Exhibition visits:
When Forms Come Alive
Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970
What interested me about both these exhibitions was the way that the artists had invented new visual languages to explore their understanding of the world. Whilst there is no direct relationship to 'Pataphysics, all of these artists were engaged in imaginative explorations, experimenting like scientists with materials and forms but also reflecting on the metaphysical aspects of their work, their ineffable, indescribable qualities. These works of art are not answers or theories,. They don't attempt to close down our understanding of life but rather they open up new possibilities for looking, feeling and understanding. This sense is reflected in the titles of both shows. What happens when forms 'come alive'? What is 'beyond form'? This sense of openness is perhaps enhanced by the abstract visual language employed by each artist. Some works were biomorphic whereas others opted were hard-edged, geometric or technological. In most of the work I felt a strong sense that the materials were dynamic and full of energy. That what appeared still was in fact a bundle of vibrating molecules. Even the metallic objects seemed to have the potential to move and reform themselves. The themes of growth and movement ran through both exhibitions. I noticed plenty of spiralling, writhing forms and I enjoyed the way that the different works 'spoke' to each other. Both exhibitions were sensitively curated so that the surrounding architecture and sources of light enhanced the viewer's experience of the work.
Mirrors & Windows
Some photographs could be compared to mirrors, whereas others might be more similar to windows. This concept was applied to an exhibition of American photography by curator John Szarkowski and his catalogue essay makes an argument for thinking about photography in these terms:
… there is a fundamental dichotomy in contemporary photography between those who think of photography as a means of self-expression and those who think of it as a method of exploration. Mirrors are reflective. They may reveal something about the photographer who made the image. Windows are translucent. Through them we see a picture of the world, mostly as it is. These terms might be helpful in thinking about how I choose to make photographs as I develop ideas for my personal investigation.
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This concept could be applied to all sorts of imagery.
For example, Alfred Hithcock's film Rear Window is about a photojournalist who has broken his leg in a photography related accident and who is confined to his apartment. Through the large picture window, he can observe the lives of his neighbours, assisted by a massive telephoto lens. The shots are sometimes window-like, showing us life unfolding in the world outside the apartment. Sometimes, though, we are shown the life inside the apartment, the central character's state of mind, his relationships and obsessions. In these moments, the view is more mirror-like. Hitchcock's films often seem to reveal as much about the director's psychology as they do the details of the particular story being presented.
Here are some images from the Mirrors & Windows exhibition:
MirrorsSubjective
Generalised Reflective Artistic Synthetic Psychological Manipulated Personal Suggestive |
WindowsObjective
Specific Observed Documentary Real Optical Straight Public Descriptive |
Here are two projects by photographers that might be thought of in terms of Mirrors and Windows:
Jiro Takamatsu - Photograph of Photograph, 1972-3
Takamatsu commissioned a photographer to re-photograph pictures from his family album including light reflections that disrupted the original image. This is an example of conceptual art, a project that reveals much about Takamatsu's relationship to photography (and his family archive). The images are transformed into physical mirrors, reflectors of light. They are also metaphorical mirrors, reflectors of the artist.
In Photograph of Photograph, the modern world is dissonant, fragmented, and often unable to be apprehended by the viewer as the photograph-within-a-photograph buckles or reflects glare and thus obstructs its subject [...] Part ritualistic reenactment of personal history and part blurred recollection, the series reveals the separation between the sign of the photograph and its signifier, the mimetic function of the image and its possible historical and personal reinterpretations.
-- Michelle Jubin
Robert Parkinson - Rear Window, 2020
Parkinson used the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 lockdown to focus his worldview. Confined (like James Stewart in Hitchcock's film) to his apartment, the photographer made images through his windows of the world outside. He photographs changing light, passersby, workers and traffic - mundane subjects framed by the window.
Limitations can set you free [...] A photograph itself is, in a sense, the ultimate limitation, capturing a split second of the external world in a single still frame. In practice, there is the common “one camera, one lens” restriction that some photographers might impose upon themselves when shooting. There are also broader boundaries such as confining oneself to a specific place within which to photograph: a city, a studio, or even one’s own home. From March to April 2020, Parkinson photographed what he saw of the outside world from just one window in his home, gathering images that would become the aptly titled publication, Rear Window.
My responseAfter some thought, I decided to take inspiration from Jiro Takamatsu's Photograph of Photograph series. I chose a famous book about photography, The Photographer's Eye - a selection of pictures from the Museum of Modern Art collection, edited by John Szarkowski - and photographed windows that appeared in several images. I used my phone and angled the book so that light from my desk lamp reflected off the surface, disrupting the picture. I also framed the image so that no edges or context was visible, filling the frame with detail and making the resulting images deliberately ambiguous. I suppose even though these are pictures of windows, they might say something about me as a photographer and therefore also act as mirrors.
