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@mastersvisualjournalmclain
Albumen Prints For Crit #1
Hall of Shadows Critical Review Report
Hall of Shadows: An exploration of Australian war crimes and missing information
“I am not going to pass any judgment on the policy of devastating the country. I obey orders, and perhaps it is a wise plan.”
-RL Wallace, The Australians at the Boer War
WHAT:
Hall of Shadows is a mixed media exploration of war crimes by Australians during conflicts in Afghanistan as detailed by The Brereton Report, an extensively redacted investigation into the deaths of civilians and prisoners. Utilising wet plate collodion tintypes and printed materials taken from digital media, Hall of Shadows focuses on creating a visual mirror to our society to see the far-reaching human cost of these war crimes. The work is about reflecting upon the special operations soldiers who committed the crimes, the political and civil authorities who placed them in these situations on behalf of the civilian population and the media who report on the crimes and the report itself.
The work consists of a grid of 15 wet plate collodion tintype still lifes of toy soldiers in miniature dioramas constructed of wooden blocks, along with four A1 sized newsprint banners in various states of use and disrepair. The tintypes are an echo of, and inspired by, the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, which houses 15 stained glass windows, each with a word that is a quality of Australians at war. The form of the banners was influenced by Chinese hanging scrolls, intended for short-term news and propaganda dissemination. The materiality, plasticity, texture, and imperfections of the toy soldiers I had used as subjects in creating the still lifes for my wet plates was underscored to draw the viewer's attention to in the banners. The banners are images taken directly from the pages of the heavily redacted report overlaid with pictures of plastic toy soldiers.
Both works are meant to evoke reflection in viewers. Where the original stained glass windows are lushly coloured and use a Deco font, the tintypes are monochrome and the words scratched into the surface of the metal. The banners are printed on flimsy, disposable newsprint, and with much of the text unreadable.
WHY:
Australia has an ambivalent relationship with military engagement. The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) estimates that approximately 2% of the population are veterans, yet there appears to be a disproportionate emphasis, even a reverence, for military action in popular culture. The large sections of military history and accounts which glamourise the military found in books stores reveals something about the popularity and hunger for information about this segment of our society. But much like sports figures whose poor or inappropriate behaviour is overlooked or excused, soldiers and military action are often elevated to positions above critique or reflection or only examined on Anzac Day then forgotten until the next year.
This work was created in hope of raising some questions for the viewer:
Who am I in relationship to these people and events?
How does my image of this history correspond to lived realities?
What agency, if any do I have relative to these events?
Factors that emerged during the creation of the work included the fact that the greater the temporal distance became between the report’s release (November 2020) and the present, the more of a collective and communal shrug there seemed to be about these crimes and any consequences for those who committed them. This seeming public lack of interest led towards processes and materials that were disposable, recyclable, non-permanent and dismissible, just as the acts which were the genesis of the report and the public response to it appeared to be a part of an ever-churning news cycle. The work was created to be both fixed in history with elements of discard and disposability.
WHO:
This work occurs and is informed by a number of photographic, artistic, military and societal communities. Photographically, a historical process is employed in the tintypes and more modern, digital-descended processes for the scrolls. The incorporation of text to both sets of images is relative to the work of Duane Michals, while wet plate photography has been employed extensively by Sally Mann. The use of miniature diorama and tableaus akin to David Levinthal’s work using toy soldiers and dolls was an important example of how applying good technical skills to small subjects can heighten the impact of images. His series Hitler Moves East is a slightly more abstracted work emulating black and white war photographs contemporary to the historical period of 1939-1945.
Returning to the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto and his photographs of diorama’s in museums also proved inspirationally fruitful. Sugimoto’s concept of photographing a faux re-creation of a time, place and event, had significant overlap and relationship to the work in creating the miniature dioramas as backgrounds I was staging seemed particularly relevant to my investigations. Of particular interest and insight is Sugimoto’s observation that “However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real.”
Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art, particularly, his work Whaam! seemed to share a print-pixelated, quasi-comic book quality the the scrolls/banners. While it initially felt that a connection might exist to the disposable aspect of Lichtenstein’s work, these images seemed less satisfying at communicating more realistic figures of the toy soldiers. The hope for more identification with soldier’s as the subject, rather than objectification simply wasn’t achieved, and so a more realist approach was adopted. (Note: the Lichtenstein Foundation’s website seems abandoned at this point and is available only through internet archives. I include his citation in Wikipedia for reference purposes.
Liz Wells observations about the truth or non-truth and historical uses of photography in commenting upon war continued to be a touchstone. Especially her observation about the uses of photography in establishing and reinforcing communal sentiments about war. “[T]here are no unequivocally great photographs of war, only those that structure or re-enforce feelings already extant within a particular culture.”
Additionally, the work of Alexander Rodchenko was examined, particularly the shift in his work from documentary photography to its use as propaganda. Rodchenko had good reason to make this turn: survival. As the young Soviet state went from photographic and cinematic playground to a more authoritarian state, photographers found ways to either praise Stalin and the new state or perish. In my work I was seeking to neither laud soldiers nor condemn them, but rather, hold up a mirror to the viewer to examine their own conceptions, pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions about military action and those who carry out the policies of the state, especially in ambiguous environments.
How:
The work was realised through a close reading of the available documents, reflection on my own experience in the Afghanistan theatre of operations, and testing with select trusted voices about the efficacy of whether intended messages were being communicated. This last was a necessary counter-balance to a body of work that was grounded deeply in personal experience. The challenge in this path is getting lost in a personal echo chamber where what seems obvious to the creator is completely unreadable to the viewer. Listening to my supervisor, peers and close friend’s readings of the work was exceptionally helpful in maintaining this balance.
With regard to the wet plates, arranging and mounting the images as a call/response to the sacred and mythological tones of the stained glass windows in Canberra was done as a means to open a door to reflection about their own position relative to military engagement. The limitations and ‘defects’ inherent in wet plates was also a desired element of the work. Just as no plate can be clinically ‘perfect,’ so no military action is without casualties.
The later-developed hanging scroll banners afforded an opportunity to use their materiality as fragile, disposable objects that, in their physical structure, reflected the ephemerality of the impact of the news cycle on our collective attention span. This, in turn, allowed for them to develop as a seperate, unified work on their own, standing along side, but different from the wet plate works.
Best practices for health and safety, including mental well-being, were followed throughout the creation of the work.
Test/Speculative Images:
Finalised plate samples, prior to mounting & framing:
Bibliography
Batchen, Geoffrey. (2004.) Forget Me Not: Photography & Remembrance. 1st ed., New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Laurent, Olivier. (June 15, 2015.) “A Photographer Turns Real-Life Soldiers Into Toys.” Time. Accessed March 10, 2021. time.com/3911329/a-photographer-turns-real-life-soldiers-into-toys/.
Levinthal, David. (1972-75.) “Hitler Moves East.” David Levinthal. Accessed May 28, 2021. davidlevinthal.com/artwork/hme.html.
Sugimoto, Hiroshi. (1994.) “Diorama.” Hiroshi Sugimoto. Accessed May 28, 2021. www.sugimotohiroshi.com/new-page-54.
Wells, Liz. (2015.) Photography: A Critical Introduction. 5th ed., New York: Routledge.
Wikipedia. (2004.) Hanging Scroll. Accessed May 30, 2021. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_scroll.
Wikipedia. (2002.) Roy Lichtenstein. Accessed May 28, 2021. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein.
Young, Marnin. (2016.) “Photography and the Philosophy of Time: On Gustave Le Grays Great Wave, Ste.” nonesite.org. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://nonsite.org/photography-and-the-philosophy-of-time/.
Zax, Talya. (2021.) “How Freedom Turned to Propaganda in Soviet Photography.” The Forward. Accessed May 28, 2021. forward.com/culture/322220/how-the-soviet-union-used-photography-as-propoganda/.
Artist’s Statement
Hall of Shadows
“I am not going to pass any judgment on the policy of devastating the country. I obey orders, and perhaps it is a wise plan.”
