"Transformation is in the head. If you have one thing and make another then there is no transformation, but there are two things. I don't think you would mistake one for the other." Jasper Johns
As I have noted in a previous article, I chose to present the images from my Windblown series as sequences consisting of the overall image plus three selections or croppings of the details within each image, observing (hoping?) that each one could nevertheless stand alone as a viable image in its own right. I also noted that the images themselves were made on a particularly bright, but extremely windy, spring day. As I had planned, this meant that the wind induced blurred movement of the leaves registered on the brightly lit surface, as one would expect, leaving the interior of the trees, sheltered from the wind, registered as still and dark. While recently revisiting this series, I realised that, were I to take the three detailed "cropped" versions of each image and overlay them with blends that would only replace elements in a lower layer with those elements of the layer that were darker this would result in a composite image where the the parts of the images that most conveyed a sense of (blurred) movement, essentially the brighter parts, would be replaced by the darker and more "still" parts. This would have the effect of "calming" their windblown appearance. And so it has proven. However, what I didn't expect and noticed straight away is that the resulting composite, though made up from three quite separate and different images, is wholly believable as an image in its own right. It is only on very close inspection that in one or two scarcely noticeable areas do they betray their identity as composite images. Thus they constitute a believable representation of a reality that never, in fact, existed. So much for the inherent truth of a photographic image...
Still, in no real sense can these images be really termed artistic "transformations". They represent, quite simply, the result of mathematical, pixel by pixel, logic - unmediated by the intent of the artist/photographer. In other words, do what I did and this is what you get. There is no mystery to it. Except, as I previously observed, if one of the resulting images had just happened to appear to be a believable representation of a "real" situation that would have been, perhaps, to be expected. Pure chance, one might say. But five? Go figure...
"Photography is subversive not when it brightens, repels or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks." Roland Barthes
The three images above share the same referent, a terracotta vase. So much is self evident for the first two images, not so much for the third, and of course the treatment (photographically speaking) of the subject varies greatly between the three. At any rate, looking again at these images, brought to mind the two terms ekphrasis and simulacrum, which, for me, represent central concepts of photography (and all art really). Concepts that raise questions of how and what photography (and from here on read "imagemaking" in general) can mean. They go to the heart of what a photograph is, what it represents (presents) and how (in relation to its omnipresent, or required referent).
Apropos of this it was recently asserted to me that "everybody" knows what a photograph is. I would suggest, on the contrary, the exact opposite; for most people "what you see is what you see", and beyond that they give it no further thought. Most people view an image entirely subjectively. And why not indeed? That a photographic image should be pleasing, entertaining or delightful is no bad thing after all. Neither is the idea that it should inform (though here we are already on shaky ground...). It is no more necessary to think about "photography" to enjoy an image, any more than it's necessary to think about what painting is to enjoy a painting. It may enhance that enjoyment (it may even detract from it...) but it's certainly not "de rigeur". If your preference is just looking (glancing) at a stream of "nice" pictures then there is no shortage of grist for your particular mill available online. If you're still here, reading, then I shall attempt to clarify some of the issues behind an exploration of what a photograph may be, using the three images as (not entirely satisfactory) examples...
According to Wikipedia the definition of ekphrasis is: "Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness. A descriptive work of prose or poetry, a film, or even a photograph may thus highlight through its rhetorical vividness what is happening, or what is shown in, say, any of the visual arts, and in doing so, may enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own through its brilliant description."
I'm not entirely sure whether they represent a "brilliant description", but the the latter two of the images above could be said to "define and describe the *essence* (my italics) of the object in question" be it the shape and overall form of the vase, or the detail and texture of a part of it. In short, due to this perceived "transformation" of the referent depicted in the images they look like art (whether good or bad art is another question...); they represent exactly what, or so it would appear from my online experience, for most people most seems like an "artistic" image. To which end a judicious bit of blur and, shall we say, "mysterious" air of obscurity (what exactly is the third image a photograph of?) can only contribute. In comparison the first of these images seems a "mere" simulacrum. And indeed it is the "simplest" of the three images. I merely set the stage and placed each object centrally in the frame for its moment in the spotlight (figuratively speaking, of course... the lighting could hardly have been flatter or more straightforward). In fact "mere" simulacrum was my total intention here...
"Simulacrum (plural: simulacra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity", was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Philosopher Fredric Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is sometimes created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real. Other art forms that play with simulacra include Trompe l'oeil, Pop Art, Italian neorealism and the French New Wave."
