Reading –The Digital Eye - Art in the Electronic Age

This book, written by Sylvia Wolf, is not on the reading list for the course but I thought I would take a look at it and have made a few notes below.
Digital photography is the latest in a long line of continuing technological innovations, but out of all proportion to that which has gone before, in scale and scope. The impact of the variety and number of devices now available for making, reproducing, altering and disseminating images is vast and widespread.
In the introduction the author asks several questions:
“Is it a medium in its own right, autonomous and separate from all photographic processes that have come before it, or is it another development in a long trajectory of technological innovations?”
“What impact does it have on how we view, understand and make photographic images”
Photography and representation: A historical perspective.
Photography’s relationship to the real:
1960’s Andre Bazin  “photography does not create eternity as art does, it embalms time” (I detect an assertion the Bazin does not consider photography as art)
1981 Roland Barthes “Reference is the founding order of photography.” Again, there is a hint that Barthes considers photography to be an objective medium.
Alterations, collages, manipulation, all have been done before. Oscar J Rejlander’s “Two ways of life” is the most often quoted example having been assembled from 32 glass negatives. In the late 40’s, 50’s and up to the 1970’s the Polaroid system offered “instant” pictures, preceding the digital revolution and progressing Eastman’s “you press the shutter, we do the rest” 20th century revolution.
Art Photography in the Digital World – from the marriage of technological innovation and creative application came digital photography. It emerged from differing creative areas, medical research, video, textiles and photography. Artists took computer based imagery as a tool to develop their creative ideas. Wolf describes the work as belonging to three broad areas:

• Socio-Political Commentary. I have included just one or two examples of the type of work for each of these areas. The book contains numerous examples. In this area Wolf cites the work done by Susan Meiselas (aka Kurdistan) and Lorie Novak (Collected Visions) to provide on-line forums for images to examine the the relationships between ourselves and our family photographs (Novak) and a forum away from the gaze of a repressive government (Meiselas).
• Other Dimensions, other worlds. Isaac Layman, (Cabinet 2008) presented a view of how we experience the world, rather than a representation of a particular object, by re-photographing a stack of glasses on a shelf and refocusing each time to bring a different layer into focus, much the way in which our eyes and brain enable us to see a whole scene before us in focus all at once.
• Reflections on the Medium Itself. Jon Haddock produced the “Children fleeing Napalm strike, Modified – 1972, Huynk Cong “Nick” Ut (2009) by erasing the children from the frame and forcing us to recall the full image from our collective visual memories. In a more bizarre example, he has produced a grid of the digital values of the RGB plot a frame of the film of the assassination of John F Kennedy. Such techniques demonstrate new aspects of the world that has been opened up in the artist’s imagination, providing a unique vision.

Returning to the questions at the start of this review, I don’t think that digital photography is a medium in its own right. It may have seemed that way in the 90’s but is no longer the case as it has become so widely accepted. It has also subsumed and absorbed analogue photography, with digital technology becoming the servant of analogue in some instances. The impact on how we view, understand and make images has always evolved and will continue to do so.

Criticising Photographs–Terry Barrett 5th edition 2012

Introduction: I have started reading this book which is a closely written work of eight chapters. This is my summary for Chapter 1. As I  have now finished DPP coursework I will continue to review each chapter in my Documentary blog here: http://richard506896documentary.wordpress.com/
Chapter 1 About Art Criticism
The chapter is divided into eight sections. I have made notes on each.
Definition of Criticism
In the mass media, criticism is generally a negative judgement which does nothing to help us understand the work. Criticism is about promoting interest and asking questions about meaning rather than than the work’s aesthetic worth. With photographs, look closely at them and pinpoint in words what the provoke within you that helps to think feel and understand the work and what the artist is trying to communicate.
“Criticism is informal discourse about art to increase understanding and appreciation of art”. A D Coleman
Sources of Criticism
Anywhere art is displayed, read about and promoted or sold. Classrooms, art colleges, the newspapers and exhibition catalogues and specialist collection in books are a good source. The factors that can influence the tone and content of the review can include editorial policies and style, personal preference of the reviewer and politics.
Types of Criticism
The two most valuable types of criticism:
Exploratory  Aesthetic Criticism does not generally provide judgements but does attempt to provide the reader with a full account of the aesthetics of the work to ensure that they can experience all that can be seen.
Argumentative Aesthetic Criticism on the other hand will attempt a full interpretation of the work and  then make a judgement of the work’s positive (or  negative) attributes. There will be a full account of the writer’s arguments based on stated criteria. They will attempt to persuade the reader using these arguments and are prepared to defend their opinions.
Other types may include:
Applied criticism – of a journalistic nature which is directed at the work. Theoretical criticism attempts to define photography and uses photographs to clarify arguments e.g Camera Lucida by Barthes. Connoisseurship is severely limited and is usually limited to pronouncements rather than reasoned argument.
Background of Critics
Varied, many have PhDs and have studied art and photography as art. Others may be artists themselves and/or teachers of art.
Stances of critics towards criticism
This section details the attitudes of certain critics towards their  work. A quote from Grace Glueck sums it up; “inform, elucidate, explain and enlighten”.  While A D Coleman (1975) says that when writing, critics should be…. independent of the artists and institutions, have a regular output, the work must be publicly accessible, be contemporary and about diverse artists. The critic should openly adopt a sceptics posture.
Relations between critics and artists  
The critic is writing for the public not the artist. He should be aware of the artist and his/her work but must not want to ‘be loved’ by the artist. Critique is not a judgement. The critic should provide an opinion and their own interpretation.
Art of Criticizing Criticism
Critics often disagree. This is a good thing and promotes debate.  According to Donald Kuspit, critics should be:

