Abstraction and Photography: 2

European photographers began to produce work nourished by cubism, abstraction and the Bauhaus aesthetic pioneered by Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitsky.  Members of the New Vision Group began to produce innovative compositions. Within the French avant-garde, photographers such as André Kertész and Florence Henri began to treat form in new ways.  Kertész produced work like Shadow of the Eiffel Tower, 1929. Henri would seek out the abstract within the concrete in work like Abstract Composition (handrail) 1930. Henri would also use mirrors to manipulate composition on form as in her work. One interesting example is Window, 1928-29. Jaromír Funke also used mirrors in his Photographic Constructions (1923).

Other methods of producing photographic abstractions were found by photographers. For example, Christian Schad, Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray produced photograms and influenced future production of photographic abstraction via cameraless photographic methods. 

André Kertész  Shadow of the Eiffel Tower, 1929.

Florence Henri  Window, 1928-29.

Jaromír Funke Photographic Constructions  1923.

Jaromír Funke Light Abstraction, 1927

Abstraction and Photography: 1

This is a subject that I should have discussed for project one since many of my posts deal with one kind of abstraction or another.  Pictorial abstraction is conventionally defined as “a work of art with no recognizable subject”. This seems totally at odds with nature of photography which is essentially realistic and representational/ figurative.

The two approaches that have explored include the exaggeration of single characteristics like subjects form or its texture. The other approach generally includes the use of extremes close-ups, distortions and lighting effects. These effects transform the subject in such a way as to make it unidentifiable.  Although not strictly photographic, project one included lighting effects, blurring and numerous references to abstract art.  Project 2, is more photographic, but the imagery is distorted and is often unidentifiable or at times difficult to identify and abstract in nature. Certainly with the automatic-joiners that project 2 have produced, the imagery shifts from the representational to the abstract. 

“From the moment Cubism emerged in Europe, around 1907-8, its radically stylized geometric shapes prompted photographers- who were also influenced by Japonisme, Constructivism, and Wassily Kandinsky’s of abstraction (1913)- to imitate what then seemed the essence of Modernism (Mora, G 1998, p.39).  

Alvin Langdon Coburn The New York Octopus 1912

Alvin Langdon Coburn was said to be the first to intentionally abstract photographs. Evidence of this can be found in his 1912 series New York from its Pinnacles. The New York Octopus is a good example. Although many would deny Cubism is abstraction, its stylization of reality led photographers like Coburn to experiment with light and refracted mirrors in 1916. These works were called vortographs by Wyndham Lewis one of the key figures of Vorticism. 

Alvin Langdon Coburn Vortograph 1917

In 1916, Paul Strand made abstracts such as Porch Shadows. These works in turn inspired Fancis Bruguier and members of the Japanese Camera Pictorialists of America. There was an eagerness to link their photography to the avant-garde that was emerging from Europe. 

Paul Strand. Porch Shadows, 1916. 

The move towards abstraction quickly shifted towards the figurative and the stylization of the human body. This approach was associated quite strongly with the Clarence H. White School of Photography. From 1914 many of the professors and students like Laura Gilpin, Paul Outerbridge  Jr., Karl Struss, Margaret Watkins    and  Bernard S. Horne would produce photography informed by experimental abstraction.

 

Bernard S. Horne Design - Princeton

1917 (ca) Gelatin silver print

11 7/8 x 9 15/16

Margaret Watkins The Clarence H. White School of Photography: Design for Marble Floor, "Blythswood," Glasgow 1919

The work of the staff and students =were often reproduced in the magazine Photo=Graphic Art.

Sources:

Mora, G., (1998) Photospeak,  New York: Abbeville Press.

Edgar Martins Interview

Edgar Martins by GULBENKIAN1

The Wayward Line > exposition

Edgar Martins Interview

Edgar Martins from Galerie Mélanie Rio on Vimeo.

Microsoft Photosynth

Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space.

Luo Yongiin

Landscape is given a similar treatment to cubist landscape in the work of Luo Yongjin in work like XiGaZe from 2001 which was shown as part of the exhibition River Flows East-Landscapes of the Imagination in 2010. Yongjin’s XiGaZe is constructed in a similar manner to Kellner’s, however the fragmentation is far more subtle in its arrangements.  We also see Hockney "joiners" too.