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Where We Belong
A workshop with Alejandra Carles-Tolra
Alejandra Carles-Tolra is a visual artist, lecturer and facilitator from Barcelona based in London. She is interested in questions about identity and the role the group plays in our search for belonging. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. As an educator she designs resources, teaches courses and facilitates creative workshops for a range of institutions. She has a strong commitment to using photography as a voice and tool of empowerment for vulnerable communities from diverse backgrounds.
Where We Belong is a body of work exploring themes of belonging, group identity and escapism through a portrayal of Jane Austen devotees. The book was published by Ediciones Posibles in 2023. |
Here are some of my favourite images from the book. My initial response was a combination of curiosity and puzzlement. I don't really identify with a particular social group beyond my immediate family and friends so these fancy dress events seem quite odd to me. However, the pictures are taken with amazing sensitivity and reveal the tensions between contemporary life (cameras, telecommunications, tourism) and a fantasy of the past. The details are telling.
The book itself is beautifully designed, intimate in scale, with a cloth cover, bookmark and concealed letters to Jane Austen:
We then matched words to pictures and photographed the results:
We chose a single word and made photographs on our phones in response. The word and the photograph were then displayed together:
We explored the idea of trustworthiness in photography, creating a spectrum of particular images from completely staged to completely unstaged.
Here are the results. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences:
For example, these two images caused a fair amount of disagreement. We talked about the direct gaze of the subjects, the amount of direction from the photographer, the composition and lighting and how much it was possible to tell about the circumstances of the moment of exposure from the image itself. How do we know when to trust an image? Can fiction sometimes get closer to the truth? Can a picture that looks candid be highly staged?
We discussed the influence of painting on photography. Alejandra shared the fact that some of her participants (the Janeites) loved the Pre-Raphaelites. Some of the compositions in Where We Belong seem to echo several paintings.
Practical Response
In Alejandra’s work, the use of different photographic styles is used to blur the threshold between fiction and nonfiction, between past and present. Working in small groups, we made the following photographs (in no particular order):
- A close-up double portrait featuring at least one hand
- A tableau (group portrait) of at least three people sharing an activity e.g. sleeping, talking, eating...
- A still life of an item of clothing or object normally kept close to the body (e.g. phone, make-up, keys etc.)
- A close-up portrait of a direct gaze (e.g. subject looking into the camera)
- An environmental portrait of at least one person walking or running away from the camera
- A landscape (e.g. in nature or an urban setting. A space that gives a sense of place)
- A tightly cropped group portrait of legs and feet
- A photograph of someone taking a photograph
- A portrait of someone sitting alone, viewed side on (in profile)
We then printed them as contact sheets or used computer presentation software, sequencing the images to create a kind of narrative. We chose a title and attempted to find a piece of text to go with the final sequence.
Reflections
I really enjoyed the workshop. It was helpful to listen to Alejandra describe how she builds projects, sustaining them over several years. I liked the connection between her interest in groups and communities and her own experience of moving to different countries, feeling lonely, and trying to find her 'tribe'. I'm also interested in the tension between individual and group identity. I don't really belong to any groups and so I'm fascinated by people who regularly meet with others who share their interests. I think I use the Internet to do this, preferring a more remote connection. I was inspired by Alejandra's book, especially the very careful and thoughtful way it had been designed. There's clearly a lot more to photobook design than I thought! Altogether, this was a great way to think about fact and fiction in photography, the way photographers can use a combination of candid and staged images to explore people's behaviour and motivations. I really liked the idea that we are all performing all the time, projecting a particular idea we might have about ourselves to others. I suppose this might be even more true in the age of mass smartphones and 24/7 surveillance culture. Are photographers part of the problem or part of the solution?
Naomi Hobson's Adolescent Wonderland
Taken over a number of seasons between 2019 and 2023, Naomi Hobson’s photographic series presents a raw, honest beauty that elevates the voices of young people in her community, encouraging them to tell their own stories in their own way. Vibrant full-coloured portraits highlight the young people’s individuality and self-expression against black and white backgrounds, speaking to the importance of preserving their culture and history.
Soulscapes
Both of these shows explore our relationship to the environment and both feature work by artists of colour. I don't normally like the use of selective colour in photographs but Naomi Hobson's pictures make effective use of the technique to lift her subjects out of the landscapes they inhabit. There is a strong sense of joy and exuberance in both shows and this is communicated through vibrant colours and, in the case of the Dulwich show, seductive, painterly surfaces. I was particularly drawn to the beautiful paint work in Soulscapes and I enjoyed making a few close-up pictures for reference. The photographic images utilised collage and texture to good effect, complicating the traditional documentary function of the medium. It occurred to me after seeing both shows that the work walked walked a fine line between representation and abstraction, either through the use of colour, the treatment of surfaces or the layering of materials. In this way, new realities can be generated in art that don't exist in our usual perceptions of the world.
