Negotiating Man-Altered Landscapes

Hello and welcome to my photography blog 'Negotiating Man-Altered Landscapes'. This blog builds upon the University project 'Negotiating City' which was my first formal introduction to photography in the context of its development from conception to the contemporary. With the Negotiating the City project I became interested in the work of the photographers who formed part of the 'New Topographics Exhibition” and how this related to the development of contemporary themes within photography throughout the remainder of the 20th century to the present day, in particular the relationship between man, man-altered landscapes and the so called 'natural' world or nature. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Deep Water: Exploring rural Derbyshire at night through a plastic bag Part 1

All images © Steve Cordingley 2013

These images are part of a larger series that continues my photographic engagement with the rural environment in which I live.

The images were taken during one evening, unplanned and quite spontaneously - a highly evolved defense mechanism to protect ones-self from the 'excitement' of watching the soaps, reality TV and cookery programs that appear to dominate the mid-week TV listings during the dark winter months of the UK.

As I stumbled aimlessly about in the dark with the occasional aid of a head-torch I became interested in the contrast generated by artificial light sources: between that what man chooses to illuminate and that which is left in the dark or only partially illuminated as a unintended consequence (...may be watching Coronation Street would have been more exciting after-all?).

Lewis Baltz's work is never far from my thinking when exploring light, architecture and man-altered environments, particularly the series he produced called The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California some of which ended up in the New Topographics exhibition I keep on bleating on about. I like the harsh lines & geometric forms Baltz's creates in his high-contrast black and white images and the strong thematic and documentary nature of his work.

The first part of this series Deep Water reflects this interest in Baltz's work, using photoshop to convert the digital images into high contrast black and white. However I was keen to create a sense of ambiguity and imperfection within the images and so I experimented with covering the camera lens with a clear plastic bag. I liked the softening and blurring effect and occasional glare this generated within some of the images.

This ambiguity and imperfection was important as I wanted to show a  'distorted' view of rural environment. Whilst Baltz was 'forensically' documenting the rapid expansion of suburbia and industrial America into a huge expanse of desert out west, my work is centered in and around the rural agricultural and tourist town of Bakewell at the heart of Britain's first and largest national park - the Peak District - hemmed in by urban and industrial cities such as Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Derby. The sense of complexity in the politically driven relationship  between the economic, social and environmental needs of the region is acutely felt. The plastic bag is symbolic of my own ' distorted' relationship with this environment and is a representation of myself within the image.

More on Baltz,  Deep Water and anything else that comes to mind some other time.

Reference Material

Rian, J (2001) Lewis Baltz, Phaidon 55 Series. Phaidon Press Ltd

Baltz, L (2001) The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California. RAM

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Burntwood Quarry, Autumn 2013

All images © Steve Cordingley 2013

A selection of images from my most recent visit to Burntwood Quarry. I was interested in how the late afternoon Autumnal sunshine created a dramatic colour contrast between the canopy tops compared to the shaded areas  below the quarry face.

Captured with digital camera, I used a small aperture to maximise the depth of field, wanting to create a sense of holistic man-altered structures; barriers of stone and vegetation - a sense of the whole rather than focusing on individual elements within the quarry environment as on previous shoots.

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Genetic Drift: Evolution in Human-Altered Landscapes I

This series of 10 images were exhibited as part of the Art and Architecture Trail at the Wirksworth Festival 2013, Derbyshire UK. 

The work aims to explore the relationship between humanity and the perceived natural world together with the political systems and underpinning philosophies that govern this relationship, and in part is a reaction to the pristine 'gods own country' wilderness landscapes found in the work of photographers such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

All images © Steve Cordingley 2013

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Burntwood Quarry, Derbyshire UK

A selection of test images for the project I'm working on, trying out different techniques to capture the quarry as it currently is, this sample taken from atop the south quarry face and created using multiple exposures - anything between 5 and 15 separate exposures for each image; to build up each image over a period of time (10 to 30 minutes) capturing the movement and energy within the quarry's woodland canopy; a mixture of pine, silver birch, rowan, ash, sycamore and lime. Techie stuff -  a standard 50mm prime lens on a Pentax LX mounted on a tripod; film was FP4 stand developed in Rodinal at 1:50 for 1 hour; negatives scanned into photoshop to adjust contrast and stuff like that.

