Assignment Five research – self-absented portraiture

Whilst I have decided to construct a self-portrait for my assignment image I have no desire to put myself physically in the frame so I will use a model to represent ‘me’.  I therefore decided to look at some photographers who used other people to stand in for themselves.  Both the course notes (Boothroyd, 2014) and Bright (2010) provided me with some leads as a starting point and my further research found others.

Sophie Calle

Take Care of Yourself is a response by Calle to an email she received from her then-boyfriend breaking off their relationship.  Tellingly, the email was signed off ‘Take care of yourself’, which is exactly what Calle did, firstly as a catharsis to her pain then later as an art project.  She sent a copy of the email to 107 women, all professionals in their respective fields, took pictures of them reading it and asked them to analyse the text according to their job.

By using other people (the writers of the emails) to stand in for herself, Calle has created a self-portrait – the work is about initially about Calle and her reaction to the break-up of her relationship.  However by deliberately passing the responsibility for her project on to others Calle allowed the work to develop outside of her direction and away from herself, addressing wider issues such as feminism, control and power.  I’ve written in more depth about this piece of work earlier in my Context and Narrative studies (see my posts here and here).

Whilst I am inspired in many ways by Calle’s approach in formulating a response to her situation, in particular her feistiness and the immediacy of the work as well as the way she allowed the project to expand to examine other issues, this is not a body of work that has influenced my assignment as I have decided to use a model as a stand-in rather than a series of responses.

Jack Pierson

Whilst Pierson is known for photographing naked young men (Gefter, 2003), his Self Portrait series, which one would expect from the title to be of Pierson himself, in fact comprises a number of male surrogates representing Pierson’s life from a young boy through to his old age in a series of fifteen photographs.  Pierson is not present in any of the images and Gefter (2003) writes that by Pierson eliminating himself from the images in Self Portrait he is both commenting on the postmodern idea that our identity is formed by our cultural surroundings and also suggesting that an assumed identity can both reveal and conceal the individual in society.  Gefter (2003) continues by discussing how easy it is for people nowadays to change their appearance or to construct their own invented persona in search of what they consider to be an idealised version of themselves and suggests that in Self Portrait Pierson is attempting to achieve ‘his own erotic impulse to be as desirable as those he desires, to become the very object of his own attraction’ (ibid.).

Christian Boltanski

Boltanski is a photographer whose work I had not looked at before and my preliminary research informed me that a large part of his work is autobiographical, albeit in a broad meaning (Ruchel-Stockmans, 2006).  For the purposes of this assignment I looked at his series 10 Photographic Portraits of Christian Boltanski 1946 – 1964 (1972).  Similar to Pierson Boltanski used stand-ins to represent himself, in this case from the age of two to twenty, using children and young boys as models in a series of supposedly family snapshots.   Unlike Pierson there does not seem to have been the desire to present an idealised version of himself and Ruchel-Stockmans (ibid) in fact tells us that Boltanski ‘oscillates between mutually excluding principles, desiring to preserve everything from the past and erasing it by the means of false documents and invented reconstructions’.  What I find interesting is Boltanski’s deliberate use of captions in order to promote what in effect is a lie, demonstrating once again the inability of the photograph to be considered as an object representing the truth. Through this piece of work, Boltanski has created a series of what Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe termed an ‘allo-portrait’, namely the existence of the self as ‘other’ and where the ‘other’ becomes the self (Hirsch, 2012).

Sofia López Mañán

An Argentinian photographer, Mañán’s  considers the images in her series Anonymous (2012) to be self-portraits of her life.  (Please note before viewing that two of these images depict women hanging from a tree and therefore might be considered by some people to be distressing in nature.  Link is here).  Using stand-ins for herself, many of the female bodies are hidden from the viewer with Mañán commenting that ‘I didn’t feel there was a need to be in the picture, although I am in some pictures anonymously.  I made a self portrait of me in the absence of physical body … The pictures are portraits [sic] my own life, the light and the shadow’ (Martinez, 2013).

In her artist statement accompanying the work, Mañán states

‘In “Anonymous” I used stand-ins for self portraits and this allowed me to step outside of my self.