-RL Wallace, The Australians at the Boer War
Hall of Shadows is a mixed photographic media series of wet plate collodion tintypes and printed digital images which seeks to interrogate our personal and societal responses to war crimes committed by Australians in Afghanistan as outlined by The Brereton Report.
Our ideals and values go to war and are carried on to the battlefield. Most become casualties.
How do we tend to our wounded values and who are we in relation to events that occur in our name in places far from our every day geography? How willing are we to stay with these events in the era of the sound bite-driven 24 hour news cycle?
This work seeks to raise the question: When the fog of war lifts, what remains?
Jack McLain, creator
9 Months On...
I’m trying to figure out if this story is gaining or losing traction. I also find it curious that it is appearing in The Guardian, which is a non-Australian news source (albeit with a strong Australian presence) that is carrying this story.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/02/how-the-good-war-went-bad-elite-soldiers-from-australia-uk-and-us-face-a-reckoning
Chinese Hanging Scrolls
The ‘banners’ which are part of Hall of Shadows were initially imagined as announcing the tintype portion of the work while emphasising two things: 1) the toy and plastic nature of the soldier figures and 2) the large swaths of the report which appear in print as redacted, blacked out, unreadable to anyone outside the government. I combined these two features and wanted them to be large and visible. The influence of Chinese hanging scrolls as both news-carrying and propagandistic was an added bonus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_scroll
Studio 3 Bibliography
Here’s a cut/paste of the bibliography of works that have been influential for me this semester as I’ve worked on Hall of Shadows.
Term III
Commenced February 2021
Alfano, Mark, and Jacob Berger. (2016.) “Virtue, Situationism, and the Cognitive Value of Art”. The Monist, 99. 144-158.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2018). A profile of Australia's veterans 2018. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Batchen, Geoffrey. (2004.) Forget Me Not: Photography & Remembrance. 1st ed., New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Campbell, Joseph. (1993.) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. San London: Fontana Press.
Chevrier, Jean-Francios. (1989). The Adventures of the Picture Form in the History of Photography. The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960-1982.
Clausewitz, Carl Von. (1909). On War. 8th ed., London: Project Gutenberg.
Fink, Larry. (2014.) Composition and Improvisation: The Photography Workshop Series. 1st ed., New York: Aperture.
Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016.
Ingold, Tim. Making. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Laurent, Olivier. (June 15, 2015.) “A Photographer Turns Real-Life Soldiers Into Toys.” Time. Accessed March 10, 2021. time.com/3911329/a-photographer-turns-real-life-soldiers-into-toys/.
Levinthal, David. “David Levinthal.” Accessed March 10, 2021. davidlevinthal.com.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1981.) After Virtue. 3rd ed., Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Meron, Yaron. (2019.) “Photographic (In)authenticity: Making Strange as a Creative Practice Response”. Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 60: 60-81.
Suler, John. (2012). The Psychology of the Decisive Moment. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 9. 372-375.
Wells, Liz. (2015.) Photography: A Critical Introduction. 5th ed., New York: Routledge.
“Hall of Memory.” (2019). Australian War Memorial. Accessed March 2, 2021. www.awm.gov.au/visit/visitor-information/features/hall-of-memory/windows.
Wallace, R. (1976). The Australians at the Boer War. The Australian War Memorial. p303.
Young, Marnin. (2016.) “Photography and the Philosophy of Time: On Gustave Le Grays Great Wave, Ste.” nonesite.org. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://nonsite.org/photography-and-the-philosophy-of-time/.
David Levinthal
David Levinthal is an America photographer who makes extensive use of toys and miniature settings in creating serious commentary on social issues. Ranging from war to gender roles to race to fascism and sexuality, Levinthal stages and photographs miniature tableaus to reveal the truth underlying what we choose to make into a toy. Levinthal’s work is both wry and insightful, drawing back a curtain on what everyday playthings reveal about our corporate psyche. He makes effective use of both colour and depth of field in his work.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidlevinthal/
Website: https://davidlevinthal.com
Work that inspires me (©David Levinthal):
Element of this artist’s work I would like to internalise: Scale and composition as metaphor.