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Burntwood Quarry

Burntwood Quarry, 28/05/13 © Steve Cordingley 2013

Burntwood Quarry is a small disused quarry found in Derbyshire,UK nearer the village of Beeley on the Chatsworth Estate. It is scheduled to re-open later in 2013 to be quarried on a small scale over the next 5-6 years to provide sandstone for the ongoing restoration work of Chatsworth house, one of England's premier stately homes.

The re-opening of the quarry provides an opportunity for me to explore the relationship between humanity and landscape. It will form the basis of a  project that will enable me to develop my own photographic practice, providing the context to research historical and contemporary approaches to landscape photography whilst enabling various photographic techniques and methods to be put to the test.

I hope the completed final work I produce for the project will give a sense of the complexity of the relationship between humanity and the landscape, and question the underpinning dualism that separates humanity from the perceived 'natural' world.

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Landings: Skelton and Blakemore

Richard Skelton: seems a good a place as any to reinvigorate the blog.

I first became interested in Richard Skelton after reading a review of his work by Clive Bell entitled "Relief Maps" featured in The Wire magazine (issue 326) - a splendidly pretentious monthly magazine exploring creative music and sounds. Skelton's Landings was recorded in the West Pennine Moors that lie north west of Manchester. This area I knew well from my own child hood and adolescent days living in Wigan, and I was fascinated by Skelton's passion for this bleak moorland landscape, evoking my own memories of exploring the area around Anglezarke, Rivington Pike and Winter Hill.

Camping up on Winter Hill with M. Summers, October 1986. © Steve Cordingley 2013.

For me the music ebbs and flows with visceral clarity - the physical nature of the landscape itself made tangible within the music. Skelton uses cheap stringed instruments recorded in-situ, often sullied with the soil and vegetation of the moor, and sometimes buried and exhume. It's a healing process that attaches Skelton to the physical landscape, a process brought about by the loss of his wife, Louise. For Skelton the playing was the important part of this process, the recordings becoming a document of the process itself (The Wire, 326, p 46).

This process and Skelton's physical attachment to the land reminds me of the photographic landscape work of John Blakemore. Blakemore considers himself to be 'a photographer in landscape rather than of landscape' (Campbell, 1978 p46), in the same way Skelton was trying to make music that was 'part of the landscape' (The Wire, 326, p 46).

Lynch Clough, Derbyshire © John Blakemore, 1975.

Source: http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com/detail/35995/200.0

Blakemore's photography explores themes of energy and and cycles of regeneration of growth, decay and regeneration in landscapes (Campbell, 1978, p48), similar to Skelton's 'ritual music of mourning and rebirth' (The Wire, issue 326, p3). Both artists use layering techniques as part of the creative process to explore these concepts in their chosen landscape: Skelton sometimes creating composite pieces formed from different recordings made at different times in different places (The Wire, 326, p48) that Clive Bell notes "is like a time-lapse photograph of the landscape"; Blakemore creating just that - time-lapse documents of landscapes as in the photograph above of Lynch Clough, Derbyshire - a technique that involves building up an image using multiple short exposures (Campbell, 1978, p47).

The themes of energy as a cycle has been an influence of my own fledgling work, and back in 2008 whilst on a night school photography course I created a series of images based on ideas of potential and kinetic energies in the moorland landscape where I now live in Derbyshire. I intend to become more familiar with the work of John Blakemore and the techniques he uses and build these into my own body of work.

The Warren #3 (Beeley Moor), September 2008. © Steve Cordingley 2013

Clive Bell's colleague at The Wire, Nick Cain, uses the term Pastoral Psychogeography in reference to Skelton's work, and Skelton readily admits to having emotional attachments to the landscape:

...given my personal history, it's all too easy to view this landscape through the prism of bereavement...to conjure sorrow from dereliction, pathos from crumbling stones and rotting wood.