Of course, the photographic image could also be viewed as a sort of original in its own right. And it is true that in virtually all "Photorealist" paintings are copied from photographs not the motif itself. In any case Photorealism was a relatively short lived art movement (it represented an artistic dead end in reality) although it is itself still still practiced but more commonly termed "Hyperrealism" these days. Which brings us to an interesting point: for Plato and most philosophers the concept of the simulacrum is always tinged with a sense of the inferior. But not so for Baudrillard, who argued that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal (for more detailed discussion of this please see the original piece on Wikipedia). In any case none of the images above could in any real sense be termed "copies", faithful or otherwise, of the vase itself therefore concepts of "inferiority" would seem irrelevant. And yet... in many ways, too, the image is inferior to the referent. It cannot be used for any practical purpose (it doesn't "hold water"?) and viewing the image could hardly be said to impart more information than viewing, handling and turning the original would. In this sense the image is less than the original. And so, it seems to me, Baudrillard is entirely right here; not least because it is my intention that the prints of the images from this series be around 3ft x 4ft in size (which in itself would represent a certain shock element for the viewer). That apart, there is still a sense that the image of the vase has something of the "more real than the real thing" about it. Almost a heightened sense of reality. In other words, the "hyperreal". Add to that the scale which has the effect of superimposing a sense of the surreal (sur-real) too. Or should I say, once again, a heightened sense of the surreal (surreality being arguably the natural state of all photographs). But still, confronted with the "reality" of the outsized image of the viewer would be justified, perhaps, in enquiring "Why make an image of a mundane object like that at all?" And too, such an unprepossessing example of such an object. What is the viewer to think? How is the viewer to "read" such an image? It turns out that this seemingly obvious question (with no doubt, for some, more than one "obvious" answer) is not so simple after all... Roland Barthes, perhaps the most often consulted thinker on the problem of exactly what a photographic image "really" represents for us, has called the photograph (any photograph that is) a "message without a code". On the face of it that seems a difficult if not meaningless phrase. But it really is not difficult at all, although it would be if I were to attempt to explain it. So I shall here quote from *Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida (1980)* by Graham Allen of the University of Cork (I would also highly recommend reading the article in its entirety, it can be found here): "In various earlier essays Barthes examines the major problem presented by photography. In essays such as “The Photographic Message” (1961) and Rhetoric of the Image” (1964) Barthes had looked at the difference between photography and all other representational forms (see Roland Barthes, The Responsibility of Forms, trans. Richard Howard, New York: Hill and Wang, 1985: 3-20, 21-40). All other forms of representation, even other image-based forms such as cinema, drawing and the theatre, translate the referent of their representation into a secondary language with distinct codes and conventions. We can admire the accuracy of a drawing from life, for example, but we also always remain conscious that life-drawing has established codes and conventions: perspective, styles of shading, etc. We may well, during the time of viewing, believe in the “reality” of a film, yet we also cannot escape the fact that cinema is a narrative art involving codes of narration, emplotment, sequencing and so on. Photography, on the other hand, seems to rely on no secondary set of codes and conventions, no secondary language, to represent its referent. Despite the obvious existence of the set pose of the subject, or the choice of backdrop or lighting, or even the use of various “tricks”, the object represented in the photographic image seems to be identical to the referent of representation. Photography, unlike any other form of representational art, seems to present us with what Barthes called a message without a code.
It is possible, of course, to discuss the manner in which photographic images are used to establish semiological or secondary-order meanings. Barthes in “Rhetoric of the Image”, for example, returns to a subject he had already discussed in his Mythologies: the use of photographic images in advertisements. Photographic images in such contexts can generate a whole host of secondary (“mythical”) meanings. However, there seems to be a literal or uncoded level of photographs which is troubling to a semiological approach such as the one adopted by Barthes in the early 1960s. Based on the interpretation of secondary levels of meaning, semiology seems capable merely of suggesting that photography is a medium which possesses a code of direct referentiality; a rather poor solution, some might say, to the problem posed by photography.
The problem posed by photography, as if signaling its status as an unresolved issue, returns in Barthes's work of the 1970s. In his 1970 essay “The Third Meaning: research Notes on Several Eisenstein Stills” (The Responsibility of Forms: 41-62) Barthes sets up a distinction which will ultimately lead to the theory expounded and explored within Camera Lucida. Looking at stills from various films by the Russian film-maker Sergei Eisenstein, Barthes distinguishes three levels of meaning: the informational level which involves what the image directly communicates; the symbolic level which concerns the complicated but ultimately communally understood symbolisms present within an image, and the obtuse meaning – which is contrasted with the obvious meaning that Barthes argues is presented by the symbolic level of the image. The obtuse meaning could be defined as those features of a still or photographic image which seem to produce or convey a meaning but which do not form part of any recognizable symbolic system. This is a kind of meaning, therefore, which appears to be unique to the response of the individual viewer (reader) of the image."
I think what Barthes is saying here is that, unlike for speakers of any particular language, for photography there is no commonly agreed system of symbols and codes for reading a photographic image, without which precise communication is difficult if not impossible. Imagine if you will attempting to communicate if we all spoke our own personal "language" (for more on the origins and nature of spoken language I highly recommend "The Order of Things" by Michel Foucault). In that sense one could say that the *concept* at least of photography was invented at the Tower of Babel. This should be a sobering thought to all those who think their images "speak for themselves"...
In fact, it is because of this that I make such efforts as I do here with this blog to at least attempt to clarify the meaning and thinking behind what I do. Which brings us satisfyingly full circle, for the use of language to "represent", clarify and more fully express the intent behind visual imagery is yet another form of ekphrasis...
"Landscape is not a genre of art but a medium.
Landscape is a medium of exchange between the human and the natural, the self and the other. As such, it is like money: good for nothing in itself, but expressive of a potentially limitless reserve of value.
Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside that package."
W.J.T. Mitchell
In a recent online conversation with friend and fellow photographer Anna Lee Keefer I expressed the opinion that there were very few great photographs of trees. It would seem almost everybody has had an irresistible urge to try but most of the results, it seems to me, have resulted in, what I would call at best, "nice" pictures of "nice looking" trees. Very few express anything about "trees", their essence, their "tree-ness" if you like. Well, it IS difficult to do I think. I think too that painters have often been more successful here... However, a couple of days after this conversation, and by sheer coincidence we had one of those days when the sun was shining brightly in combination with swirling and extreme gusts of wind which I noticed was having a spectacular visual effect on the trees in my garden and the surrounding ones. Using my camera with the longest zoom I had, with a small aperture and fairly slow shutter speed (thank heavens for Image Stabilised long lenses...) I shot a few images; once I had figured out the "rhythm" of the gusts such that I could more or less predict them and be prepared that is. After a few quick edits I set the resulting images aside to return to later for further study and to decide exactly where I wanted to go with them, as is my usual practice.
As it turned out, a couple of weeks later I was in the National Gallery, London, with my wife Desirée for a quick visit just to look again at some old favourites there. Since I had made the windblown tree images there had been a vague notion in my mind that I had seen something very like the images I had made; a sort of feeling of deja vu but nothing specific. Standing in front of the Gainsborough painting, Mr and Mrs William Hazlitt, otherwise known as "The Morning Walk" and shown above, it came to me: many of Gainsborough's commissioned portraits, while obviously painted in the studio, were "placed" within a sort of "Romanticised", and very "English", landscape setting. An imagined landscape at that, most likely. But not perhaps "certainly"; though Gainsborough in his career produced over 500 mostly commissioned portraits and only 200 works that could even vaguely be termed "landscapes" (most of which never saw the light of day in his lifetime) he always considered himself, first and foremost, a landscape painter. His true love obviously. And, too, he subsequently proved to be a source of great inspiration to that other great man of Suffolk, John Constable. As a sidenote, it may come as some surprise to many that I love the kind of so English landscape painting like Constable, Cotman, Palmer et al (maybe that I love Turner too would be less of a surprise...) but I do indeed adore them. Be that as it may, most of Gainsborough's "landscape" settings suffer the fate of landscape painting in general for the overwhelming part of the history of art; they are mere "parergons" (or byworks) to the Argument (main subject) of the work; if not mere background portraits often as not a setting for historical or mythical events which represented art's "highest calling". Coincidentally the fate, too, of the genre I have been most associated with; still life. And for that reason I guess I have grown accustomed to seeking out the "parergon" in works, the detail, the "overlooked" if you like. Anyway, back to the "Morning Walk"... looking ever closer at the painting (it is rather large) I noticed that the branches and leaves of the trees in the background of the painting had something of the look of my windblown images; they were obviously "in motion" (this "effect" is in fact more noticeable in front of the actual painting than in most reproductions). Once I had ascertained this I started to see this "effect" everywhere in other s of Gainsborough's work in the gallery. Curiously it was noticeable too in several works by Rubens, who of course worked extensively in England (not, of course, that I'm claiming it is a purely English phenomenon...). I began to wonder whether this "effect" or phenomenon had maybe in some way registered subconsciously with me before. More importantly, though, I wondered too why this effect had been used so extensively. Was it simply to impart a feeling of "dynamism" to the setting (which indeed it does)? Subsequently I began to notice that, in fact, and maybe especially in Britain, totally still days are a rarity. On the great majority of days the leaves and branches of trees always register some degree of windblown motion. To depict trees totally "frozen" as it were would represent a lie in fact...
Returning to my images it thus became easy to see them, notionally, as details, or parts, parergons of a larger whole; be that whole a setting for a main subject or a part of a more extensive landscape view. In that sense I could choose to see these images as not specifically "tree portraits" but as "landscape" too. And more... when I scanned across the images shown at full size, pixel for pixel, on my screen I began to see further completely valid images formed from the details; a sort of detail of details, parergons within parergons as it were. Thus I have decided to present these images as a whole plus three other "possibilities" (crops) too. I hope and trust each resulting image is able to stand on its own too as a cohesive representation...
Landscape is a photographic genre I have deliberately avoided in the past. Too much of it, it seems to me, being fit only for chocolate boxes or the bourgeois interior design of the artless who wish to appear "cultured" (many paintings, too, of course come into this category...). Nevertheless I have always harboured a borderline interest in Land Art for example. There is of course far more to the landscape genre (and related ones) than just "nice views" or, another of my pet hates, the utterly facile "gee, isn't nature wonderful" style of representation. There is much art that doesn't look like "landscape" art but is nonetheless very much about it too. It is in fact a genre worthy of far greater exploration. I can feel myself steadily being drawn in...