• honest in their judgement
• clear in their writing
• straightforward in their argument
• unpretentious in their manner

Jerry Saltz on why criticism is often obscure:
“Why is it that so much art criticism is indecipherable – even to ‘us’? If art has lost its audience then surely this type of smarter-than-though criticism has played its part. Criticism isn’t the right word for it anyway. Much of this writing feels cut off from its objects. When a critic reports back about what he or she seen it should be in accessible, clear language and not a lot of brainy gobble-dygook that no-one understands. A critic should want to be understood. But the price you pay for this accessibility is dear. You can lose your ‘pass’ into certain academic circles, or it might mean that you don't get asked to be on all those panels that discuss art and its relationship to biogenic whatever and it may mean you won’t get asked to too many CAA conventions – but that’s OK.”
I have a feeling I shall be making good use of that quote in the coming years.
The Value of Criticism
Reading criticism gives you an increased knowledge and appreciation of art. The act of criticism also allows you to consider the work in more depth and think about what the artist’s intentions and meanings are.

Wendy McMurdo - In a shaded place, the digital and the uncanny

In response to my tutors suggestion, I looked at the work of this artist and in particular this series as I recalled seeing one of the images “Helen backstage, Merlin Theatre (the glance) 1996” in Charlotte Cotton’s book recently. While looking at the series, which depicts young people, mostly children, with a doppelganger or even multiple selves in one frame, I also read Gilda Williams essay ‘Identity Twins – the work of Wendy McMurdo’  in which goes she gives one explanation of what this work is about.
The Title above was taken from McMurdo’s website.  the link to Gilda Williams essay can also be found there: http://www.wendymcmurdo.com/

Gilda Williams’ essay is of course her own interpretation of the series (some images of which do not appear on the website) Broadly speaking I can understand her interpretation and it has brought me another perspective on the work. I can also see my tutor’s point about how digital manipulation does not have to be as obvious and literal as the example I chose for assignment 4. http://rjdown-dpp-assignments.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/assignment-4-reflection-on-tutor.html

In summary, the essay explains that the doppelganger is a mythical monster from German folklore who stalks the innocent from the shadows, eventually replacing them, un-noticed by their family or friends.

Williams then goes on to explain the uncanny (uncomfortably strange – arousing suspicion) in relation to the Doppelganger, in terms of Freud’s renowned essay in which determines the uncanny as:

• being confronted by a being which we cannot be sure is alive or inanimate, mechanical or living
• fear of losing  our sight or being unable to believe our eyes
• fear of having to confront our own double (and thus ourselves)

She also cites two examples in early film and literature “The Student of Prague” and Calvino’s “if on a winter’s night a traveller..” in which the protagonists eventually destroy their twin or multiple counterparts and thus themselves. McMurdo’s work is not this dark however. Perhaps it is for good reason that she chooses children with their associated innocence, for her work. In the image in question “Helen backstage, Merlin Theatre (the glance) 1996” the girl seems hesitant but not afraid. Williams suggests that this image represents an initial self awareness and the subsequent image of the same child “Helen Sheffield 1996” she appears to be at ease with her twin although the game they are playing seems to represent a struggle for dominance.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen–Performance Artist and Photographer

This artist came to my attention via a random link on the OCA Photography Students Facebook page.Somebody had asked the question ‘does a portrait need to show a face’ and as Minkkinen’s self portraits very rarely show his face (every other part of his naked body feature in his work) his work was put forward as an example to add to the debate.