(Richard Skelton, The Wire, 326, p47)

I think it is the combination of emotional and physical attachment to the landscape that makes Skelton's work stand-out against the wishy-washy white wash of ambient and 'new age' pastoral sound-scapes, and for me has a similar sensibility and auditory perception as the pioneering industrial electronica of Sheffield's Cabaret Voltaire, for instance; there is an authenticity and physicality within both Skelton's and Cabaret Voltaire's music.

As Clive Bell notes, the pastoral tradition is 'problematic for poets and composers' due to, as Skelton suggests, 'a tendency to romanticise and idyllicise the pre-industrial landscape and our connection to it'. (The Wire, 326, p47).

The romantic pastoral tradition within art is an area I intend to research further, as it will give the context and framework that will help me develop my own thoughts on the relationship between humanity and man-altered landscapes that will in turn influence and determine the techniques and approaches I adopt for my own photography in practice.

In text reference:

Bell, C (2011) Relief Maps The Wire, Issue 326 pp.44-49

Campbell, B (1978) Exploring Photography. BBC

For more information about Richard Skelton's work :http://richardskelton.wordpress.com/

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Negotiating Man-Altered Landscapes

The project “Negotiating the City” was my first formal introduction to photography in the context of its development from conception to the contemporary. It was the first module of a part-time degree course I was studying at The University of Derby, UK. Unfortunately I had to defer study due to lack of funds and though I plan to return in October 2013 this is by no means a certainty.

In the meantime I continue to use my camera to capture things that interest me, and like so many others contribute these images to the primordial soup via social network sites such as Flickr and Tumbler. But I miss a framework to work in: one in which I can share information and my own thoughts and how these relate to my photography in practice, giving both images and research context.

With the Negotiating the City project I became interested in the work of the photographers who formed part of the 1975 'New Topographics" exhibition and how this related to the development of contemporary themes within photography throughout the remainder of the 20th century to the present day, in particular the relationship between man, man-altered landscapes and the so called 'natural' world or nature.

This blog will continue to explore this relationship and I would welcome contributions, thoughts and theories from any who share this interest - please do get in touch.

The Warren, 2013 © Steve Cordingley 2013.

For those interested my personal photography blog is http://genetic-disorder.tumblr.com/ and my photo-stream on flickr is http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecordingley/.

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The Technological Topographics: photographs of a virtual altered man

© 2012 Steve Cordingley

Here’s the final set of images I’ve produced for the project Negotiating the City and the order I intend to present them in (though I may well change my mind at the last minute).

I set out to explore how technology might be changing the concept of the city; the virtualisation of city function and human activities (social, political, cultural etc.), with the vague idea of ending up with a set of images that would plant the same question within the viewer.

The learning process that I've gone through in my attempt to achieve this started based upon a selection of my own experiences and knowledge of photography, technology and city. This formed the foundation on which I could negotiate the development of urban, street and documentary photography from the birth of photography in the 19th Century through to the present day; gaining knowledge through the reading and referencing of photographic literature and the internet, module lectures and tutorials, valuable feedback and constructive criticism, enriched through insights from non-photographic material such as philosophy, music and literature.

The key influence for this series of images has been the photographers who formed part of The New Topographics exhibition, particularly Nicolas Nixon, Frank Gohlke and Robert Adams, and to a lesser degree Lewis Baltz and the Bechers. I think this distracted me from achieving my goal together with the need to conform to the objectives and timescale of the module brief.

The images do I think represent and replicate the geometric shapes, grid patterns and block structures found in the works of Nixon and Baltz et al, and within the planning and architecture of modern cities per se, but they are not meant to be cities reproduced in miniature. I want the images to remain very much computer components and circuit boards that feature familiar human made structures we associate with urban architecture and environments.

