“The act of borrowing or reusing existing elements within a new work”
One of the objectives of Assignment 2 asks ‘What is in-photographable?’. Well, needing to capture my childhood self is in-photographable without the use of a time machine. To achieve this aspect in my assignment I have chosen to use images of my younger self taken by my parents. This then led me to question the validity of using photographs taken by others to create a new piece of work. Note that I do have permission from my parents.
At this point I researched ‘appropriation’ and its use by artists and photographers. Barbara Kruger (b.1945) questioned the whole concept of originality. This was an interesting viewpoint. In street photography everything you take belongs or is owned by somebody else. Some objects used in staged images can belong to someone else. Ideas and styles used in art photography can be tracked back to an original author making subsequent works ‘appropriations’ of sorts.
Portraits have been taken many times, it’s just the subject that changes from author to author. The artistic message is predominantly the same in this category of photography.
This highlights that artistic merit can found in what you select, how you present it and where you present it. This was the view of the French-American artist, sculpture, chess player and writer Marcel Duchamp (b.1887 d.1968). He famously quoted “I don’t believe in art, I believe in artists“. He ‘found’ objects, signed them and presented them in a gallery which were known as ‘readymades’. It questions what is the artist trying to say and at the same time highlighting and celebrating art and artists.
Assignment 2 has made me realise the artistic skill in making the selection of the ‘found’ image. In my case I had several hundred family slide photos to choose from. I required 8 images to pair with my chosen document. The selection of the photo, the selection of the document and the image title were all artistic choices. It wasn’t random. The placement of the document fragments and text was an artistic choice. The final image is a photograph that contains a photograph. It conveys the passing of time. It brings together 3 moments in time. 1) The time of the family photograph. 2) The time of the event in my life. 3) The time of construction and taking of the final image.
The ‘event’ aspect provides the movement of time and conveys the build-up of negativity in my life. The childhood images are from around the same time. They aren’t in any particular age order as that is not relevant. The nostalgia and young me is. The presentation and look & feel will be key to ensuring that it conveys mental health. This is an important artistic choice and the success of this assignment will be judged on how well I deliver that.
It is not enough to overlay some documents on to some old photos and expect it to convey the ‘unseen’ notion of being overwhelmed by events to the point of not being able to cope with everyday life. There has to be another level. I am excited by my idea and keen to see how the assignment develops and where it takes me.
The titles of the images and overall assignment title are a key choice to hold the piece together. I need to ensure I don’t add too much. Don’t overdo puns and don’t make them simplistic. They need to be thoughtful, educated with a hint of optimism.
Possible titles for the assignment:
Take a look at me now.
Can you see me now?
Fix Me!
Get Better.
I am more than this.
Broken people can get better.
Recovery
Image titles and pairings:
See Me! Me on a trike outside home School Book
Pass/Fail? Me on my bike Driving Test Card
Ejection. My 6th Birthday party Redundancy Letter
M’aidez! Me in a boat on a lake Negative equity letter
Someone new. Me and baby sister Divorce court letter
X or Y? Me on the beach in my pants Tumour Ultrasound scan
Break-in! Me on a police horse Burglary case number
Help me to recover. Me at the family dinner table Sick Note
This is my first attempt at a composite image using photoshop. I’ll probably reshoot the paper fragments as the white balance does not match. I will also move the fragments around the frame to see what may work. I also need to lighten both the projector image and the document fragments. I like 1:1 frame and the black border that has been created out of camera although I would like a little detail in the black. I also like the raggedness at the edges of the slide. I am considering putting the image title in the lower border but need to research fonts and formatting as I don’t want to ruin the final image. Overall I’m very pleased with where this assignment is heading.
I tried one more thing before finalising my selects for submission. Here I overlaid an image of medication. The idea was to overlay similar images of prescriptions and medication on all 8 compositions. This meant I had to drop the document layer. I liked the result as it provided a cleaner more clinical image and would be accepted by the viewer as a ‘proper’ image. However, I chose to reject the idea as it overemphasised a dependence on medication which is not the point I want to focus on in this assignment. It also lost the personal feel and background story of the events that the document overlays provide. My final submission selects have a number of levels the viewer has to ‘read’. It is the build up of the events and the effect it had on my mental health that I want to convey. The image below, as the first in the set would give up too much too soon and devalue the point of a series of 8 images.
Martyn Rainbird 