When I first decided to create grids of my "remastered" Block Matrices images my intent was to simply explore the tendency of all humans to seek patterns in such grids where there were, in fact, none (or at least no intention to create any particular order or pattern). To achieve this I used fairly standard Page Layout software (Adobe InDesign) and, for my first attempt (shown in my previous post) simply imported the eight images into a 2x8 grid in date order (simply the order in which the images were originally created). Looking at the result I thought to then attempt to "arrange" the cells of the grid to make a more "pleasing" composite image. By this I mean simply to arrange the cells so that the intersections of the cells were less "jarring" (or as "seamless" as they could be). This attempt rapidly degenerated in to a more or less complex and tedious exercise in "shuffling" the cells to less and less effect. While not "perfect" the original, purely arbitrary, grouping was seemingly impossible to improve on. At this point I should emphasise that no attention was paid to any notion of "pattern"; I was simply considering, as I say, the "jarring" aspect of the meeting points of the cells. OK... mistake number one: I was attempting to apply a personal concept of "aesthetics" here and it wasn't any improvement on the original purely arbitrary first attempt. I am not saying that this attempt could not be improved on but merely that the complexity required to do so (even with the relatively small number of discrete elements involved) was daunting, to say the least. All of this got me thinking about the essential nature of pattern and order in relation to grids and concepts of randomness. This led to my conducting some research into the field of "Information Aesthetics" first formulated in Germany by Max Bense, founder of the "Stuttgart School". At this point I had already, by copying, flipping horizontally and vertically the elements "en bloc" as it were, further developed my original grid to form the first image shown above. This ordered manipulation naturally results instantly in a system of symmetry and patterning. According to theories of information aesthetics the resulting "shape" engendered by this process is termed a "Supersign" or "Supersymbol" which simply means that the introduction of orderliness results in the perception of a larger structure made up of the smaller discrete elements. More than mere "patterning" this arrangement has become about form and shape. For me the "shape" formed conjures up a "mechanistic" feeling; in actual fact it reminds me vaguely of some sort of spark plug. But that might just be me... In any case, thus far, any notions of what the image may resemble are still, in fact, based on a fairly arbitrary manipulation of the grid elements. Still further, according to the thinking of Bense and others, this tendency to see form and shape as well as. or even at the expense of, mere patterning is a function of the grid elements touching and so forming these notional "supersigns" or larger entities. As soon as the "cells" are separated by white space the whole notion, or effect, of "supersigns" is broken and the more pure "patterning" may be observed. I had observed this, of course, when going back to my original inspiration; Richter's Colour Chart paintings. Where the elements (rectangles of colour) are touching there is a tendency to form these shapes, or "supersigns", in one's mind; where Richter introduces white space between the elements of his grids, this tendency breaks down and "pure" patterning takes over. The white spaces of the grid patterns rule out the possibility of grasping the painting as a whole in terms of its colouristic determination. And, too, as the grids get larger with more discrete elements (or the white spaces become wider) the visual complexity of the chaotic structure exceeds the eye's ability to adapt. Nevertheless, and allowing for the pure randomness of the arrangements of colours, it is noticeable how ‘non-random’ the panels look, with some dominated by particular colours which are often placed next to each other. However, the whole point of "pure" randomness is that apparent patterns are still expected to occur.
Still using the same arbitrary arrangements, but with increasing complexity in the "flipping" and "mirroring" of the elements I created some grids discretely separated by white space of varying widths and the theory holds good; even allowing for the differences between images and simple colour charts. Here I should add that I use the term "arbitrary" instead of "random" deliberately. For my grid arrangements to be truly random would require an understanding of maths and random algorithms, not to mention the programming or scripting skills to apply them to the software I used, that is sadly beyond me. In only one instance did I stray from the path and method of arbitrary choice I had set myself: In the third image above I used a mathematical construct known as a "Latin Square" (Sudoku fans, of which I am not one, will recognise it as a simplified version of the squares used there). In this grid construction a number (1-8) is assigned to the images and they are imported into an 8x8 grid such that each image appears in every line but never twice numerically in the same cell. This strict mathematical sequencing nevertheless looks the most arbitrary or random to me...
Future directions... I intend to come back to these concepts at some future point. Possibly when I have figured out (or gained some assistance in figuring out) how to sort the images in a truly random fashion and possibly with greater complexity as to the images used. I am in fact interested in the whole issue of apparently pure randomness and how and what it looks like. It is possible that so strong is this tendency to seek to "create" patterns in the mind that even the most arbitrary randomness still results in something "recognisable". Conversely, a complex but still entirely ordered mathematical sequencing, especially if large enough, may be indistinguishable from pure randomness. I doubt, however, whether some form of pattern recognition (imagination?) can ever be made to "go away"...
“It is important that one sees the instability of what one is looking at; that it could be changed. I like that you are aware of other possibilities whether you wish to set them in motion or not”
“I usually begin with some sort of an idea of what I want to do. Sometimes it’s an image. I always want to see what it will make. Then I actually start working. During the process I don’t have any morality about changing my mind. In fact, I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. It can blind me. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.”