I looked at the 40 years of self portraits on his website and and was impressed by the sheer ingenuity of his work, the difficulties he has overcome, the danger he has put himself into and the simplicity of his ideas. Put simply, he inserts himself into the landscape, contorting his body into lines that follow its contours, burying himself in snow, submerging himself in water and all the while using the camera single handed with no assistant. There is no layering of negatives, double exposure, Photoshop or fakery involved.

How he made this work is here: http://www.arno-rafael-minkkinen.com/intro.html.

His ten portfolios start here: http://www.arno-rafael-minkkinen.com/hands_and_feet.html

Minkkinen is also known for the Helsinki Bus Station Theory an explanation of which can be found in this article here:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/23/change-life-helsinki-bus-station-theory

I’ve summarised it for myself in the hope that I will find my ‘voice’ eventually. “Be true to yourself, make the work that inspires you and when you think it is becoming derivative, don’t go back to the bus station and start your journey again stay on the f’king bus!”

I hope this holds true. Learning about Art is a journey, what we pick up along the way helps our work to grow, mature and eventually enables us to create something that is unique…..

Reading–The Photograph as Contemporary Art - Charlotte Cotton

This one of  the course books for level one. I have now finished it after two attempts. Although informative and a  good overview of the work of a number of contemporary photographers, I did struggle with some of the ideas discussed and some of the language used to express them. Even at the beginning of the fourth year of my studies, I still feel like an outsider, looking in on a world that I don’t understand and frankly leaves me bewildered most of the time. With the work of over 200 artists and only a brief description of just one or two of their images, (reproduced at small scale) I don’t expect to do more than be able to appreciate the diversity of current practice.  Susan Bright’s Art Photography Now (see link below) has done a much better job with a smaller number of artists and a more comprehensive view of their work.

The book divides current art photography into eight broad sections. From each section I have briefly summarised the theme and chosen an image to which I can relate.
 

Ch. 1 If This Is Art: Dealing with subjects/scenarios which the artist/photographer has directed or deliberately planned.
 

pp. 20, 46 Philip-Lorca de Corcia “Head” series resonated with me. http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/philip-lorca-dicorcia-head-10-2002 (I enjoy street photography and have an ongoing project which I call “shooting from the navel” [refers to the camera position] in which my subjects are not aware of having their photograph taken) de Corcia has taken the genre to a new level by using lighting and a long lens to photograph his subjects candidly and selectively. My project is more random with a wide angle lens and a scattergun approach which involves a fair amount of editing. See also my post in reference to Beat Streuli: http://rjdown-dpp-log.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/reading-art-photography-now-susan-bright.html

Ch.2 Once Upon a Time: Story telling using a single image either by reference to fable myth or legend with which we are all familiar or by a set up that asks us to look carefully and interpret the image using our own knowledge, experience and intuition.
 

pp. 78-79 Hannah Collins “In the course of time 6” (Factory Krakow).1996 http://www.hannahcollins.net/projects/archive/in-the-course-of-time.html  This was exhibited as a massive print (2mx5m) shows a familiar (to me anyway) corner of what could be any workshop tucked away in backstreet factories of post industrial Europe of the 1980-90s. At first I thought it was abandoned but the forge has a fire alight (it’s right on the junction of the two page spread) so it is a working space. Where are the workers? Is there a strike meeting or just a tea break? When they return, what happens here, what is made or repaired? The drum in the corner bears the Polish word for Oil. There is a sense of anticipation and also desolation. The broken window panes, the clothes lockers with their doors hanging open. There is a sense of the past and perhaps the end of something.

Ch.3 Deadpan:  Cotton claims that the deadpan aesthetic is the predominant style of photography created for galleries in the past decade. As I understand the term it is photography showing no emotional or personal involvement of the photographer but has a sense of the beautiful with clarity, detail and often reproduced at a large scale.

p. 87 Ed Burtynsky Oil fields #13, Taft California 2002. I have chosen this as an example because it is one I have seen on a gallery wall at an OCA study visit in 2012 and experienced its scale and detail.  http://rjdown-taop-log.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/oca-study-visit-260512-burtynskys-oil.html  Included in this post is some discussion about the merging of documentary and art photography and possible conflicts that arise. If this is the deadpan aesthetic then the photographer is presenting his subject matter in an objective way. He is leaving it up to the viewer to interpret the truth of the image and raise questions about what is depicted.