It is within the computer components themselves that individuals, groups, whole cities etc, are created and reproduced as a set of binary data - a vast evolving string of ones and zeros containing personality traits, buying behaviors, sexual desires and fantasies, social needs, financial securities, political views etc., and through which we interact and perform at a global level the functions and process found in real provincial cities.

In this respect I think this series of images only manages at best to surface scratch the veneer protecting what I set out to achieve, though I do feel they may retain enough ambiguity to engage the viewer and get them questioning what the work is about.

I think the scale of the final images do not do these landscapes justice - they cry out to be presented large and possibly varying sizes of largeness too. At A4 I've certainly managed to minimise their potential impact, further compounded by cropping the unnecessary borders. On the upside they do look like computer chips themselves when aligned together.

Overall its been an interesting journey in which I feel I've come along way. I sense this theme of technology and the impact it is having on human culture will continue to be ever present in future work.

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Shomei Tomatsu

Image: A Wristwatch Dug up approximately 0.7 km from the Epicenter of the Explosion. Nagasaki, 1961 © 1961 Shomei Tomatsu

Source: http://www.teppertakayamafinearts.com/shomei_tomatsu/0005.htm

This is one of those poignant images where accompanying words seem unnecessary and pointless, and even disrespectful.

For what it is worth and apologies in advance, in the context of both the city and the development of human culture over the 20th century this images says far more than the obligatory 1000 words - within it are the voices of the thousands who died in Nakasaki and Hiroshima, the echo's of the millions that died in WW2 leading up to use of the greatest technological development of that age to put an end to the war, the screams of those still scarred by these two colossal events, the beginning of the end of modernism and the new world orders, the sowing of the seeds of postmodernism, the hormone injection for capitalism and consumerism to explode and proliferate, the real fear that humanity remains capable of doing it all over again but on a nihilistic scale.

In the context of photography, Tomastsu is described as one of the great modern photographers; Japan's Bill Brandt or Henri Cartier-Bresson (Jeffrey, 2001). He examines the contrasts and conflicts throughout the commercialisation and westernisation of post-war Japan, often combining surrealist wit and symbolism with documentary sensibilities to produce thought-provoking thematic images and this unique documentary style has influenced key contemporary Japanese photographers such as Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki, (O'Hagan, 2010).

On a somewhat lighter note, a stopped watch brings to mind a quote from one of the most quotable of films:

Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day...we are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell. Making an enemy of our own future. What we need is harmony, fresh air, stuff like that.

From the film Withnail & I (source: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0094336/quotes)

In text references

Jeffrey, I (2001) in Shomei Tomatsu 55 London: Phaidon Press

O'Hara, S (2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/sep/06/shomei-tomatsu-japanese-photography posted Monday 6 September 2010 14.41 BST

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Sodom and Gomorrah: obsolete technologies, obsolete cities

All images ©Pieter Hugo 2010 from the series Permanent Error

In the series Permanent Error photographer Pieter Hugo explores an expansive dump in Ghana called Agbogbloshie. This area is used to literally deposit the obsolete and unwanted technologies of western consumption under the facade of being recycled to support developing and third world countries to bridge "the digital divide" but really creating new pastoral landscapes from which the poorest carve out a meager existence through melting down and extraction of metals found within the circuit boards and wires.

This wasteland, where people and cattle live on mountains of motherboards, monitors and discarded hard drives, is far removed from the benefits accorded by the unrelenting advances of technology.

Source: http://www.pieterhugo.com/

As documents they remind me of Agtet's old Paris as it was being transformed on the eve of the brave new world, Sander's Germanic farmers and country-folk around Cologne before the Nazis took root, the Brecher's (DeLillo's) 'barn' before it became famous (see last post!). I wonder not only what is around the corner for the Ghanaians who live in the area that they call Sodom and Gomorrah, but also the society and the system that creates it.

Where is western capitalism and consumption taking human culture? In this technological revolution that we live in the pace of change is so great that no one really understands how advances in technology will change global civilization and human culture - not only in a 100 years or even a generation, but within a generation or even the next decade. Cyberbetics, genetics, biotechologies - this is the brave new world, one in which human values, ethics and morals will be truly be put to the test on the world stage.