Jasper Johns
As all artists, and particularly photographers, know the temptation to revisit and revise earlier work can be irresistible. Most often this "revision" (re-vision?) may amount to no more than tinkering at the edges; a change in tonal balance here, a looser or tighter cropping there. In the case of my two series, Block Constructions and Block Matrices, I felt that there was a distinct alternative method of presentation that amounted to a change in emphasis of what these images were essentially about. In the originals I felt that the sharp textural detail of the surface of the tin blocks detracted from the "formality" of their arrangement within the frame; content over form if you like. By blurring this detail in my revised versions I feel the balance has been tipped more in the direction of the formal properties of the shapes depicted. They also seem somehow less "photographic", which suited the further plans I had for the close up series (the "Matrices"). Here, of course, one has a prime example of the possibilities presented by the use of digital tools. In that case it seemed entirely appropriate to call such revisions "Digitally Remastered"... Rosalind Krauss once said "The pictorial structure of the grid is fundamentally an emblem of modernity.", by which she meant that it can be viewed as a pictorial form specific to the twentieth century. It is virtually a paradigm of Modernist art as the grid cannot be detected in nineteenth century Western art. Indeed there is something distinctly "mechanistic" about grid patterns wholly suited to a perceived "Modern Age" and has since pervaded all art and design, especially the latter. It is precisely the formal nature of all grid patterns that has always attracted me.
Once "remastered" the Matrices images were ideally suited for my exploration of grid patterns. The idea for this series was initially prompted by my interest in the Colour Chart works by Gerhard Richter, with which the artist explored concepts of randomness, mathematical sequencing and perception. This interest prompted me to research these concepts in relation to the Information Aesthetic theories of Max Bense, Gestalt theory, semiotics and perception, and Computational Aesthetics (which I intend to expand on in more depth in my next post...) Of course, instead of using simple colour charts, I decided to use images which added a further layering of complexity and opened up avenues for exploring perceptual patterning within my mostly random grids. Richter, however, often employed a larger "pool" of distinct elements and the mathematical arrangements were far more complex. I left such complexities for another time. Maybe...
"...according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at" John Berger, Ways of Seeing
Categorizing facial expressions
Marjorie Ferguson (1980) identified four types of facial expression in the cover photos of British women’s magazines:
Chocolate Box: half or full-smile, lips together or slightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three-quarter face to camera. Projected mood: blandly pleasing, warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality.
Invitational: emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut or with only a hint of a smile, head to one side or looking back to camera. Projected mood: suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise, the cover equivalent of advertising’s soft sell.
Super-smiler: full face, wide open toothy smile, head thrust forward or chin thrown back, hair often wind-blown. Projected mood: aggressive, ‘look-at-me’ demanding, the hard sell, ‘big come-on’ approach.
Romantic or Sexual: a fourth and more general classification devised to include male and female ‘two-somes’; or the dreamy, heavy-lidded, unsmiling big-heads, or the overtly sensual or sexual. Projected moods: possible ‘available’ and definitely ‘available’.
In a study of advertisements in women’s magazines, Trevor Millum offers these categories of female expressions:
Soft/introverted: eyes often shut or half-closed, the mouth slightly open/pouting, rarely smiling; an inward-looking trance-like reverie, removed from earthly things.
Cool/level: indifferent, self-sufficient, arrogant, slightly insolent, haughty, aloof, confident, reserved; wide eyes, full lips straight or slightly parted, and obtrusive hair, often blonde. The eyes usually look the reader in the eye, as perhaps the woman regards herself in the mirror.
Seductive: similar to the cool/level look in many respects - the eyes are less wide, perhaps shaded, the expression is less reserved but still self-sufficient and confident; milder versions may include a slight smile.
Narcissistic: similarities to the cool/level and soft/introverted looks, rather closer to the latter: a satisfied smile, closed or half-closed eyes, self-enclosed, oblivious, content - ‘activity directed inward’.
Carefree: nymphlike, active, healthy, gay, vibrant, outdoor girl; long unrestrained outward-flowing hair, more outward-going than the above, often smiling or grinning.
Kittenlike: coy, naïve (perhaps in a deliberate, studied way), a friendlier and more girlish version of the cool/level look, sometimes almost twee.
Maternal: motherly, matronly, mature, wise, experienced and kind, carrying a sort of authority; shorter hair, slight smile and gentle eyes - mouth may sometimes be stern, but eyes twinkle.
Practical: concentrating, engaged on the business in hand, mouth closed, eyes object-directed, sometimes a slight frown; hair often short or tied back.
Comic: deliberately ridiculous, exaggerated, acting the fool, pulling faces for the benefit of a real or imaginary audience, sometimes close to a sort of archness.
Catalogue: a neutral look as of a dummy, artificial, waxlike; features may be in any position, but most likely to be with eyes open wide and a smile, but the look remains vacant and empty; personality has been removed.
"To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed."
"Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire."
Susan Sontag, On Photography
In my next post I intend to discuss the intent behind my two new series of images, "15 American Sweethearts" and "15 Hollywood Sweethearts" but for now I want to use these images as examples to talk about an issue that exercises the minds of artists everywhere (not to mention the legal profession too): "appropriation", plagiarism, even "theft" if you like. Now, straight away, I should say, though naturally I'm no lawyer (and nothing in this article can be taken as a discussion of any strictly legal nuance concerning the subject matter here), I don't consider the way I "acquired" the images in these series to be in the legal sense (or strictly "Art" sense) to be "appropriation", let alone plagiarism or theft. There simply was no other way to acquire the images I wanted and, too, they are sufficiently altered from the originals to bear little resemblance. Nevertheless I did photograph the work of other artists/photographers in order to create these images...