The nameless women silently speak for me. They become me in a universal sense. I think it might be easier to reveal our deeper truths anonymously. I am anonymously directing the emotional expression of universal characters. In essence these photographs are emotion portraits, and by stepping away from my individuality, I feel it invites the viewer to engage themselves in the mystery of their own truths, or to contemplate how the emotions depicted resonate in their own lives’

(Mañán, 2012)

Surrealistic and mysterious yet distinctly chilling in nature Mañán’s series of images speak to me of hiding and of being hidden, exploring melancholy and fears in one’s ‘self’.  Both beautiful and grim at the same time, the images remind me a lot of the haunting work of Francesca Woodman and I also wonder whether there is an influence from Cig Harvey, a photographer whose work I’ve come across recently through an online dialogue with other OCA students.

I originally found Anonymous very uncomfortable to look at however the more that I have studied the images the more I have become absorbed by them, appreciating the vision and conceptuality  of the photographer who has discarded conventional techniques in favour of the creation of  dream-like self-portraits, releasing her view of her own reality, her own personal fears and doubts through the construction of fantasy.   However, whilst I have become more and more involved with Mañán’s images, this type of emotional self-portraiture which works on the expression and revealing of the inner self is not what I envisage for my assignment.

Kelli Connell

Connell has in the past made self-portraits using herself as a model (Kelly, 2012), however for her series Double Life Connell used a model to represent herself.   Double Life would appear to document a developing relationship between two women (ibid) however on closer inspection it is apparent that the same woman is featured twice in each image.  Connell digitally alters the image by combining multiple negatives of the same model to create a fictional yet believable scene that contains two people. Whilst these images do not appear to be self-portraits, Bright (2010) writes that Connell initially casts herself as the second person in the image, using a self-timer to capture the pose that she wants and then uses Photoshop to replace her picture with one of the model, leaving traces of herself in the image where there is physical touching between her and the model.

Connell expands on the idea of self-portraiture by telling us that ‘by digitally creating a photograph as a composite of multiple negatives of the same model in one setting, the self is exposed as not a solidified being in reality, but as a representation of social and interior investigations that happen within the mind’ (Connell, n.d.) and continues by explaining that the photographs reflect herself and her own personality rather than that of the model; ‘this work represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships’ (ibid).

Very still and yet full of subtle nuances, the images have a charming intimate quality about them and certainly the viewer is unsure at first whether they are looking at sisters, cousins or lovers.  There is a grace and elegance about them which reminds me of Francesca Woodman’s work and Connor herself cites Woodman as an influence, being attracted by the intuitiveness of her images and the intense sense of her self that she captured.  (Kelly, 2012)

Although another interesting take on self-portraiture, it is not one that I look to take influence from for my assignment as I want to construct my image through use of a set rather than through the use of Photoshop, however appealing the latter may be.

Conclusion

Following my earlier explorations into cinema and film noir, I have now decided to construct my self-portrait as a representation of Anna Schmidt, the lead female character in the film The Third Man (1949).  Anna (played by Alida Valli) is an actress on the Vienna stage and the girlfriend of the supposedly deceased Harry Limes, the film’s main protagonist.  Attractive, feisty, stubborn and loyal, she is dedicated to Harry despite his shortcomings and I felt an immediate connection with her character.

This piece of research has reinforced the message that autobiographical self-portraiture does not need to be truthful, a concept first introduced to me by Bright (2010).  The five photographers that I have researched have used self-portraiture in different ways and to express different concepts.  Whilst at first glance it would seem that my findings have not proved too inspirational, they have made me consider quite hard what it is exactly that I want to achieve from my self-portrait and what it is that I am trying to say.   Having chosen to use a model to represent me, my research has caused me to dig quite deep, to look beyond my usual rather flippant ‘I’d rather be behind the camera than in front of it’ attitude and to ascertain what it is that I am trying to present to the viewer through the model, what it is that I want the viewer to take away from the image.

Of the five photographers above, it is Jack Pierson rather surprisingly, given that I am not a particular fan of his work, who has made me understand what I am seeking from my self-portrait.  Gefter (2003) raises the concept that in Self Portrait Pierson is attempting ‘to be as desirable as those he desires’ and while I understand this to be a sexually driven motive on the part of Pierson, I can identify with the idea of using a stand-in to portray those characteristics that one would like to possess and show to others, in other words presenting an idealised version of oneself to the onlooker.   Whilst I am pretty comfortable in my own skin I have realised that through my choice of self-portrait matter for this assignment I am examining and redefining my own identity by trying to present a younger, more glamorous ‘me’ to the viewer albeit through the representation of a character who bears the traits of loyalty, stubbornness and feistiness which also form part of my own psyche.   As someone who up until now considered that she had a strong sense of who she was, I find this desire to represent myself in a more ‘idealised’ version quite disconcerting and it has opened up a line of self-questioning and introspection with regard to my acceptance of and belief in my own pathway and identity (maybe a topic for another project?).