All of which leaves me with my own moral dilemma. Having plundered the contents of several obsolete computers, the contents themselves have now become obsolete as their use for the project is now complete. Do I take them to be re-cycled in the uncomfortable knowledge that approx. 75% will end up on a dump somewhere in Africa only to be photographed by Pieter Hugo and end up in some nice coffee table photography book, whilst simultaneously intoxicating the local water supply with heavy metals... or do I hoard the stuff away in the tardis like loft with the rest of the 'useful stuff'? May be I'll try free-cycle - sure there is some techno-geek out there who could solder all this stuff together to make a cybernetic hamster of something?.

Back to complexity and unintended consequences of human activity systems.

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The Becher's Typologies

All images © Bernd and Hilla Becher

The work of German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher seems a logical progression from the last couple of posts, following on from the rants of Mark E. Smith (Repetition, Repetition, Repetition), Friedlander's mass reproduction of the photographic image in post-modern societies and the concept that we can no longer see DeLillo's 'barn'.

The repetitive typological nature of their work capturing vernacular architecture presented in structured grid pattern structures has been a major influence on concepts and ideas in contemporary photography particularly the 'dead pan' aesthetics found in the work many of their students from the Dusseldorf school where they taught, such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand and Simone Neiweg (Cotton, 2009), and seems to me to be the essence of DeLillo's 'barn' before it came famous. 

This typological approach harks back to photography's historical past, adopting an almost scientific, taxonomical process in documenting objectively man made structures using a head-on view point, flat perspective and even, diffused lighting (Badger, 2007).

Some of the Brecher's American work found its way into William Jenkins famous 1975 exhibition 'The New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape. I was intending to do some 'Brecher style' images myself for the project Negotiating the City; photographs of familiar structures found on computer circuit boards. I did do some test images to try this out but was unhappy with the results. I am tempted to take on Brecher's advice: find a subject and pursue it obsessively for your whole career (Badger, 2007, p70).

In text references

Badger, G. (2007). The Genius of Photography. London: Quadrille

Cotton, C (2009). The Photograph as  Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson

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The most photographed barn in America

Photograph: Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota © Lee Friedlander 1969

Source: http://www.artnet.com/artwork/426223488/396/lee-friedlander-mt-rushmore-south-dakota.html

The following is an excerpt from the novel White Noise by American novelist Don DeLillo. Both Friedlander's image and DeLillo's words seem to reflect the complex issues regarding replication,repetition and the mass reproduction of the photographic image in modern western societies.

Source: http://www.downwindproductions.com/barn.html

Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America.  We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington.  There were meadows and apple orchards.  White fences trailed through the rolling fields.  Soon the sign started appearing.  THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA.  We counted five signs before we reached the site.  There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot.  We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing.  All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits.  A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot.  We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers.  Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more.  People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.

We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura.  Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence.  The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender.  We see only what the others see.  The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future.  We've agreed to be part of a collective perception.  It literally colors our vision.  A religious experience in a way, like all tourism." Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said. He did not speak for a while.  We listened to the incessant clicking of shutter release buttons, the rustling crank of levers that advanced the film. "What was the barn like before it was photographed?" he said.  "What did it look like, how was it different from the other barns, how was it similar to other barns?"

From the novel White Noise ©Don DeLillo 1985

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Technological Altered Cities

A brief-ish summary of the process I've gone through in preparation for the final critique next week:

The last couple of weeks I've focused on forming a usable set of digital images from which I could select 10 photographs ready for the final critique.

This involved taking more photographs and developing a standardised process within Camera Raw, whilst at the same time giving some thought how best to present the final images as a body of work.

I ruled out using colour, and will stick with B&W. I think the colour could work very well and add an extra dimension to the images - but I think this would take considerable editing prowess in photoshop to achieve the desired results, and being a photoshop novice and constrained by time I readily concluded it would be next to remain with the b&w.