First of all, lets look at exactly what I have done here: I have photographed printed images from two books which I own. Now I suppose it could be argued that I don't "own" the images in these books and, in the strictly legal sense, I guess that is true. But what exactly IS an image? In one sense here the image constitutes ink arranged in a certain way on paper and a book is not software, I didn't purchase a licence to "use" the book as with software, I thought I physically purchased the book. In other words I own it... Of course, I'm not so naive to believe it is quite as simple as that. For instance I could not reproduce some of the words in the book and claim them as my own. That would be plagiarism. To reproduce ALL of the words and do so would be theft. To do so, even crediting the original author would most likely be copyright infringement. To quote extracts, properly credited, would, I assume, be acceptable. But all of this begs the question: "What about the IDEAS behind the words?" we are already quickly straying into grey areas as you can see. Still, I digress here, it is images (and specifically photographic images) we are discussing here.
I am strictly speaking, I guess, a still life photographer. I photograph objects, "things" in the world. Books are undoubtedly "things in the world". In one sense I have photographed here "something existing in the world". Of course books are, too, far more than the sum total of the paper, ink etc. that they are "made" of, their "thingness" if you like. They represent ideas among other things. But how does one photograph an "idea"? As a side note, I have been pondering just that question for some considerable time... Am I not, therefore, entitled to photograph an object I own, bought and paid for? An object that just happens to consist of surfaces with printed matter on? Perhaps I am being deliberately disingenuous here a little; but am I not therefore entitled to photograph the mugs for my last series, "20 Mug Shots", because they happen to have printed images on their surface? And, too, on the issue of "intellectual property", is not any (designed) object the "intellectual property" of its designer? Am I to photograph nothing that has been designed and manufactured therefore? These are not, as you can see, straightforward issues, though they may be, for all I know, more straightforward legally than I imagine. But since when have legal issues necessarily had a firm connection to logic?
As I have said, with these images I have (for purely artistic reasons, mainly continuity and coherence) so cropped, manipulated etc. the originals as to be fairly unrecognisable from their source (I mean "unrecognisable" in the detail and intent, of course. A determined viewer may well be able to locate the sources). My purpose here was in no way to make a "statement" about appropriation. I merely use them here as "examples" to raise other issues. But these are issues that go to the heart of what "art" is, what is "allowed" and what is not. Picasso once said "If there is anything to steal, I steal", which presumably was a statement linked to a certain concept of "artistic freedom". It is a concept I hear all the time espoused by artists. Put simply, most artists would agree that the essence of art is that no subject matter, no statement be "off limits". That is, of course, until somebody "appropriates" their work. Then they squeal like stuck pigs. Then it's "Call in the lawyers..." But once you allow lawyers and judges to stick their snouts into such complex issues you have embarked already on a dangerously slippery slope. One where you and everybody else (everybody that is except the lawyers) can only be the losers. Of course, I'm not advocating a "thief's charter" here; a free for all. Sufficient protection already exists, or so it seems to me. It is legal attempts to artificially "extend" this "protection" that bothers me.
Which brings me to the situation with images etc. placed online for the world to see. Most artists wish their work to be as widely seen as possible. Which means they actively seek to display their work online as often as they can. There has been much unease about the easy opportunities for the appropriation or "theft" of their work. For me this seems to be a "have one's cake and eat it" situation. As a photographer (OK a "Fine Art Photographer", whatever that means...) I place on display online most if not all of my work. Actually when I said "whatever that means" it may seem I'm not sure what it means, but in one respect I am absolutely sure: it means that I sell my work in the form of "Fine Art" prints. Online, at the resolutions I post at, it would be impossible to "steal" my images and make what would amount to "fake" Fine Art prints. Even were I to post images at a sufficiently high resolution the result of such a theft would not be the same as prints I make myself or cause to be made. Neither would such prints carry my signature, my "autograph" if you like, which is the REAL currency of the Art World. In truth I'm fairly relaxed about the whole thing. If, say, somebody was to "appropriate" an image of mine and use it elsewhere (AND I were to find out; life being too short to cruise around online actively seeking out such "infringements") I may request the courtesy of a credit and, of course, a link back to my site would be nice too... but I wouldn't be calling in the lawyers. Lining their pockets is not something that particularly appeals to me. But I'm a photographer. What about artists in other mediums? Painters for instance. What do painters think they are posting online? Their paintings? Surely not... unless they are digital artists of course and their work does indeed consist of pixels. Of course a cynic might say too that for the overwhelming majority of "artists" showing their work online worrying about their work being appropriated or stolen amounts to borderline certifiable paranoia...