 XiGaZe 2001

Luo Yongjin’s photographs hover between two very distinct points of     view. The artist’s landscapes and urban scenes are primarily informed     by China’s rapidly changing nature as he off sets its rich cultural     heritage with more recent urban development. In the late 1990s Luo    Yongjin began a series devoted to architecture where a single shot     taken from a single viewpoint seems substituted by a long,     superimposed series of images extending in time and space like     contemporary mosaics. These images convey the speed and hysteria     of rapid growth within the simplicity and stillness of a black and white image.
    (Dematté, 2006)

Yonglin between 1997 and 1998 began to photograph the new buildings in Beijing.  Yongjin “adopted a ‘mosaic’ style to capture the magnitude of these structures” (Artspeak China, ND). Another example of the ‘mosaic’ technique can be found in his work Oriental Plaza, 1998 – 2002

Luo Yongjin Oriental Plaza, 1998 - 2002
Photography, 36 cm x 650

 

Lotus Block, Beijing(Series: Chinese City Scape), 1998

Artspeak China; http://www.artspeakchina.org/mediawiki/index.php/Luo_Yongjin_%E7%BD%97%E6%B0%B8%E8%BF%9B

Dematté , M., Allsopp Contemporary & Lavinia Calza
Luo Yongjin: “Points Of View”,
http://www.allsoppcontemporary.com/pdf/LY_PR.pdf

Michael Wolf: 3

Michael Wolf's Talk, part 3/3 from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.



In the third and final segment of Michael Wolf's talk, he takes several questions from the audience.

Topics include the arts culture in Hong Kong, Wolf's views on ethics and photography, legal issues regarding his work, and his conceptual decisions regarding how he depicts buildings and people.

Coinciding with the exhibition at Aperture Gallery and the release of its accompanying monograph, The Transparent City, Michael Wolf gave a talk on November 10, 2009. His large-scale color photographs of downtown Chicago’s buildings and their inhabitants examine public versus private space in the context of 21st-century urban life.

Michael Wolf: 2

In this clip of Michael Wolf's talk at Aperture, he begins with talking about his background in photography and how he started his career. Describing his process from studying with Otto Steinert in Germany, his editorial work to the development of his artistic career when he decided to move to Hong Kong.

Wolf explains how he develops his topics conceptually and how China's unpredictability has inspired him many series including dilapidated hybrid chairs in the streets; local artists reproducing art works and how these fake works affect the value of art; toy factory workers and a massive installation of children's toys made in China; as well as a series documenting Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic.

Coinciding with the exhibition at Aperture Gallery and the release of its accompanying monograph, The Transparent City, Michael Wolf gave a talk on November 10, 2009. His large-scale colour photographs of downtown Chicago’s buildings and their inhabitants examine public versus private space in the context of 21st-century urban life.

Michael Wolf: 1

In this excerpt of Michael Wolf's talk at Aperture, he describes his aesthetic of photographing architecture in both Hong Kong and Chicago. By not including the sky in his images of buildings, the scale becomes much more ambiguous and the images have a more awe-inspiring feel to them. Wolf talks further about how the images work both as a graphic abstract depiction of the buildings and an incredibly detailed portrait of them depending on the distance you view them from. Taking these ideas of scale, he also speaks about his decision to digitally enlarge the minute details of the buildings, creating pixelated portraits of the inhabitants inside these buildings.

Wolfgang Tillmans

When going through the Saturday Guardian (26.06.10), I came across an article discussing the work Wolfgang Tillmans. He was an artist I had seemingly ignored despite the fact that he had a high profile: he did win the Turner Prize in 2000.

half page
Installation view, Regen Projects
October 23 - December 6, 2008

I was interested in the critical response Tillmans received, which was on the whole negative. It seemed at odds with our pluralistic times. Tillmans’ work, especially in the nineties “used magazines particularly the street style magazine i-D as one of his outlets for his pictures while exhibiting in contemporary art galleries in London, New York and Cologne” (Jobey 2010 p. 16). One can I think, without reading the reviews, understand Adrian Searle’s position, but I am surprised by Matthew Collings’ dismissal of Tillmans’ work.

 half page
Installation view, Regen Projects
October 23 - December 6, 2008

My own felling about Tillmans work is rather ambiguous. However, what drew my attention were his influences. Tillmans is quoted as saying that “all the art that touched me was lens-generated, like Richter, or Polke, Rauschenberg, Warhol” and “of course Dada and Kurt Schwitters” (Jobey 2010 p. 16).