Based on feedback and much needed photoshop advice from Nick I started to apply a standard landscape-orientated crop to all the images I was working on. Once I had around 40 images I printed these off as bog-standard laser prints so I could lay them out, scratch my head, stroke my imaginary beard and decide which images would work best together and stuff like that.

Looking at the images collectively like this, rather than on a computer screen helped me to identify common themes within the work as a whole, decide what to keep and what to ditch, and how I might present the work.

The repetitive geometric shapes, block structure and grid patterns gave me the idea to present the images in a block. Since base 10 is pretty darn useless for most things other than counting in tens, I decided 12 images would do nicely as I could present them in a block of 4 x 3  (ideally I would have used 16 images in a block of 4 x 4, but as I am financially embarrassed and since base 12 is, according to most sensible mathematicians, a more natural and logical base number to perform calculations and solve equations with, and therefore human engineering endeavors (read Alex Bellos's ace  (youths: ace=sick) Alex's Adventures in Numberland for a mind-bending explanation), I'm stuck with 12.

If I did have the readies I would certainly be going for A1 or A0 prints, as I think the images do lose something when viewed at A4 - or rather the larger size would have a  greater impact on the viewer? Just hope I don't lose marks because of lack of wealth, would seem somewhat discriminating...

So, what happened next. Well once I decided on the images to use I went back to  photoshop removing any distracting detail and playing around a bit with the levels and sharpening thingy until I was happy there was a good level of consistency across the photographs in terms of their look and feel.

I then had the 12 images printed on cheap inkject paper at the local printers, giving me a clearer indication compared to the laser prints of how the final images would turn out when done 'proper'.

In the ideal world I would possibly tinker a bit more with a couple of the images and do another test print, but with time running out I intend to go with what I've got and hope Colin and Nick are feeling particularly benevolent next Wed and the home made cookies work.

Now all I've got to do now is get them to the print bureau in time to have the results back by next Tuesday, decide if I can get away without mounting them (again cost), think of a title for the work and make the cookies (I might delegate this last task to an unexpecting gullible child of mine).

Ok - so it wasn't so brief after all.

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Photographers by BlackLabs © David Oates & Mishka Henner 2012.

Interesting and creative montage by BlackLabs using clips from cinematic films about photographers - the "Voyeur, hunter and investigator", the "observer being observed".

Source http://vimeo.com/49912275

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Living the Fantasy - notes from last weeks lecture

© Helmut Newton

Susan Hardy's Friday lecture last week was great - another canter through the second half of the 20th century filled with teasing glimpses of the key concepts & events that consume contemporary photography and the western 'postmodernist' world today.

Freud is always good for a laugh. No real surprises; male bodies are extensions of their cocks - us men are walking 'throbbing gristle' that's what we are; dicks with extended legs, arms and eyes etc. That is according to the wise and omnipotent Dr. Freud anyhow. Thank's for that Dr. Freud.

Men eyes =  'actively' perv: female eyes = 'passively' perv...(ok I confess I'm not that sure passive perving is a recognised female past-time... possibly in certain not-so discrete 'latte ladies' circles').

© Garry Winogrand

More accurate: lasses are 'looked at', blokes 'do the looking', a division that occurs at some point in infantile development. Obsessions that lead to range of human behaviors such as voyeurism, narcissism and scopophilia, all of which are (un)healthily represented in the age of mass social networking, a techno-world in which living out our fantasies can be readily achieved.

© Robert Frank.

Many photographer's have played up to the western stereo-types and differences found in society, for example Robert Mapplethorpe, Ingrid Pollard, Lorna Simpson and Garry Winogrand. Robert Frank's famous image from The Americans above illustrates this perfectly as we read from left to right the order of power, influence and segregation within American society in the 1950's.

©  Martin Parr

Images by Diane Arbus,  Martin Parr and Nan Goldin raised the question of ethics and exploitation as their work tended to explore the lives of real people who don't quite fit into societies fantasies, ideals of human perfection and gender roles that are drilled into us from an early age through consumption of TV, film, toys, books and peer pressure to conform.