Critical Frameworks illustrated in this artist’s work: Meaning, Drawing, Symbology.
Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Levinthal
BLUE!
In an earlier post, I outlined the difficulties I had with exposure on the plates I was creating with very light wood blocks and toy soldiers that exposed very differently.
This is where a technical understanding of photographic process served me well in trouble shooting.
The wet plate collodion process barely recognises light at the red end of the spectrum at all. That’s why it’s safe to work with it under darkroom red-light conditions. But blue, on the other had, the emulsion and silver nitrate are radically sensitive to blue. To the extent that photographs of people with blue eyes can appear a little unnerving since it almost appears as though they don’t have irises. Blues appear nearly white when photographed with wet plate while reds appear nearly black, depending on exposure times. (To be quite specific light in the 450nM wavelength is where wet plate emulsions are most sensitive.)
So as an experiment, I bought a can of royal blue spray paint and coated a couple of the figures with it and did some test shots with these blue figures.
Before painting them:
(NOTE: Interestingly, I did try photographing both the tan and the green soldiers. While there was a difference, I still ended up battling with over exposing the blocks or under exposing the soldiers.)
After a coat of paint:
The results worked exceptionally well. Below is an early attempt with one of the blue painted figurines where we can see that the exposure of the wooden blocks and the toy soldier are much better; both subject and background are visible and proportional.
The lesson here is that knowing the strengths and limitations of the medium you’re working in can help you to overcome roadblocks to the process of creating. By knowing how the process works, and what it does well and what it doesn’t, allowed me to troubleshoot an ongoing problem relatively easily. Acquiring this kind of knowledge is why research and repetition are so important in growth and proceeding with creation of photographic work.
Alexander Rodchenko
Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor and photographer of the Soviet revolution period who recognised the power of photography to move and influence people. He was an early experimenter in photomontage and collage and blended images with strong graphic elements designed for maximum impact. Stylistically, he was heavily influenced by Dada movement. He worked within the Soviet state system using art to promote the new nation until he fell out of favour in the 1930s and painted Abstract images.
Instagram:(Rodchenko School of Art) https://www.instagram.com/rodchenko_artschool/
Website: None
Work that inspires me:
Critical Frameworks illustrated in this artist’s work: Meaning, Drawing, Symbology.
Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rodchenko
Commentary on a Rodchenko retrospective in Japan in 2010: https://metropolisjapan.com/rodchenko-stepanova-visions-of-constructivism/
Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks was a pioneering Black photographer, poet, film maker and writer in the United States. Parks worked for Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Agency and created images that opened up the segregationist experience of many Black Americans from the 40s through to his death in 2006. Working primarily in black and white, Parks images were widely hailed for the nuance and directness with which he documented his subjects.
Instagram: (Estate Foundation) https://www.instagram.com/gordonparksfoundation/
Website: http://www.gordonparksfoundation.org
Work that inspires me (©Estate of Gordon Parks):
Element of this artist’s work I would like to internalise: tonality and compositional sense.
Critical Frameworks illustrated in this artist’s work: Meaning, Drawing, Symbology.
Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Parks
Gallery of Park’s Photographic Work: https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/gordon-parks/photography-archive
Early Test Images
Here are some early test images from the project I’m working on this semester. It has been a really interesting testing process and an adventure in micro-lighting as well. Because of the nature of the background I selected (the small wooden blocks) and the subjects (brown and green toy soldiers) I ended up with some really contrasty results that were basically unusable at the start.
I understood where I was trying to go, and how I was trying to get there, but a chemical limitation of the process was a roadblock to progress. I ended up with either blown out white masses of blocks if I exposed for the soldiers, or silhouettes of soldiers if I exposed for the blocks. Let’s just say that the exposure compensation flexibility of wet plate tintypes is limited.
Below are some of my early arrangements, starting with a squared ‘frame’ of blocks that just didn’t feel satisfying. I wanted something more fluid, more chaotic, and most importantly, something that wouldn’t be the same for any 2 of the themed images. I wanted each background for each soldier to be unique.