 Silver Installation VII 2009

The Guardian reports on Tillmans’ shift towards abstraction. The production of large inject prints seems to be a bold move. The images he produced “have taken on a spectacular and seductive presence in his installations… like works of a latter-day abstract expressionist” (p.17).

Serpentine Gallery, London, 26 Jun - 29 Aug 2010

While part of his work “developed towards abstraction, another took a more political route” (p.17). In a series of collages titled Truth Study Center, Tillmans “drew attention to the exercise of power behind ideologies of Islamic fundamentalism, Catholicism, Capitalism” (p.17).

.

Serpentine Gallery, London, 26 Jun - 29 Aug 2010

He is quoted as saying “I know that this won’t change the world. But then again I think the most important  thing is to start doing something” (p.17)

Sources:


Jobey, J. (2010) "Wolfgang Tillmans: the lightness of being" The Guardian, Saturday 26 June 2010 

Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jun/26/wolfgang-tillmans-serpentine-photographs-exhibition > [last accessed     27/06/10]

Inigo Taylor

Contemporary Lense Media and most of the other art and design courses at Lincoln University will have there final year degree show. Exhibiting at Thomas Park House, Lincoln from Friday 4th June (please check for details) will be lense media student Inigo Taylor. Here is a sample of his work on his website: http://www.inigotaylor.co.uk/ .

Is It Art, or Memorex?

This is a link to an article in Wired called Is It Art, or Memorex? by Reena Jana 21/5/01 discussing the work of Net artist Michael Mandiberg. Mandiberg's "art prank" was to "reproduce" Sherrie Levines reproductions of Walker Evans work and presents them as his own: a simulation of a simulation.

Mandiberg posted his photos on two websites he created: AfterSherrieLevine.com and AfterWalkerEvans.com.

Posted using ShareThis

A Note on Criticism: 3

From Criticizing Photographs
An Introduction to Understanding Images by Terry Barrett from pages 1- 2
"...This book is about reading and doing photography criticism so that you can better appreciate photographs by using critical processes. Unfortunately, we usually don't equate criticism with appreciation because in everyday language the term criticism has negative connotations: It is used to refer to the act of making judgments, usually negative judgments, and the act of expressing disapproval. In mass media, critics are portrayed as judges of art: Reviewers in newspapers rate restaurants with stars, and critics on television rate movies with thumbs up or thumbs down or from 1 to 10, constantly reinforcing judgemental aspects of criticism. Of all the words critics write, those most often quoted are judgements: "The best play of the season!" "Dazzling!" “Brilliant!" These are the words highlighted in bold type in movie and theatre ads because these words sell tickets. But they comprise few of the critic’s total output of words, and they have been quoted out of context. The value of these snippets for our reaching an understanding of a play or a movie is minimal. Critics are writers who like art and choose to spend their lives thinking and writing about it".

A Note on Criticism: 2

Terry Barret

Criticizing Photographs

"An Introduction to Understanding Images" by Terry Barrett

Preface page xi…

"...Years of teaching art criticism have convinced me that one of the best ways to appreciate an image is to observe, think, and talk about it. This is what art criticism entails, and it's what this book is about. My goal is to help both beginning and advanced students of photography use the activities of criticism in order to better appreciate and understand photographs. The book is organized according to the major activities of criticism, which Morris Weitz identified in his study of Hamlet criticism, namely, describing, interpreting, evaluating, and theorizing. His breakdown is sufficiently broad so as not to exclude any considerations about criticism, and sufficiently narrow to provide a directed and clear consideration of the complex activities of criticizing photographs. The goal of these activities is always increased appreciation and understanding, or what Harry Broudy, the father of aesthetic education, calls "enlightened cherishing." I like his compound concept because it acknowledges feeling as well as thought, without creating a dichotomy. The following chapters consider describing photographs, interpreting and evaluating them, and theorizing about photography in that order. I've placed major emphasis on the interpretation of photographs because I believe that discussion of meaning is more important than pronouncements of judgement and that interpretation is the most important and rewarding aspect of criticism. Interpretive discussion increases understanding and thus deepens appreciation, whether that appreciation is ultimately negative or positive....."



With a special thank you to Heather Lees for the above quotation.