© Cindy Sherman

From Cindy Sherman to Jeff Wall, this leads to a key contemporary issue within photography: exploring what is real and what is not real, fabricated images that test our belief systems - we see them as constructed yet still believe them as real, using our western cultural connotative references (based on Hollywood films, marketing, porn etc) to read the images we see, whilst helping us create our own artificial realities as we go.

© Jeff Wall

The use of social media and the internet provides the platform through which we can live out these fantasies, adopting different persona's to satisfy different needs. But where does reality end and the fantasy begin? As the boundaries blur is it increasingly difficult to abstract the fantasy from the real? Are they becoming one and the same,  our identities and personalities transforming into one long string of binary numbers blanketed by evolving computer code that give us function and purpose?

As mentioned in the lecture, there are now companies and individuals who will take the persona of dead people (and even pets!) to perpetuate their online presence providing comfort for their relatives. The holy grail, the fountain of youth, the deathly hallows - the ability to cheat death: immortality is not fiction, its real and already here.

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Techno Topographics

Another sample of images for the project Negotiating the City. This week I've been focused on developing a better understanding of working in photoshop, particularly editing the images in Camera Raw. This is all newish to me and I'm keen to get to grips with the software as best I can in the time I have so I can produce a set of decent prints at the end of it all.

It's been painful but worth it as I've now developed a workflow and feel more comfortable using the software to achieve desired outcomes. I need to do some more 'stuff' though, as I still not happy with the majority of the work I'm producing particularly in terms of how the images look and feel  - ideally I want the prints to be similar to some of the work featured in the New Topographics exhibition.

I think some of the images remain a bit on the abstract side, but one or two are edging towards mini city-scapes. I suspect the final method and arrangement for the presentation will be key to making this work as a whole, and I remain kind of skeptical I will be able achieve this.

I do intend to do some Bernd and Hilla Becher style images of some of the computer components as their work appeared in the New Topographics. The Becher's are the 'missing link' in the chain, connecting with the work of early 20th century documentary-street photographers such as August Sanders, Walker Evans and Eugene Agtet with the postmodern deadpan aesthetic being adopted towards the end of the century by the likes of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Dan Holdsworth.

Reference

Cotton, C (2009) The Photograph as Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson

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One 'ism' to rule them all

(image from Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, 1982)

Friday's lecture with Susan Hardy was interesting enough - a fleeting gallop through the various 20th century "ism's" within art and specifically photographic art, from Western Formalism (Stieglitz, Weston and Strand), to Modernism (too many "ism's" to name each - e.g. Futurism, Constructivism, Cubism, Surrealism,- (Moholy-nagy, Rodchenko, Man Ray et al)) to the "one ism to rule them all" - Post-modernism, which I'm kind of hoping is simply existentialism in rehab (Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Andreas Gursky, Jeff Wall etc etc), and how all this related to politics and culture: Aristocracy, lassiez-faire and the industrial revolution; Marxism, the Russian Revolution and the failure of European communism; Hitler, genocide and WW2; American consumerism, the global worship at the alter of Capitalism and fiction becoming reality.

All ending up with contemporary photography (and art generally) up its own arse with a tidy Saatchi gallery price-tag to-boot.

Well that's what I managed to frantically scribble down in way of lecture notes anyhow.

T'was a shame the promised viewing of Blade Runner after the lecture using cutting edge technology was a none-starter due to a technological failure of said cutting edge technology. Even re-booting didn't seem to help (in IT support world this is deemed serious, potentially fatal). Lets hope something similar happens to 'consumerism'...

... I wonder if China could pull the plug or something, or maybe Frodo f'in Baggins is real and on his way to Mordor to cast the one ism into mount doom.

Anyhow, time to go and dream of electric sheep, or may be I am an electric sheep dreaming I am some hairy bloke writing bollocks on Tumblr?

Which reminds me of a Tommy Cooper gag that appeared on me twitter feed the other day:

I always say, follow your dreams. Except for that one where you're naked at work.