Piling the blocks up and letting them fall, quasi-randomly, in a pile was what I ultimately settled upon.As you can observe in the bottom image, the reddish colour of the soldiers was playing havoc with the exposures. This is because collodion plates, the ‘film’ I work with, do not expose well in the red end of the visible light spectrum. This didn’t work at all for what I was hoping for, so I had look at how I could address the problem.Next: Kind of….
Noboyuki Kobayashi
Noboyuki Kobayashi is a Japanese large format photographer specialising in platinum prints of landscapes. His work is meticulous, detailed, and intensely thought out and planned. His choice of platinum printing is based in his desire for the work to have a long archival life, perhaps in the hundreds or thousands of years. He sees his work a being a testament to future generations about a nature that could disappear in the future. His idea of creating an image not of a place, per se, but rather as a portrait of a god inhabiting that place is a novel way of approaching the craft.
Instagram: none found
Website:http://zenne-inc.com/en.html
Work that inspires me (© Noboyuki Kobayashi):
Elements of this artist’s work I would like to internalise: intention and craft.
Critical Frameworks illustrated in this artist’s work: Meaning, Symbol, Drawing.
Documentary on Kobayashi-san’s Myriads of Gods and his workflow: https://vimeo.com/91495217?fbclid=IwAR2UnD9nfUDEX0uB2x3yVzbJb29qJp5sWx_OydbBzdcwpzsIAXga8cyh1FI
(I highly recommend watching the full 30 minutes. I have rarely seen, and don’t think I have personally experienced, the kind of serenity that he has in executing his work. I am also intrigued by his concept of Yūbi, or ‘gentle beauty.’)
The Brereton Report and What Follows
For a variety of reasons I’ve been working my way through the Inspector General’s report on Australian war crimes committed in Afghanistan. The Brereton Report, as it has become popularly known, is a scathing indictment of the behaviour particularly of the SAS regiment and highlights some major wrong-doings. This affects me deeply and personally, and I am currently working on a photographic response to the report. (Caution, it’s pretty awful in parts. It’s more awful if you’re a soldier.) The redacted version is available for reading here:
https://afghanistaninquiry.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/IGADF-Afghanistan-Inquiry-Public-Release-Version.pdf
It’s also put in my mind the War Memorial in Canberra, which is a strange mix of the secular and the sacred (that’s a reflection for another time.) Especially the Hall of Memory is heavy on my mind. The Hall of Memory highlights the characteristics and qualities of Australians at war when they’re at their best. These two things are in enormous tension at the moment. Here’s a link to the Hall’s page on the War Memorial web site: https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/visitor-information/features/hall-of-memory/windows
Article Published on Japan Camera Hunter!
Bellamy Hunt is a Briton living in Japan who sources cameras for people world-wide through his film-oriented web site, Japan Camera Hunter. Bellamy recently put out a call for articles and I responded by writing a long one, fuelled largely by my reflections that are the fruit of my studies this year. Bellamy and I decided to break it up into three parts and the first one just went up. Here is a link to part one: https://www.japancamerahunter.com/2020/11/the-virtue-of-the-frame-pt-i/
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese artist based out of New York and New Jersey in the United States who works primarily in the ephemeral medium of fireworks. Cai’s father was a noted calligraphy artist and Cai grew up within the context of the Cultural Revolution which spurred his investigation into gunpowder as a medium. His work in gunpowder makes his work unique globally.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caistudio/
Website: https://caiguoqiang.com
Work that inspires me (© Cai Guo-Qiang): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdWNNe45JR4
Element of this artist’s work I would like to internalise: fluidity and transience.
Critical Frameworks illustrated in this artist’s work: Meaning, Symbol, Drawing.
Trailer for the the documentary Skyladder, a documentary about Cai and one of his projects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLTT8ogRf50
NGV exhibition of The Transient Landscape, 2019: https://caiguoqiang.com/projects/projects-2019/ngv-transient-landscape/
Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Guo-Qiang