Sources:

Barrett, T ( 2003) Criticizing Photographs New York: McGraw-Hill


Terry Barrett, educator, author, artist: http://www.terrybarrettosu.com/

Photography and Simulation: 1

I have already described and explained I think the nature of simulation as discussed by Dr Dean Lockwood in his lecture ‘Is it Life or is it Memorex?’: What is Simulation? Okay, so to some extent I have described it. See the entry for Digital Culture: 5.

I wish to talk briefly about simulation and photography. Although simulation is association with digital photography and other imagery made via the computer my examples are “originally” printed on paper via the use of a chemical process and the use negatives, again produced via a chemical process- or are at least made to seem so.

By the 1970s modernist ideas about authorship, innovation, experimentation, progress and originality were being challenged by post-modernism. Post-modernism considered art and photography amongst other forms of communication differently. Photography was now going to serve a “larger system of social and cultural coding” (Cotton, Charlotte, 2004 p. 191). The post-modernists, certainly Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine “became acutely aware that to present an image out of context is to alter that image forever” (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 311).

Sherman, Cindy. Film Stills Series.

1978-1980.

Cindy Sherman produced a long series of photographic simulations the Untitled Film Stills series in 1978. Described by Sherman as “one frame moving making” (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326), this series drew from B-movies and on a whole repertoire of female stereotypes. These pictures are not just pastiches of a generic type of visual image, but operate as a critique of the cultural codes that construct femininity in our culture. Sherman condenses the role of model and photographer and as Charlotte Cotton says “she both observer and observed” (2004, p.193). Her work raises many issues to do with the representation of women: for who are the representations we see on a daily basis for? Femininity can be described as performative. Sherman appears playing with multiple images of female-ness, seemingly revealing that that the post-modern self and all identities are equally artificial and constructed. This seems to support Judith Butler’s reading of gender as performance (Ward, P 2003 pp. 133-136).

Cindy Sherman Untitled #224 1990

Caravagio Self-Portrait as Sick Bacchus
1593-1594.

Sherman’s work moved from black and white film to Cibacrome colour and expanded her repertoire. In the late eighties and early nineties Sherman abandoned popular culture and focused upon art history, “decking herself out as subjects, male as well as female, in paintings from the “schools” of such Old Masters as Holbein, Watteau, Goya” and above, Caravaggio. Here she plays Carravagio, “playing” dress-up as the sick Bacchuss (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326). Sherman helps to enlarges photography’s history by including “styles preceded the camera’s invention, a medium whose democracy is reflected in Sherman’s oeuvre, where social and aesthetic hierarchies crumble as the artist explores with equal interest a great dispersion of differences among genres and idioms” (Wheeler, D 1991, p.326). Sherman’s work seems to reflect the fragmentary and mediated nature of our culture, society and our experience.

Richard Prince Untitled [cowboy] 1980-84

Richard Prince came to prominence in the late nineteen seventies as an appropriator of mass culture. In 1980 he began to re-photograph Malboro cigarette adverts. By re-representing and cropping the familiar imagery, cutting out the text, isolating elements and placing the image within the context of a gallery setting, Prince seems to be reflecting on American iconography and forces the viewer to re-read a mythical representation of the American west. Traditionally signs are taken in all at once by a viewer. We do not inspect advertisements like we may inspect an oil painting. Prince in re-contextualising the image may wish to attempt to slow down the eye and the pace we look at the visual.

Levine, Sherrie. After Walker Evans.

1980.

Even starker than Prince in her approach to re-photography is Sherrie Levine. Notoriously she re-photographed reproductions of famous male photographers: Rodchenko, Edward Weston and Walker Evans (above). Levine exhibited the work as her own in an “assertion that all art, far from being autonomous, is the product of history, memory and culture” Levine cited Roland Barthe in her defence: “a picture is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres.” Edward Weston for example had copied Greek sculpture in his photographs of his young son’s torso (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326-327). These works and Levine’s other appropriations are a critiques of patriarchal notions of authorship and genius, of modernist ideas of originality, innovation and skill-- perhaps all patriarchal constructions.

Susan Lipper Untitled 1993-98

Paul Strand, White Fence 1916

Susan Lipper’s descriptions of small town America draw upon the heritage of its representation within the context of documentary photography. Lipper seeks out and finds in contemporary places connections with potentially an archive of pre-existing imagery. Untitled 1993-98 makes a formal reference to the work of the American photographer Paul Strand (1890-1970) and specifically The White Fence (1916) which Charlotte Cotton describes as a photograph that embodies “ a key moment in photography’s modernist history” (2004, p.214-5).