Ch.4 Something and Nothing: Everyday objects photographed in an interesting or unusual way which brings them to our attention. This is a genre which interests me. The final project that I have in mind for this course will be a series of images taken from unusual viewpoints with a macro lens to emphasize objects and surfaces we touch daily but may not register or recognise.
 

p. 117 Gabriel Orozco Breath on Piano 1993 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8231429/Gabriel-Orozcos-art-in-pictures.html?image=3 This picture caught my attention because of its simplicity. I recently caught an exhibition of UCA BA students work in Farnham entitled “What we leave behind” .https://www.facebook.com/wwlb.exhibition  I have thought about how time robs us of immortality. If we are lucky enough to have a headstone, several generations of our family  remember us. If we achieve fame or notoriety, history may record our passing, otherwise our existence dies with the last person who knew us. For me this image represents  the briefest and most transient trace of our passing….one breath.
 

Ch. 5 Intimate Life: This is the aspect of contemporary art photography that I have the most difficulty with. In her introduction to this chapter, Cotton writes three pages on Nan Goldin. I’ve read through it twice at least. She had a hard life it seems and if this is her way of dealing with it and expressing herself, that's fine. I find it difficult to be interested in it beyond it being a single aspect of a diverse range of self expression currently practiced. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, I tend to find the American capacity for self analysis and angst tedious. One artist’s work that I did find interesting was Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh:
 

p. 150 Untitled. More of this series can be seen here:

 http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/richard_billingham.htm

It was Billingham’s motivation for taking these photographs that interested me. Cotton talks a lot about the way artists using this genre make use of  the vernacular style of the family snapshot, the harsh flash lighting and the imperfection of the machine print. Billingham was to use these images as studies for paintings of his family life. In that way they are unselfconscious and not at all pretentious. Individually the photographs could be dismissed but as a series they show an intimacy that could only come from an insider.
 

Ch. 6 Moments in History: The introduction to this chapter asks a question. How do art photographers respond to the decline of documentary and reportage photography, its replacement by TV and digital media and maintain its social relevance? It seems that the approach is different to traditional methods with artists staying out of the action (reported by the mainstream digital media in all its forms) and using a reflective and contemplative approach on the long term effects of the event. Using medium and large format equipment ensures that the physical qualities of the resulting images can be fully exploited in the gallery.

From the examples shown in this chapter it is not surprising that I was immediately attracted to the work of Allan Sekula

p. 180 Conclusion of Search for the Disabled and Drifting Sailboat ‘Happy Ending’ 1993-2000 from his series Fish Story. The three images document the sighting and rescue of the crew. I was fortunate enough to find a .pdf of the book on-line. Although I have only skimmed through it, the images and texts promise an interesting exploration of the  ports, people, politics and the current state of global trade by sea.
 

Ch. 7 Revived and Remade: I can’t pretend to claim that I understood much of the introduction to this chapter but I may be able to summarise: Modernist photography was elitist and in the post-modern era you can do what you like. I’m sure one day all this will become clear but I’ll need help, time and a lot more discussion with my fellow students before it sinks in.
 

p. 196 Self Portrait as my Father Brian Wearing 2003 Gillian Wearing – Again, I have chosen this image as I have seen the entire Album series on another gallery visit. Here is the relevant part of the post I made at the time:
 

Album (the family likenesses) I didn’t know how I felt about this at the time and nearly a week later I’m still uncertain. I can understand the idea that you may wish to draw attention to family likenesses and that to wear a mask and body suit of a relative to show an intimate connection  reinforces this. What I do admire is the execution of the idea, a very complex and time consuming process which produced something of interest. As a technical process, very challenging. Is that its own reward perhaps? This work tells us something about Gillian Wearing but I’m not sure what.
 

Eighteen months later, my thoughts on the work have not changed.
 

Ch. 8 Physical and Material: The final chapter of the book is about those artists for whom making choices about the execution of their work is more important than adhering to standard acceptable methods. Experimentation with the methods and materials involved has become part of the creative process, whether this is the appropriation and inclusion of existing works into their projects, including photographs in installations or sculpture or simply returning to analogue camera and film technologies.
 

p. 231 TV Wheelbarrow from the series Analogue 2001-6 Zoe Leonard. https://vimeo.com/68165540

This link shows Zoe Leonard talking about this project which took years to complete in cities around the world using a second hand Rollieflex camera recording urban landscapes to record the streets before they are changed and lost forever.  Using a film camera reinforces the sense of change, using and recording something before it is gone forever. I can relate to this idea as projects that I have in mind for future assignments will include recording changes in the urban and rural environment.
 