Aside from my own self-examination I want viewers to be able to project their own selves on to the photograph, a view discussed by Bate (2009), to give them the opportunity to express their own emotions, doubts and fears and to create their own stories.

References:

Bate, D. (2009) Photography: The Key Concepts.  Oxford: Berg

Boothroyd, S. (2014) Photography 1: Context and Narrative.   Barnsley: Open College of the Arts

Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography.  London: Thames & Hudson Ltd

Calle, S. (2007) Take Care of Yourself [online images].  Paula Cooper Gallery.  Available from http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/56 [first accessed 19 January 2015]

Connell, K. (n.d.) Kelli Connell [online].  Women in Photography.  Available from http://www.wipnyc.org/blog/kelli-connell   [accessed 05 June 2015]

Connell, K. (2002-15)  Double Life [online images].  Kelli Connell.  Available from http://kelliconnell.com   [accessed 05 June 2015]

Gefter, P. (2003) Self-Portrait as Obscure Object of Desire; Jack Pierson’s Autobiography, of Sorts, in Photographs of Unidentified Men [online].  The New York Times.  Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/books/self-portrait-obscure-object-desire-jack-pierson-s-autobiography-sorts.html  [first accessed 20 January 2015]

Hirsch, M. (2012). Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge (Mass):  Harvard University Press

Kelly, A. (2012) Interviews: Kelli Connell on Double Life [online].  Photo-eye.  Available from http://blog.photoeye.com/2012/06/interviews-kelli-connell-on-double-life.html  [accessed 05 June 2015]

Mañán, S. L.  (2012)   Anonymous [online images]  FotoVisura.com.  Available from   http://visura.co/user/sofilopez/view/anonymous  [accessed 04 June 2015]

Martinez, F. (2013) (NSFW) Sofia López Mañán Interview: Photographs of Inner Fears and Portraits Both Beautiful and Haunting [online].  PhotoWhoa.  Available from http://blog.photowhoa.com/nsfw-sofia-lopez-manan-interview-photographs-of-inner-fears-and-portraits-both-beautiful-and-haunting/  [accessed 04 June 2015]

Ruchel-Stockmans, K. (2006)  Impossible self-representation.  Image [&] Narrative [online]. VII (1, 14,).  Available from http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/painting/kasia_ruchel.htm  [accessed 03 June 2015]

The Third Man, 1949 [film, DVD] Directed by Carol Reed.  London: Optimum Releasing

Self-absented portraiture – Maria Kapajeva and Sophie Calle

The third project of this part of the course looks at self-absented portraiture.  The course notes begin by discussing two photographers who, rather than photographing themselves, use other methods of telling the viewer something of who they are.  Here is a brief summary of each.Maria Kapajeva – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman

Kapajeva uses people in a metaphorical sense to depict herself in photographs.  In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, an ongoing project, she has photographed young women with whom she identifies and sees as her peers in a contemporary society, therefore putting a picture of ‘herself’ forward to the viewer without actually being personally in the frame.  She writes about the aim for the project on her website  –  ‘With this ongoing project I am interested to open debates on imagery of women in contemporary society in the context of the historical, cultural bias and the global changes we are each going through’ (Kapajeva).  In effect she is presenting through others how she feels it is like to be a woman in today’s world and she discusses this in further depth, along with other aspects of her career, in an interview with Sharon Boothroyd (Boothroyd, 2014) which can be read here

Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself

Take Care of Yourself is a response by Calle to an email she received from her then-boyfriend breaking off their relationship.  Tellingly, the email is signed off ‘Take care of yourself’, which is exactly what Calle did, firstly as a catharsis to her pain then later as an art project.  She sent a copy of the email to 107 women, all professionals in their respective fields, took pictures of them reading it and asked them to analyse the text according to their job.  The contributions provided by the women were in a wide range of media and included scientific analysis, a crossword puzzle, origami, forensic analysis, song and dance and a shooting target (Neri, 2009).   The resulting artwork formed from the responses Calle received was then exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2007 (Chrisafis, 2007) and comprised photographs, text, graphics and video (Coulter-Smith, 2007).