The novels of Haruki Murakami
I have read (and listened to) several novels by Haruki Murakami. I like to listen to them when I'm out photographing. I enjoy the surreal combination of relatively straightforward descriptions of mundane reality (i.e. making a sandwich or taking a bus) and equally straightforward speculations about the world of spirits, talking cats, unicorns wandering the streets and the attractions of subterranean spaces. The distinction between what can be perceived and what exists beneath the surface of everyday life is deliberately confused in Murakami's books. I don't know if he's interested in 'Pataphysics, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was. His work suggests that he is comfortable with the idea of contradictions, sudden swerves and the science of the imaginary.
I would like to capture some of this spirit in my work. I like the idea that it might derive from observed reality but contain within it the germ of another reality, a sur-reality or imaginary space. I don't yet know quite how this will manifest itself. I don't want it to be illustrative of someone else's ideas though or typically surealist -wacky or bizarre. I would prefer it to be more ambiguous and allusive, like Murakami's novels.
I would like to capture some of this spirit in my work. I like the idea that it might derive from observed reality but contain within it the germ of another reality, a sur-reality or imaginary space. I don't yet know quite how this will manifest itself. I don't want it to be illustrative of someone else's ideas though or typically surealist -wacky or bizarre. I would prefer it to be more ambiguous and allusive, like Murakami's novels.
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Nick Waplington
The Nick Waplington show at Hamiltons is a real treat, featuring previously unpublished images from his seminal series Living Room. The pictures were made with a 6x9 camera so the negatives can cope with being made into huge enlargements. Waplington's vibrant, colourful pictures of two working class families in 1980s Nottingham reminded me of Richard Billingham's later series Ray's a Laugh, about is alcoholic parents. Waplington's pictures are more joyful and I was drawn to the details in them - staring eyes, cartoon animals, text and body parts. The photographer was clearly a participant in family life, making several visits over a number of years. You sense the sympathy an connection he had with the people in what would otherwise be fairly voyeuristic images. This new selection of images has been published in an updated version of the original book. They offer a familar but different take on the families' lives. I wonder what the now older participants make of them?
The marvellous in the everyday
In Part 1 of my personal investigation I developed an interest in 'Pataphysics and the "science of imaginary solutions". I discovered several examples of fictional artists and galleries and experimented with creating my own. I invented a photography gallery (active in the 1980s) specialising in experimental exhibitions. I also invented the photographer Paul A. Deakin whose work was shown in the gallery. I have been wondering whether to pursue this line of enquiry but my concern is that it is too derivative of the work of others. I have also been reading novels by Haruki Murakami which explore the relationship between the everyday and the magical, the conscious and the subconscious, the real and the imagined. I have continued to take photographs (mostly on black and white film) of my everyday surroundings. I'm now wondering whether I can bring all these interests together, in some form, for my personal investigation. I think what really interests me is the way that photography can be a way of elevating an experience of the everyday - a way of noticing the marvellous lurking within the mundane. I'm also interested in a particular type of photography practice that involves engaging with the ordinary, unspectacular world, with the camera functioning as a kind of divining rod.
I have just discovered a book about 'Everyday Life' by Michael Sherringham and the 'Everyday' edition of the Whitechapel Gallery's Document of Contemporary Art. Sherringham makes reference to Surrealism in his study of the origins of interest everydayness, specifically the idea that the marvellous is contained within (rather than separate to) the everyday. This idea is echoed in Murakami's stories as characters slip easily between the mundane and the miraculous, the real and the imaginary. |
My plan:
- Research examples of surrealist photography and the 'marvellous in the everyday'
- Read key texts related to theories of 'the everyday' and collect relevant quotations
- Research the work of contemporary photographers whose images of 'the everyday' contain evidence of the 'marvellous'
- Continue reading Haruki Murakami's novels
- Continue to make photographs of my everyday experiences
- Make a start on my personal investigation essay
Nothing happens; this is the everyday. But what is the meaning of this stationary movement? At what level is this 'nothing happens' situated? For whom does 'nothing happen' if, for me, something is necessarily always happening? In other words, what corresponds to the 'who?' of the everyday? And, at the same time, why, in this 'nothing happens', is there the affirmation that something essential might be allowed to happen? |
[...] I want to reveal the quality of a moment in passing. Where something is recognised and acknowledged but remains mysterious and undefined. You continue on your way, but have been subtly changed from that point on. |
Observe the street, from time to time, with some concern for system perhaps. Apply yourself. Take your time [...] The street: Try to describe the street, what it's made of, what it's used for. The people in the street. The cars [...] Carry on. Until the scene becomes improbable, until you have the impression, for the briefest of moments, that you are in a strange town or, better still, until you can no longer understand what is happening or is not happening, until the whole place becomes strange, and you no longer even know that this is what is called a town, a street, buildings, pavements... |
Photoshoot
These pictures were taken in London and the midlands during the Easter holiday with a 35mm rangefinder camera and Ilford XP2 Super400 film.