Reflection:  Although I found this book hard work, the photograph as contemporary art is now more relevant and I have come a step closer to considering and authoring my work in with this in mind. There was a least one artist in each chapter whose work I enjoyed reading about and was motivated to do more research on. Other work left me bewildered and did not engage my attention at all. Time will tell.........

 

Reading: The Ongoing Moment – Geoff Dyer

 

 

This is the link to Sean O'Hagan's review which I read before purchasing the book:

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2005/oct/16/art

I enjoyed it. A slow start but I soon got into it. A perfect foil to Art Photography Now as it concentrated mainly on the founding figures of American photography. Tongue in cheek at times it shows that there is nothing new in photography only that the same subject is interpreted differently each time a new photographer tackles it. The author writes not only about the photographs but about the lives and motivations of the photographers too. This is a book I will dip in and out of as I come across references to the work of the photographers included.

The ideas expressed have gone into the melting pot and hopefully will be absorbed and help me to  express myself photographically as I continue my studies.

Reading: Art Photography Now – Susan Bright

Containing examples of the work of eighty contemporary photographer/artists, I am finding this a valuable reminder and reference book in my struggle to understand photography as art. A lot of what is shown and discussed I can relate to and hopefully will enable me to form my own ideas for study projects. Some is not so clear and I struggle to understand what the artist is saying, despite quotations from the artist and explanations from the editor. This may come as I re-read and study the work but some will fall on stony ground.

All of the usual suspects are included, Parr, Sherman, Wearing, Crewdson, Wall. There were some that I had not come across before and that resonated with me and some of the things I have tried. Beat Streuli for example takes candid images on the street of self absorbed people going about their daily lives in situations that we are all familiar with. There may be more to his work that this but I have tried this in my own street photography project in various locations in the UK: http://www.orchardwind.talktalk.net/street.htm which is on-going. My web gallery shows just a few examples.

Although primarily a sculptor Richard Wentworth’s photography interested me. He has taken images of found objects for a series “Making do and getting by” where everyday objects apparently at the end of their usefulness are left in places or in positions that make them appear quirky and/or give a hint as to why they are discarded. These are found in the city. I have modified this idea and have taken photographs of discarded objects in the countryside. This week I came across this wrought iron bed head that was re-emerging on a footpath having at sometime been discarded and buried in the undergrowth.

 

The abandoned sofa is also a popular subject at the roadside. While in Plymouth earlier this year I spotted this one at the waterside and photographed it as a tribute to Wentworth. The juxtaposition here grabbed my attention. (I have also nearly finished Geoff Dyer’s “The Ongoing Moment”. My review of that will be written shortly)

Art Photography Now has put contemporary art photography into some sort of context for me. It is making me consider projects in different ways and in different genres. (The book is divided into seven genres;  Portrait, Landscape, Narrative, Object, Fashion, Document and City although there there are some overlaps -  work that will fit into more than one genre.
There is till a lot about art that I do not understand but I’m slowly getting there.

Reading: Ansel Adams - Trees

I’m sure I’ve looked at this book before because subconsciously I have mimicked Adam's compositional style over the years. I’m lucky enough to live in a wooded part of the country – whether I look to the front or rear of my home, I see dozens of trees. Trees are probably our most visible and constant companions in nature and arouse great passion. This is shown by  the breadth and depth of literary quotes which accompany the photographs in this book. It’s a shame the images aren’t bigger – barely 7 inches on their longest side. They would have more impact on a gallery wall.
This book is a veritable catalogue of trees, large, small, alone, in forests, in leaf, bare, tall, short, straight, twisted, deciduous, coniferous, alive and dead. In detail and in distant vistas, all aspects of the form and shape of trees seems to be covered by this volume.
It is tempting to dismiss Adam’s work as old hat because it has been around for so long. His style has been copied and mimicked, his photographic locations have been re-photographed thousands of times. Despite this there is still a lot to be learned from his meticulous  nature and extraordinary mastery of exposure, remembering that the zone system he pioneered is now taken care of instantaneously in incredibly sensitive digital systems. I may be able to seek inspiration from his style but never produce prints with such tonal range using just sheet film, paper and chemicals.