Calle has used other people (the writers of the emails) to stand in for herself.  I see this piece of work as autobiographical – it’s about Calle and her reaction to the break-up of her relationship – however by deliberately passing the responsibility for her project on to others she allowed it to develop outside of her direction and away from herself, addressing wider issues such as feminism, control and power.  I’ve written in more depth about this piece of work earlier in my Context and Narrative studies (see my post here).

These pieces of work by Kapajeva and Calle are very different in their approach to self-absented portraiture.  Kapajeva’s images use other women as the way to explore and express  her ‘self’ and are calm and measured, giving the feeling of a collaborative journey whilst Calle’s work is much more immediate and confrontational, aggressive even.  Yet it is to Calle’s work that I am drawn the most; its liveliness and sassiness attract and intrigue me and I like the feistiness of her approach to formulate a response to her situation.  I also have the forthcoming assignment in my mind and have decided at this stage not to include images of people so I take more inspiration from Take Care of Yourself in this regard.

References:

Boothroyd, S. (2014)  Maria Kapajeva [online].  Photoparley.  Available from https://photoparley.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/maria-kapajeva/  [accessed 16 January 2015]

Calle, S. (2007) Take Care of Yourself [online images].  Paula Cooper Gallery.  Available from http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/56  [accessed 19 January 2015]

Chrisafis, A (2007) He loves me not [online].  The Guardian.  Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art [first accessed 09 September 2014]

Coulter-Smith, G. (2007)  Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself, 2007 Venice Biennale [online]. Artintelligence.  Available from http://artintelligence.net/review/?p=147 [first accessed 10 October 2014]    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Kapajeva, M. (2012 – )  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman [online text and images].  Maria Kapajeva.  Available from http://www.mariakapajeva.com/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-woman/  [accessed 16 January 2015]

Neri, L. (2009) Sophie Calle [online].  Interview Magazine.  Available from http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sophie-calle/ [first accessed 10 October 2014]

Part Two – reflection

I’ve now completed the second part of the Context and Narrative course so, as is my usual practice, I’ve taken some time out to review how I think this section went, what worked well and what didn’t and to make a note of areas which I need to work on going forward.

What I’ve done:

• Finished the exercises and research points and started planning the assignment
• Despite an earlier resolution not to buy or borrow any more books until I’ve read the pile on my bookshelf I’ve increased my photographic library yet again.  However I have started to make inroads
• Been to five exhibitions and need to write up the one remaining review.  I am also planning to visit the Sebastian Salgado exhibition at the Beetles + Huxley gallery before it ends on 8th November
• Discovered the work of a number of photographers whom I probably wouldn’t have looked at if I hadn’t been directed through the course.  Whilst the majority have not inspired me (Sophie Calle and KayLynn Deveney being the notable exceptions), I can take away bits and pieces here and there that I would like to use to inform my own work, and it has also been useful to widen my knowledge of other photographers
• I’ve followed up my growing enthusiasm with street photography (discovered in Part One) by both reading around the subject and also spending a day in Cambridge with a like-minded friend just shooting ‘street’
• Read a couple of essays by Barthes (the start of my journey into critical theory) and dabbled in ‘isms’ – Structuralism and Postmodernism to begin with.

How it went:

I feel that I’ve got my feet more under the table now with the course and am getting to grips with what I am doing.  I’ve got used to the more academic style and I am thoroughly enjoying the research element.  I do wish there was more practical photography involved, but I realise that this is something I can do alongside my research as a complementary activity, for example ‘shooting in the style of …’ or in the form of personal projects.

The grey cells are waking up!  Whilst I still have to read the academic texts more than once I am finding that they do make sense eventually.  I think that I am getting better at expressing my written opinion on what I’ve read but I am aware that there is still room for improvement both in my critical understanding and critical writing skills.

I’ve now submitted my work for ‘The Art of Photography’ course to OCA for assessment later this month so that has now been put to bed (at least until the results come out) and I can concentrate fully on this course.