Pictures of nothing (in particular)
I'm interested in the way that a photograph can transform a mundane subject into something compelling. What happens when the camera records a scene that seems to have no intrinsic interest or in which the subject in unclear? Here are a couple of examples. In both cases, the light seems to be more interesting than the subject matter. Both pictures contain different types of surfaces which absorb and reflect the light in different ways. There's a kind of tension in both pictures between description and abstraction that I find interesting. I would like to continue to experiment with making more pictures like this.
Boring Photographs
I've been thinking about the relationship between the form and the content of a photograph. Is it possible to make an interesting photograph of a completely banal, everyday (boring) subject? What does the word "interesting" mean in this context? What makes a photograph interesting if not the subject? Should the boring content be composed beautifully? What if the form of the photograph is also straightforward or lacking in obvious drama? What if the light is flat with few (if any) shadows? The work of John Myers and Tim Carpenter is instructive:
Myers' 'Boring Photos' and Carpenter's 'Local Objects' make a virtue of their everydayness. There is nothing remarkable, newsworthy or conventionally beautiful in these images. So why make them? Perhaps both photographers are interested in the way we engage with mundane reality, the sights we encounter on a daily basis whilst going about our ordinary lives. They both use larger or medium format analogue cameras which can make big negatives with lots of detail. These images are not made quickly - they are not sense impressions or fleeting effects of light. They are not snapshots. The subjects are so ordinary that they seem to challenge the viewer to keep looking at them. One of John Myers' books of photographs is entitled The World is Not Beautiful.
I believe photographers have got to come to terms with the world we live in, not the world journalists like, which is spectacular and exciting and makes good copy [...] Photographers and sub editors and journalists, all kinds of journalist want a story. They want to sell papers, and what sells is something unusual. ‘Man with three legs marries 86 year old widow’, it makes a terrific headline. They’re not so interested in what’s going on down the road at number 83. |
All photographs contain information. They can show us what the world looks like but not exactly the way it appears to our eyes. The world is transformed by being photographed into an image. Garry Winogrand once said that he didn't believe that there was a particular way a photograph had to look. The photographer's job was to organise the information available to them within the four edges of the picture. What strikes me as interesting (and challenging) about both Myers' and Carpenter's pictures is that they often include a lot of (relatively empty) floor space. Often, this is a great stretch of tarmac, concrete, grass or paving stones. I wonder if the inclusion of so much floor is related to the choice of camera/lens and the need to keep the edges of various buildings and other vertical elements relatively parallel to the picture edges and avoiding perspective distortion? I need to give this some more thought.
I think I'm comfortable with the idea of making pictures of ordinary things. But I'm also drawn to the way that light affects these ordinary things. For me, the excitement of looking at the world (however ordinary) is heightened by the way that light bounces off it and into the camera. This can be a challenge in a country where there isn't a massive amount of sunlight but it's the promise of 'good' light that makes me want to go out and make photographs.
I think I'm comfortable with the idea of making pictures of ordinary things. But I'm also drawn to the way that light affects these ordinary things. For me, the excitement of looking at the world (however ordinary) is heightened by the way that light bounces off it and into the camera. This can be a challenge in a country where there isn't a massive amount of sunlight but it's the promise of 'good' light that makes me want to go out and make photographs.
Boring Photoshoot
These pictures are a response to the 'boring' photographs of John Myers and Tim Carpenter. I walked from my home to Lewisham and back with a medium format 6 x 4.5 camera loaded with Ilford XP2 Super400 120 film. I tried to photograph uneventful scenes but which also called out to me (for reasons I didn't necessarily understand). I found it quite hard to take pictures of the completely banal. I realise, on reflection, that my eyes were drawn to small details, often humorous, like words and numbers, other images, out of place objects and marks on walls. My pictures generally contain more information than either Myers' or Carpenters', which are relatively empty by comparison.
Another experiment
Switching back to 35mm, I attempted to take a set of pictures containing less information. I was just over half way through the roll of film when I stumbled upon the Palestine demonstration moving down Piccadilly. I was able to make a few images of the marchers. I realised that I had abandoned my original plan of making pictures that were 'boring' and lacking in dramatic content. When I looked at the scanned images on my computer screen, I wondered what would happen if I paired the 'boring' pictures with those from the demo. Here are the results: