, as it feels too much like simply using other voices to tell my own story, rather than allowing these voices to speak sincerely for themselves, telling their own story in their own words, however divergent they might be from my own concept of the original idea. I will write more about this in a separate post, but there will have to be changes to my project methodology as a result of closer consideration of the implications, and benefits, of a more collaborative approach to the work.
Reflecting on the work this week, I realise that I must work harder to ensure that my collaborators have their own agency and that they are given the right platform on which to add their own unique voice to the project as it develops.
References:
- Azoulay, A. (2016) ‘Photography Consists of Collaboration: Susan Meiselas, Wendy Ewald, and Ariella Azoulay’, Camera Obscura, vol. 31, Number 1 91, pp. 187-201.
Lapenta, F. (2011) ‘Some Theoretical and Methodological Views on Photo-Elicitation’, in Margolis, EM. and Pauwels, L. (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, London: SAGE.
Chalfen, R. (2011) ‘Differentiating Practices of Participatory Visual Media Production’, in Margolis, EM. and Pauwels, L. (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, London: SAGE.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 2 Reflection
This week’s topic, Remediation, has been possibly the one I’ve most struggled to get my head around since we started this course. Remediation is the refashioning or incorporation of one medium into another medium. The concept introduces and formalises the idea that all art is based, in some way, on a repurposing of something else, something that has gone before.
Other concepts introduced this week, appropriation and remixing, are closely related to the practice of remediation and I would argue exist under its overarching umbrella.
Accepting this idea has a number of interesting and possibly unintended consequences. For example, if what one creates is merely a refashioned view of some preceding thing, then who ‘owns’ that thing? And how can one claim to be solely creatively responsible or the author of something ‘original’?
Jan Verwoert in 2007 argued thus:
‘Who owns a recurring style, a collective symbol or a haunted house? Even if you appropriate them, they can never be entirely your private property. Dead objects can circulate in space and change owners. Things that live throughout time cannot, in any unambiguous sense, pass into anyone’s possession. For this reason they must be approached in a different way. Tactically speaking, the one who seeks to appropriate such temporally layered objects with critical intent – that is with an attitude that differs significantly from the blunt revisionism of neo-(or ‘turbo’-)folkloristic exploitations of the past - must be prepared to relinquish the claim to full possession, loosen the grip on the object and call it forth, invoke it rather than seize it.’ 1
If one completely accepts this premise, then it’s very difficult to argue for strict ownership/authorship of any piece of art by any single person, as we would all be obliged to credit our predecessors whose work has either directly or indirectly contributed to our own. But how far should the obligation to reference, credit and acknowledge our influences extend?
In reflecting on this week’s presentations and the accompanying reading, I’m uncomfortable with the strict differentiation between terms used. The three key terms that were introduced - remediation, appropriation and remixing - to my mind describe a single practice, that of taking something from someone else and using it for your own purposes in your own work.
This could be for a range of reasons, from homage, to pastiche, to mutation into something entirely (on the face of it) unrelated to the original piece. In this way, it’s possible to consider appropriation and remixing as existing on a spectrum, with one end being where the act (remixing) results in something very different from the original piece, while at the other end the output may be more easily ‘traceable’ back to its source (appropriation).
The challenge then comes from acknowledging where one is placed on this spectrum and what obligations this position imposes upon one’s practice. For example, it could be argued that cropping a small corner out of someone else’s photograph to be used in my new work doesn’t require permission or attribution, because of the unidentifiable and relatively small contribution that this segment makes to my work or detracts from the original. On the other hand, printing large screenshots of someone else's work which I subsequently hang and pass off as my own, entirely new work may be sailing a little too close to the remediation wind (see the work of Richard Prince for examples of the latter).
To some degree, where one feels comfortable on the spectrum is a decision for each individual practitioner. I don’t feel that my references are always explicit in my own practice (where indeed I am aware of there being any references!), yet neither am I actively trying to obscure the fact that certain artists or works have been influential in my vision and the way I work.
This week we were all asked the most cutting of questions… ‘what is your original contribution to the conversation in which your images participate?’
Maybe the ultimate answer to all of this lies in accepting that, in this world of ever-proliferating imagery, it’s a nonsense to proclaim any form of originality. If we're all merely ‘reshuffling a basic set of cultural terms’2, then we are liberated from the futility of grasping for the mirage of originality and are free to create and appropriate at will, and the implications be damned!
References:
. Verwoert, J. (2007) 'Apropos Appropriation: Why stealing images today feels different', Art & Research[Electronic],vol. 1, no. 2, Available at: http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n2/verwoert.html, [Accessed 12 June 2017].
2. ‘Instead they advanced the paradigm of appropriation as a materialist model that describes art production as the gradual re-shuffling of a basic set of cultural terms through their strategical re-use and eventual transformation.’ From Verwoert, 2007.
Surfaces and Strategies: Week 1 Reflection
The opening of module two introduced the practice of repeat photography – ‘rephotography’. This practice of carefully reproducing previously captured images opens up new avenues of investigation that are not available to a single, isolated image. Repeat photography places both images in a different context and invites the viewer to consider what might exist in the space between them, an uncharted region of time and cultural shift to which the pair of images can possibly provide some clues, but often little more. The potential applications for rephotography are numerous, ranging from quantitative scientific examination to sociological commentary, while others simply find it an enjoyable thing to compare images from past and present for its own sake.
The work this week challenged me to consider how rephotography might be relevant to me and my own practice, and looking forward, whether there might be an application for it in the project I’m working towards in this MA. It’s a difficult question to answer comprehensively at this point, particularly as I have no personal experience of repeat photography. There are however aspects of the practice that may be of relevance to the work I hope to produce or the way in which I hope to examine the experience of urban solitude.
The act of repeating a photograph seems to me to take the image beyond its original boundaries and opens up possibilities for communicating context and information and provoking inquiry that is simply not possible with a single image. One of the challenges I have been continuously concerned with when plotting the course of my project, is how to articulate the vast and varied differences in the way people experience being alone in the urban environment. Instinctively it felt that straight photographs were not going to be adequate to do this subject real justice and my concession to this in my proposal was the addition of creative writing to allow myself and other people involved in the project (e.g. interviewees) to find different ways to articulate aspects of their experience which would later inform the process of image-making.
Repeat photography potentially offers another tool to explore this subject, offering as it does a manageable way to comment on large periods of time and on big issues that might be too much of a mouthful for one photograph to declare. It would, for example, certainly lend itself to telling a story of absence in the urban environment (if that were the story I was trying to tell). There is also the potential to use the single frame of reference to tell the story in a different way. If I shoot one place repeatedly, rather than lots of different places only once (as currently), how does that change the angle from which the story of urban solitude might be told?
This week’s work has once again challenged me to consider more carefully how the work might eventually be presented to an audience. In The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods(2011: 130) one of the most prominent advocates and exponents of rephotography, Mark Klett, wrote:
‘Interactive approaches using digital technologies enable seemingly incompatible types and formats of data to be collected and used together. Organizing this material presents a new challenge that accentuates content over media type, and emphasizes the experience of the work as a way to discover the work’s content. If done well the results can add layers of meaning and accessibility to photographs, extending their audience and reaching across disciplines. Then the old problem that photographs alone cannot explain their histories has found a new solution.‘
Klett raises the tantalising possibility of offering an ‘experience’ to the viewer that adds meaning and potentially appeals to a wider audience. There’s obviously much to unpack there, but the desire for the work to be experienced rather than just seen certainly resonates with me and rephotography may offer a way to engage in a wider dialogue with others about how they experience solitude in the urban environment, in a way that I’d originally proposed to do using workshops and questionnaires. I hope to test this on a small scale with a mini-project, to see if there might be a wider application moving forward and will report back with my progress in due course.
Reference:
Klett, M. (2011) 'Repeat Photography in Landscape Research', in Margolis, EM. and Pauwels, L. (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, London: SAGE.