I’m finding that the coursework itself is taking most of my available study time which leaves little room for additional reading and research.  I’m aware that as a degree student the coursework, while important, is designed purely as a springboard for further independent study so I will have to revisit my study methods and time management and work out how to better balance the coursework requirements alongside further research.

At the end of my reflection on Part One, I noted down some things that I planned to do next and I’m pleased that I’ve managed to achieve the majority of these.  However I still haven’t really looked at Photoshop CC in any great depth and I haven’t revisited Ipswich Marina to catch up on my Waterfront project since my last trip in early September although I have been keeping up to date with a proposed planning development online.  So both of these will move forward to the next ‘to do’ list.

What I’ve learned:

•  Lots about narrative in photography, particularly from a postmodernist viewpoint, and different ways of telling a story
• How to use text with an image to support and provide additional context and to consider which style and layout would be most appropriate
• Whilst text can be used to support an image, images can also be used to illustrate text, either factually or metaphorically
• How to consider photographing the unseen, moving away from a literal style to a more evocative one

What I’ve noticed:

• Somewhere along the line I am losing ‘me’.  I’ve realised that I have to make time to follow my own interests through this course
• The grey matter is now getting into gear and I’m finding that reading academic texts is becoming easier
• Using text with images really interests me.  In particular KayLynn Deveney’s project The Day-to-Day life of Albert Hastings resonated with me, partly through having had elderly parents, but I also admire the respectful way that she has treated her subject to produce a simple and gentle work that projects emotion
• I’m becoming more interested in photographic culture as a whole.  Two of the exhibitions that I visited recently weren’t particularly my cup of tea image-wise but I could see and appreciate where they fitted into the story of photography
• Following on from the above I’m becoming more and more aware of my woeful lack of knowledge with regard to art history so I’ve decided to have a look at the theory of visual culture.  This will probably be slow and painful but I’ve made a start.
• Not having looked at poetry since i left school, surprisingly I enjoyed the poetry exercise and I realise that there is more to poetry than I previously thought
• I still feel a little isolated as there is currently no other student work ahead of me to refer to and there are times when I feel that I’m tumbling headlong into the unknown.  However, the upside of this is that I do look at the tasks involved with no preconceived ideas.

What I could do better:

• My tutor report for Assignment One highlighted what I already knew, namely that I need to be more creative and to experiment and explore, to take risks.  However my problem is coming up with the ideas in the first place.  I am hoping that this aspect will get better as I explore other photographers.  I have also realised that when I am tired my creativity becomes non-existent so I have learned not to fret about it at the time and to do something else
• Despite a concerted effort to catch up with my study timetable I am still a little behind from where I had hoped to be at this point in my studies
• Whilst I’ve been working hard on the research suggested in the course notes I am aware that I also need to undertake my own independent study.  I am finding that this course is taking a lot of time (and could take even more if I let it) so I need to be more disciplined in how I divide my available study time between course work and additional reading and research
• In her feedback report on my first assignment my tutor advised that I need to discuss the work of other photographers more in relation to my own images and ideas.  So this is something I will look to work on
• My tutor also suggested that I dig deeper into those photographers who particularly inspire me – who were their influences and who did they themselves influence?
• I need to keep taking photographs; I find that I’m currently doing a lot of reading and research at the expense of picking up my camera.

What I plan to do next:

• Complete the assignment and then start on Part Three of the course
• Write up a review of a local art exhibition I went to earlier in the week
• Carry on making inroads into the pile of books sitting on my bookshelf
• Do some research into photographers outside of the course notes starting with two of my favourites, Saul Leiter and Constantine Manos.  I also have a list of names to investigate following my reading of ‘The Street Photographer’s Manual’ (Gibson, 2014)
• Take a long hard look at how I study – namely the time available to me, which to a certain extent is fixed, and how I allocate it, taking into account that I need to do more (a lot more) independent study.  Also my study methods –could I be more efficient?  Can I use my time better?  Do I really need to read the Evening Standard on the way home? (answer is no, or maybe just a quick flick-through would suffice, – my time would be better spent reading with regard to my studies)
• Continue my foray into visual culture
• Check into my Ipswich Waterfront project to see what has changed there since my last visit in September
• Improve my knowledge of Photoshop CC.  I do have a book with guided exercises and I just need to sit down and work through them
• Attend the next OCA Thames Valley Group study day, currently scheduled near the end of November.

References:

Deveney, K. (n.d.) The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings [online images].   KayLynn Deveney. Available from http://www.kaylynndeveney.com/bertgrid.htm   [accessed 09 October 2014]

Gibson, D, (2014) The Street Photographer’s Manual.  London: Thames & Hudson Ltd

Research Point: Sophie Calle and Sophy Rickett

As a continuation of our research into the use of relay when combining images with text, we are asked to look at specific pieces of work by two contemporary photographers and provide our own response to each.  We are then asked to respond to the question:

• How do these pieces of work reflect postmodern approaches to narrative?

Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself

Take Care of Yourself is a response by Calle to an email she received from her then-boyfriend breaking off their relationship.  Tellingly, the email is signed off ‘Take care of yourself’, which is exactly what Calle did, firstly as a catharsis to her pain then later as an art project.  She sent a copy of the email to 107 women, all professionals in their respective fields, took pictures of them reading it and asked them to analyse the text according to their job.   The resulting artwork formed from the responses Calle received was then exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2007 (Chrisafis, 2007).

The contributions provided by the women were in a wide range of media and included scientific analysis, a crossword puzzle, origami, forensic analysis, song and dance and a shooting target (Neri, 2009).  In an interview with Interview Magazine (ibid.), Calle explains that the desire for some non-verbal responses was to avoid the need to translate all her work from French (the required language for Calle at the Biennale as she was exhibiting in the French Pavilion) into a number of languages for the benefit of the non-French speaking visitors .  I’ve subsequently learned that the installation comprised photographs, text, graphics and video  (Coulter-Smith, 2007).

I haven’t viewed Calle’s project first-hand but having carried out some research online I will now provide my thoughts based on the information that I have gathered.

My first reaction is that Calle sought to deconstruct the email text, to try to read between the lines however painful this may be to her, as some sort of catharsis to her situation, however due to the way she went about the task, the result comes across as more of a global disembowelling.  This makes me wonder whether in fact revenge was Calle’s key motivation although she claims that this was not the case (Neri, 2009).  Instead she says that after one month of the break-up ‘the project had replaced the man’ (Chrisafis, 2007) and she was in fact afraid that he might try to return to her which would have ruined the work.  However, Calle is well known for making work that is investigative, provocative, controversial and at times downright intrusive, certainly at times crossing my moral line (regarding the latter I am thinking of ‘The Hotel’ project where Calle got a job as a chambermaid in order to rifle through and photograph guests possessions and also the mess they left behind) so I do wonder about her intentions.  I also ask myself why her ex-partner would have put himself so squarely in the firing line.

Moving on to the project itself Calle has mixed images, video and text to provide a deep and broad emotional response to the fairly common scenario of the ‘Dear John’ letter (or text message or email).  However I feel that the form of the original email becomes lost in the sea of responses, translations and analyses, making the project shift to a higher and wider plane and moving it from the private matter of a break-up letter squarely into the public arena where it has developed its own life and sense of being and where aspects such as feminism, control and power come into play.  By invoking responses from a powerful community of women, Calle has reversed control of the situation away from one man, who would now appear to be humiliated, and has created an insightful piece of work on contemporary feminism, building positivity from negativity.  One can also say that by asking the women to give their responses to the email message, Calle has effectively moved the responsibility for her own emotions away from herself, transferring it to others.

The more I researched this piece the more fascinating I found it.  I would like to be able to see the entire installation at some point as I think seeing the work first-hand would draw me further into it and allow me to connect even more with Calle’s narrative.

Sophy Rickett – Objects in the Field

Objects in the Field is a project undertaken by Rickett during her artist residency at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge and was inspired by some old analogue negatives of the night and by Dr. Roderick Willstrop, the (now-retired) scientist who produced them.  Her body of work comprised photographs, a video and an accompanying text and involved Rickett producing new prints from the analogue negatives, bringing out the tonal qualities of the originals (The Photographers’ Gallery, 2014).   The appendix to the course notes (Boothroyd, 2013) tells us that the work appears to be an uneasy collaboration between Rickett and Willstrop which highlighted both the areas they had in common (working at night, working alone, an interest in the night sky) and the ones they did not – namely the artistic practice versus the scientific one.