Still, it has been observed (indeed I have "observed" it myself...) that there is a principle involved here. And there is no doubt that the "appropriation" of artist/photographer's work without recompense by large organisations for their own gain is morally reprehensible. Much of what large organisations do in general is morally reprehensible... But a blogger using an image on their blog without the courtesy of seeking permission first is hardly on that level. As for another artist appropriating one's work (or part of it) to use in a piece of their own: it may be irritating but it has its place firmly entrenched in the history of art. Even its own legitimacy. It could even be an "homage"... That all this is just so much easier now is a simple fact of life of being online. And too the issues involved are many and complex. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface here. Apart from the superficial examples I speak of here there are deep philosophical issues to be considered too. Issues that in many ways go to the heart of just what constitutes art at all. And those are murky waters indeed that, at least for now, I have mostly steered well clear of. In truth I am still formulating my own opinions on these issues myself. But I have gleaned at least one thing from all my musings on this subject and here, for better or for worse, is my best piece of advice: We are where we are... Deal with it.
"Art does not reproduce what is visible; it makes things visible." Paul Klee
"Art is art. Everything else is everything else." Ad Reinhardt
This series of images of drinking mugs was originally based on a whim; a logical (or so it seemed to me) outgrowth of, or subtext to, my previous series "50 Precious Things". This whim (and the title of the series) was inspired by Thomas Ruff's series of portraits ( Porträts) which have often been described as mere "mug shots". Added to this was the fact that I discovered that we possessed precisely 20 such "decorative" mugs, which seemed a nice round number. It also meant that, unlike the "Precious Things" series, I could make what amounts to a complete inventory, a satisfyingly complete series with no need to make any selections or value judgements. This is merely a record of all the mugs we own. It also appealed to me that were we to add to their number there would be no need to add to the series, to "update" it as it were; just like a photograph itself the series would remain a "snapshot" referencing a particular situation at a particular point in time. In any case these are images OF mugs but not images ABOUT mugs; for that to be the case would be to make fetishes of them. The mugs depicted here are only ostensibly the subject of the series (formally, however, although the sample here of 20 mugs is small, it is sufficient to constitute a sort of "typology" of drinking mugs due to the remarkable "persistence of form" of all such utilitarian domestic objects - such as, too, plates, spoons etc. - which are, and have been historically, made to a "blueprint", all design variations being mere extemporisation on a basic theme. This concept is covered in much detail in Norman Bryson's series of essays on the history of still life, "Looking At The Overlooked". But that's another discussion for another time, perhaps...); the real subject here is, once again, the nature of photographic representation. As with my "Precious Things" series, I again chose to employ the same simple, even bland technique. Once again, too, these images are intended to be seen as large, oversized prints; the mugs would thus be represented at four to five times life size. This in itself proposes to the viewer, just as in Ruff's large portraits, a kind of "forced intimacy" or more prosaically an opportunity to study in great detail the surface properties of these objects which would normally remain invisible to the viewer: the various cracks in their surfaces, the course screen used in the process of printing text and images onto them, for example. With Ruff's portraits, of course, there is the added "frisson" of being able to study facial details etc. from a greater proximity than one would ever dream of employing in real life (with the possible exception of a loved one). Subjectively, too, this would also appear to represent a source of greater interest to most viewers; after all more people are fascinated by their fellow humans than they are by unprepossessing everyday items like drinking mugs. But that would be to miss the point here: the opportunity to study something, anything, at length and at a greatly enlarged scale in a photograph is an experience of a different order to that provided by the closest of studies of the object itself. To gaze on an image is to gaze on a reality of different order. And, too, while anybody might think it odd behaviour to take a set of mugs, as depicted in this series here, and study them at length, possibly with the aid of a magnifying glass even, as has been observed: "... staring for a long time at a picture isn't eccentric, it's highly cultured behaviour". Art historian Anton Ehrenzweig likened the experience to one of "utter watchfulness", indeed as apt a description as I could personally conceive of. And, far from requiring the intrusions of any "artistic style", all that is actually required is to leave the camera to do what it is best at - plucking a thing out of time to be stared at, theoretically, for ever. The "art" here resides, not in the "genius" of the photographer/artist but in the genius of the thing coupled with the genius of photography itself. All I did was fetch the mugs from the kitchen cupboard...
"To photograph is to confer importance. There is no way to suppress the tendency inherent in all photographs to accord value to their subjects."
"Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks."
"Any photograph has multiple meanings; indeed to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of fascination. The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.' Photographs, which cannot explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation and fantasy."
Susan Sontag, On Photography
As Sontag alludes to above, the very act of selecting an object and photographing always confers some sense of importance, or "value", onto the chosen subject/object. Albeit that importance or value may, in itself, be highly personal and non-obvious and therefore largely incommunicable in a photograph. Once again, as Sontag says, photographs essentially explain nothing. In that case it is probably best left to the viewer to speculate, even fantasise, about the possible reasons for, the criteria applied to, any selection of the subject. Deduction too, of course, can be applied from various hints etc. in the consistency, or otherwise, of choices made and/or the way the artist/photographer has chosen to depict, represent, the objects.
In the case of this series I made the decision early on to present these objects in as honest, simple, even bland way as I could. Thus by a consistency in the photographic treatment employed no hint would be given as to the relative value I may attach to them individually. It would therefore appear that each item is equivalent in my sight. This may, or may not be actually the case. I too have always been drawn to, shall we say, a more detached viewpoint or as Ruscha once put it, "Actually what I was after was no-style or a non-statement with a no-style." Just how possible such a notion is possible in practice remains open to question. However, here at least, I have tried to approach such a method as closely as I could. It has seemed to me too, especially lately, that, perversely, the less I do as a photographer, the less I "interfere" in the process, the less hard I try, the more the images themselves are allowed to reveal the true nature of the medium. And therein lies the real magic of photography and it may seem, counter-intuitively, to reveal its true nature as art, or even, dare I say it, "Art".
Still, there are ways in which one, as an artist/photographer of some at least notional competence, can provide clues or pointers for the viewer. This constitutes the "look at this" aspect of photography; the "show" of "show and tell". To that end I have, with these images, virtually abolished any clues as to the relative scale of each object; the more succinctly to indicate that there is to be no "favouring" of one above the other, no hint or indication of relative "worth", however one may choose to define "worth" or "value". To complete this notion of equivalence and negation of scale it is intended, too, that these images be presented in the form of oversized prints (that is 3 feet by 4 feet). In fact, of course, many, if not most, of these images will never actually be printed to that size; nevertheless, conceptually, the intention remains and the point is made.
The sheer scale of the prints will, too, force a closer study of the details of the objects depicted than might otherwise be made. I have said many times that "surface" is virtually all there is to a photographic image and so it may be. But I am also intrigued here by the fact of the "transposing", the "transformation" of the surface qualities of these objects, the textural, tactile qualities I mean, onto the unarguably flat surface of the image or print. It is in fact just these qualities along with "details" like patina (evidence of use, handling, the "life", if you like, of these objects), the irregularities in both form and surface which indicate that many, if not most, of them are hand made, that could be said to have constituted their greatest attraction for me. It is possibly the one aspect that they all have in common in spite of the seeming disparate nature of the selections I have made. It is, too, the best clue to the exact nature of my criteria for choosing them. I may have certain attachments to these objects, emotionally I mean, associations may be inferred but as a visual artist, for me, the "look", the image, will always be paramount...
"We find it familiar to consider objects as useful or aesthetic, as necessities or vain indulgences. We are on less familiar ground when we consider objects as companions to our emotional lives or as provocations to thought. The notion of evocative objects bring together these two less familiar ideas, underscoring the inseparability of thought and feeling in our relationship to things. We think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with." Sherry Turkle, Evocative Objects
Let me say right off that the objects in this series are ones I have selected to photograph from all the (many) "contenders" in my home. It is my wife Desirée, however, who found, chose and purchased every single one of them in the first place. We call them her "precious things"; it's a sort of running joke between us. But like all such running jokes there is more than a modicum of truth to it. She does indeed love and cherish every one of them and for that, if for no other reason, I too feel an attachment to each and every one of them. However, there are other reasons; and, too, my reasons may differ, especially in the detail, from those of my wife. Different associations, connotations, as I say. And I guess that is the point about "evocative objects". But first the dictionary definition of "precious"...
precious (ˈprɛʃəs)
— adj
1. beloved; dear; cherished
2. very costly or valuable
3. held in high esteem, esp in moral or spiritual matters
4. very fastidious or affected, as in speech, manners, etc
5. informal worthless: you and your precious ideas!
— adv
6. informal (intensifier): there's precious little left
[C13: from Old French precios, from Latin pretiōsus valuable, from pretium price, value]
'preciously
— adv
'preciousness
— n
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
If I were asked which of these definitions would apply to the objects I have selected I would have to answer all (or nearly all) of the above. Had I chosen to photograph, say, just one of these objects that would have implied a uniqueness, an unambiguous depth of feeling and attachment to the object selected. In fact, I was almost going to stop at around 15 images in the series. This would have represented a series of fairly carefully selected objects. In fact it was due to my wife's comment of "Why stop there?" and some urging from Anna Lee Keefer that I carried on further. Eventually I called a halt at 50 as it turned out. It seemed as good a place as any to stop, being a nice round number. But there were other reasons: In reaching that number I had obviously somewhat "loosened" my criteria and thus lowered the bar considerably for selection. This too had the effect of making my reasons for selection more ambiguous and leaving, in some cases, room for irony. Nevertheless I could have continued, in which case the series would have begun to resemble an inventory with all of its implications of completeness and "non-selection" and "non-attachment". A mere record or documentation and therefore not representing any thoughts or feelings on my part (although, it could be said that still it would represent my wife's choices, associations etc.). In the end I trod a fine line in making my choices.
Of course it is all well and good to speak of personal associations etc. as the criteria for choosing the objects I did. Why this object and not that? And here, I see little point in explaining, one by one, my reasons for my selections. By that I mean that the act of making these images itself could be said to constitute a sort of "show and tell". Well, "show", yes, but "tell" what? The point is that I would have to verbally explain my choices here; merely viewing the images would offer no help in interpreting exactly why I made those choices. Such explanations belong more properly to Gombrich's "beholder's share" and I leave them to the viewer to speculate on and interpret if and where they may. As with all images there are things about which any visual representation must remain essentially mute. But not all things, however, and this goes now directly to some of the decisions I made in association with the "treatment" of these images. These relate to some of the criteria used that can be shown too and it is those criteria that I feel most comfortable talking about. This will be the subject of my next post...
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