Source material
Fontcuberta, J. (2014) Archive
noises. Pandora’s Camera. Photography after Photography. London. Mack. (pp169-181)
At photography’s inception, people believed the photograph
would capture that which we don’t see and preserve what we don’t remember. The
conservation of the moment captured on the photograph started as a dialogue
between memory and forgetting.
Anne Tronche suggests that archive is a space of experience.
The image remembered is not necessarily the image that was taken.
Historians look at archived papers (which may be fairly
recent) and desensitise them. (Deconsecrate, remove authoritarianism from
discourse.) This is similar to the work of Joachim Schmid. He promotes
recycling of images so that people see things again. “Schmid cancels the value
of production (taking pictures) and shifts to selection, to the act of pointing
and choosing.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:172) We should be concerned with the use of
photographs rather than the production of more.
1989 was a commemorative year for photography. History of
photography was taught in line with incorporation into the art movement. Values
developed with regards to “photography as a commodity and a collector’s item –
the fetishism of the signature, notion of the original, the limited edition,
the technical qualities inherent in the singularity of a photographic print,
the mise en valeur with the appropriate presentation – in other words, the
recovery of aura.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:173)
Schmid and Fricke looked for anonymous, amateur images in
second hand shops and flea markets which resembled master photographers, which
they mounted and signed and passed off as the real deal to question our values
of photography. The works were genuine so they were labelled alternative
masterpieces. The recognition of a masterwork shifted from the act of making it
to the act of recognising it. “The creative act no longer consists in the
application of a primitive gaze but in a superimposed gaze, a gaze that is
correlative of the palimpsest.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:174) Palimpsest means
altered but bearing original form) Creativity is now seen as identifying and
using the best of the existing images which links back to the Dadists and
Duchamp.
“On one hand, every single photograph represents or depicts
a fragment of reality, while on the other hand, that same photograph is a part
of reality, both as a psychical object and as an image/symbol. It’s much more
interesting to use these existing images and work with them than making new
photographs – because existing photographs not only represent parts of our
realities, they are realities.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:175)
Photos are an unstable triangle of reality, image of reality
and reality of the image.
Schmid thought that memory should not be a mausoleum. Other
photographers also destroyed photographs to remove “history and mementos of authoritarian
discourse.” (Fontcuberta, 2014:177) Schmid placed his images in groups,
shredded them and pieced them back together with pieces from different groups
to resemble digital noise. With Stasis
(Joachim Schmid) instead of images going into an archive, they go to the museum
for discourse. “Documentary photography invades the space of art to the extent
that the photograph as an illustration occupies the pages of the information
media.” (Fontcuberta, 2014: 178)
Deconstruction and reconstruction or fragments and
synthesis. Transformation of images but not readable so they confuse people.
Fragmentation present in art world with romanticism,
cubists, impressionists. Schmid believes there is “More truth in the image of
reality which is perennially ending, than the vision of the real, which is
fleeting.” (Schmid as cited by Fontcuberta, 2014:180) By engaging with Schmid’s
Stasis, we have shown that “Vision is
always partial, a series of snippets of a structure whose totality we are
unlikely ever to perceive.”
This work teaches us a unique way of looking at archived
material. Although it contains information, it may not be accessible or
understandable in its current form and may need to be re-invented, Data fills
the gaps between memory and forgetting but the rubbish needs removing. Memory
must not become sterile so there should be creativity with the information.
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