Having looked at some of Rickett’s images online, they appear, quite naturally, to be scientific and documentary in nature.  It was however when I read the text (The Photographers’ Gallery, 2014) which accompanies the exhibition and is available to read here that I realised how integral this narrative is to this work.  Through her writing, Rickett talks of her working relationship with Willstrop and gives a real sense of how difficult it was to try to align the different practices of art and science, to try and make her project build upon Willstrop’s earlier work with the uneasiness that this at first brought and how they eventually found a sort of connection, even if they were still slightly in opposition with each other.  Rickett also includes a memory from her childhood which is related to optics, namely her reactions to having her eyes tested, and closes the narrative with a story about her on a train and witnessing an event.  At first I could not understand how this closing piece fitted into the project, or even into the narrative, but Rickett explains in her interview with Boothroyd (2013, p.135) that a lot of her work in the project ‘was based on assumption, supposition, instinct – the opposite of everything that Dr Willstrop as a scientist stood for, and that’s what the anecdote in that paragraph you mention seeks to address’, a fleeting moment alluding to her only partial comprehension and interpretation of the project that she undertook.

I feel that the observations in the text are really an integral part of where this body of work is directed; the different narrative voices within it bring a subjectivity in my view to what is otherwise an objective, scientific project; the possibility of a dialogue between art and science is offered up to the viewer which is not apparent from merely viewing the images.

Rickett’s text also forms part of the video recording; interestingly this is read by Dr Willstrop as the soundtrack and not Rickett as I would have expected.  However, Rickett explains in her interview with Boothroyd (2013) that the reading by Dr Willstrop ‘suggests a kind of blurred authorship’ (ibid. p.136) and I can see that this helps to promotes the message of collaboration, however uneasy such a collaboration proved to be, within the project.

Question: How do these pieces of work reflect postmodern approaches to narrative?

Both these pieces do not conform to the traditional view of a narrative with its beginning, middle and end, where a story is played out before an audience and then brought to a conclusion, widely known as a closed narrative.  In different ways the works of Calle and Rickett reflect the postmodern approach to narrative, that of the open narrative where tradition is discarded and other approaches come into play.

In Take Care of Yourself Calle has given away authorship control of her work by being reliant on the responses of the 107 women to tell her story.  The use of relay asks the viewer to participate, to consider how they interpret the email, how they interpret the project as a whole with its connotations of feminism, control and power. The viewer can also put themselves in Calle’s shoes and identify with her (or her ex-partner, as the case may be) through revisiting their own personal histories and memories.  The story itself is unresolved – it has no ending and remains open to various possible developments, for example a continuation of the project by Calle with further requests for responses to the email, Calle getting back together with her ex-partner or a response to the project by the ex-partner.

The photographic story portrayed in Rickett’s Objects in the Field is by necessity a closed one – the Three Mirror Telescope used to capture the film negatives used by Rickett was subsequently adapted for digital recording and then fell into disrepair (The Photographers’ Gallery, 2014).  However, the narrative provided by Rickett establishes her postmodern approach to the project through the combination of different characters and different periods of time and her use of personal reflection. These factors make the text appear to contain two different stories that at first reading do not seem to be aligned and leave the viewer with openness for interpretation, particularly when considered in conjunction with the images.  By including Dr Willstrop in the exhibition itself – he provided the captions for Rickett’s images and reads her text on the video – Rickett is acknowledging their collaboration (and their difficulties), bringing him into her work and sharing her authorship of the project.

References:

Boothroyd, S. (2013)  Sophy Rickett and Sharon Boothroyd, Photoparley, Nov 2013.  The Open College of the Arts.  Appendix to the ‘Context and Narrative’ course notes.

Chrisafis, A. (2007)  He loves me not  [online].  The Guardian.   Available from   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art  [accessed 09 September 2014]

Coulter-Smith, G. (2007)  Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself, 2007 Venice Biennale [online].  Artintelligence.  Available from http://artintelligence.net/review/?p=147   [accessed 10 October 2014]    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Neri, L. (2009)  Sophie Calle  (online).  Interview Magazine.   Available from http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sophie-calle/  [accessed 10 October 2014]

The Photographers’ Gallery (2014).  Sophy Rickett – Objects in the Field [online].   Available from  http://thephotographersgalleryblog.org.uk/2014/03/19/sophy-rickett-objects-in-the-field/  [accessed 10 October 2014]