Zoe Leonard and Cheyl Dunne, The Fae Richards Photo Archive 1993-96

The above imagery by Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, is their attempt to reclaim and challenge official history, and construct positive representations of the marginalised. Fae Richard’s (1908-73) “is a celebrated African-American Hollywood actress and singer” invented by Leonard and Dunye (Campany, D 2003, p. 60-1). The Fae Richard’s Photo Archive 1993-6 sees the artistic appropriation of visual styles and cultural stereotypes in an attempt to blur the distinctions between pastiche and the real. These careful forgeries are constructed in such a way to seem authentic and challenge the “clichéd tragedies of the lives of infamous black singers and performers” that dominate collective cultural memory with a representation of a successful black lesbian who was creative, affluent and happy (Cotton, C 2004, p.198-9).

Jemima Stehli, After Helmut Newton’s ‘Here They Come', 1999

Helmut Newton, Here they Come! 1981

Jemima Stehli, After Helmut Newton’s Here They Come! 1999 is a critique of Helmut Newton’s Here they Come! (1981). This remaking of an iconic image emulates Newton’s style and the pose of one of the models, but Stehli’s authorship is evident by the inclusion of the shutter release cable. The critique uses a similar approach to Sherman’s in that she becomes both the subject and object of the work challenging the objectification and stereotyping of women.

Roger Fenton, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855. The Royal Collection c. 2005.

Paul Seawright, Valley, 2002. Kerlin Gallery

Paul Seawright's imagery connects with moments in history. His image of the Valley from 2002 is part of a series called Hidden commissioned by Imperial War Museum in response to the conflict in Afghanistan. We do not exactly witness here scenes of conflict, but of the aftermath of battle. Commentators have noted that these pictures “draw us to these edges or fringes of things” and show us “photographs of scenes when the photographer is too late” (Lister, M 2007 p. 259). These photographs seem to pay homage to Roger Fenton’s (1819-69) war photography from the Crimea. This is an example of contemporary world events being mediated through pre-existing image-making.

An Overview:

Modernism, key ideas:

– Experimentation
– Innovation
– Individualism
– Progress
– Purity
– Originality

Post-modernism, key ideas:
– Appropriation or Simulation (see the ideas of Jean Baudrillard) is one approach by image makers
– Hyperrealism
– Questions ideas of originality, authenticity, authorship and skill and anything else on the previous list.
– Pastiche
– Parody
– The Art of Quotation
– Postmodern Art and Visual Culture largely informed by the work of:
– Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and the art movement Dada (1915-1924)
– Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935). Influences John Berger’s Ways of Seeing Chapter 1 Episode 1 (1972)
– Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and Pop Art
– Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) Simulations (1983)
– Roland Barthe (1915-1980) “Death of the Author” in Image-Music-Text (1977)

Conclusions:

Post-modernity and simulation can be about the:

– Critiquing ideas about authorship (Levine, Prince, Lipper)
– Attacking ideas about genius (Lipper, Levine)
– A critique of the art world, patriarchy and so on.
– A strategy of critiquing an authors work (Levine, Stehli)
– A way of critiquing objectification and stereotyping and challenging cultural clichés (Sherman, Stehli, Leonard & Dunyne )
– A strategy of witty appropriation
– Blur distinctions between pastiche and the ‘real’ (Leonard & Dunyne and the others)
– Reclaiming history (Leonard & Dunyne, Sherman, Levine, Lipper)


Bibliography:
Campany, D (2003) Art and Photography London and New York: Phaidon

Cotton C (2004) The Photograph as Contemporary Art London: Thames and Hudson

Lister, M (2007) “A Sack of Sand: Photography in the Age of Information” Convergence: The International Journal of Research Vol. 13 No. 3 pp. 251-274.

Ward, G (2003) Postmodernism London: Teach Yourself

Wheeler, D (1991) Art Since Mid-Century London: Thames and Hudson

Aaron Siskind

In my own work I try to seek out odd juxtapositions of objects and strange meetings of things and the images of things. I try to seek out artists and writers that attempt to explore similar issues. I really discovered Aaron Siskind after reading David Anfam’s Abstract Expressionism (1994).


Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) was a member of the New York Photo League in the 1930s. His early work was in the social documentary tradition producing projects such as Dead End: The Bowery, and The Harlem Document. In the 1940s he started to connect with members of the New York School, whose dominant aesthetic was abstraction, transforming his work and shaping his interests. His black and white images of this period were of found objects, graffiti, peeling posters and an urban landscape familiar and a source of inspiration to Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.

Martha's Vineyard (seaweed) 2 1943

Abstract expressionists like Gottlieb and Pollock explored calligraphy in an attempt to discover new visual languages. Siskind’s Martha’s Vineyard (Seaweed) looks gestural: a tracing in the sand, a biomorphic form, a letter (A for Aaron?) a figure or a sexual symbol.

Gloucester 16A, 1944

Biomorphism as an art form draws its inspiration from nature and biological forms. We see its visual representation in Art Nouveau and its more curvilinear forms (one thinks of the Paris metro or the dominant architecture of Barcelona, specifically the work of Gaudi ) and of course Surrealism (Arp, Masson, Miro, Tanguy and Dali). The biomorphism of surrealism fed into what became abstract expressionism. The above photograph recalls the totemic art of Masson, Miro, Newman and Rothko. The above image is one that returns our gaze. Do we not see a single blank eye, a hard profile; abstract yet physiochemical like forms or “ovoids” that Motherwell presents to us in his Pancho Villa Dead or Alive 1943, the Elegy for the Spanish Republic series or At Five in the Afternoon 1949.

New York I, 1947

Chicago (Auto-Graveyard) 3, 1948

The surfaces that Siskind presents are rough, fragmentary, divided in much the same way as a de Kooning, a Motherwell, a cubist space or even a Pollock. We see the gestures of the graffiti artists, stains, drips, rust, decay, lettering and urban sign-age.

Chicago 1947-48

Siskind focused more and more on the minute. The charred surfaces that caught his eye reveal “paint smeared- walls whose facades, dense with graphic traces apparently make darkness visible”(Anfam, 1994 p. 153).

Chicago 224, 1953

This last picture again celebrates urban decay, the fragmentary with addition of the glass pain that adds a new layer and perhaps depth to this picture. The torn elements of poster remains recall not only Schwitters and the neo-dada, but the nouveau realism (Hains and Rotello) and the Situationist detournement (Debord and Jorn) that emerged in sixties Europe. This is the language of pop and low culture. What about the writing? Well, it does recall de Kooning’s dust jacket design for Harold Rosenberg’s Tradition of the New (1959) (see Hillier, Beavis The Style of the Century, 2ND Edition, 1999 p. 151).

Simon Morley’s book Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art (2003) although does not explore Siskind’s work. However across a number of chapter we see various post-WWII gestures (forgive the pun) that involve calligraphy or writing that move towards abstraction and action painting.

Bibliography:
Abrams, D (1994) Abstract Expressionism London: Thames and Hudson Hillier, B (1999) The Style of the Century, 2nd Edition, London: Herbert Press Morley, S (2003) Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art, London: Thames and Hudson.

Current Developments: 8

As promised, here are some photographs......

The above imagery are stills from the opening scenes of David Lean's Great Expectations (1946). The imagery is not cinematic, as in not official stills or photographed from a projection on a screen. They are televisual or at least a DVD recording, not video. The nature of the image is important.

Firstly, why did I choose this film and these scenes. The imagery presents us with an atmosphere of menace. The sight of a tree, seen through the eyes of the young Pip metamophoses into a threatening force. Such stylisation is very subtle.

There is something interesting and Romantic about the representation of nature as a malevolent force. I must add an entry about the grandeur of nature and deal with some of these difficult issues.

However the above image is photographed from nature. I did whole sequence of photographs of trees changing the aperture and shutter speed in search of the right effects for my project. I am particularly interested in the way nature or objects are mediated: 'direct images' of nature are overlap screen based imagery.

The above sequences of images are stills from Robert Wise’s The Haunting. The classic horror film uses subtlety to imply menace. The metamorphosis of a wallpaper pattern into a monstrous figure is produced by a slight manipulation of the camera and lighting.
These representations are surrealist and recall the grattage works of figures emerging from wallpaper or wood grain.

The influence of Ernst and my own memories of night terrors as a child led me examine Ernst’s “Irritated gaze” and the relationship between illness and the visual.

The above image interests me because of its ethereal nature. I am fascinated by gestures and blurred figures. This resembles Gerhard Richter’s photo-realist paintings.