June 13th, 2010 - Set-ups
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Here are some stills from time-based visual set-ups and tests of what could take place in simultaneous viewings of rotations. In presenting the project, each screen can be separated from the series and located in relation to the space.
To view the time-based version follow the link
www.eleanalouka.co.uk/set-ups.html
David Goldenberg (June 14th, 2010 at 2:07 pm)
Hi – I will start by making a few general remarks by way of trying to think my why into your project. I am not sure whether I understand everything you have said above but you are certainly making a lot of claims for your work so let us see whether you achieve this agenda. Similarly does the clash of theoretical constructs add up to something coherent. But I take it that you are posing a problem to see whether you can locate a solution i.e. whether there is a coherent framework for understanding whatever we understand as reality at a moment when existing frameworks are collapsing, and at a time when there is also a simultanious collapse of a framework for understanding art at the end of its life span. I presume this is mirrored by your question whether the mass of visual detritus can be pulled out of its curcuit and slowed down to give meaning, by way of constituting the real or approximating the real. And here I presume when there is chaos and an over abundance of information one remedy is to go for the seductive and the hypnotic.
For that reason I must admit I find the work very intriguing but at the same time puzzling. I think the hypnotic quality that you have imbued the work with very seductive and takes the work into very strange areas [via its eroticism and rich b&w fine art qualities, combined with its wish for a critique of the flat image through its rotation.] Does the dislocation of a flat image or surface image to reveal its flatness and surfaceness constitute a critique or invite the spectator into engaging with the work to set up a form of interactivity? Does the rotation of the image mimic the body? Are we to take it for granted that representation of an event is the only form of experiencing that event?
res006 (July 19th, 2010 at 4:52 pm)
Hi David
Thanks for sharing these thoughts and ideas here. You are trying
to think your way into the project and I think you are asking
‘why such a project and why now?’
I have been thinking of the attention in many works on the medium
for a while now, sometimes, a thoroughly disproportionate focus
in the medium rather to the content/form. I think some people
have been trying to think from this end, i.e. look out for the
kind of forms a medium is producing, then appropriate those into
acquiring content, rather than beginning from the obvious
starting point, which is what one is interested in and looking
out to invent the appropriate forms.
We are both aware of the important theoretical positions that
signal the end of art as we know it and call for new forms of
art, as communication (Luhmann), or as an instrument for the
viewer to interact with and with each other in a process of
self-determination (Lingner). I am attaching here a link to our
recent interview with Lingner for Resonance FM, so that his
positions can be presented more directly.
"http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1215648/Working%20Room%20-%20July%2014th%20unedited%20part%201.mp3">
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1215648/Working%20Room%20-%20July%2014th%20unedited%20part%201.mp3
"http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1215648/Working%20Room%20-%20July%2014th%20unedited%20part%202.mp3">
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1215648/Working%20Room%20-%20July%2014th%20unedited%20part%202.mp3
My intention for this project, has been very specific. I aimed to
shift the attention of the viewer from the represented event of
the image to the thing itself and the process in which we engage
when looking at an image. The fixating properties of pictorial
realism seem to be achieving similar effects as those of the
appearance of body forms: very tightly knitted structures that
attract attention. In that respect, the image has been associated
with desire, fetish or voyeurism, but I want to be very careful
here not to turn into a dismissive argument against the troubling
image, just a reflection.
You are also referring to the mass of visual detritus, pulled out
of its circuit and slowed down to be invested with new meaning.
You are right about the appropriation strategies of most agents
working with found material including myself. But although I too
dislike the proliferation of visual imagery for commercial
reasons within an aggressive market, what I tend to use here are
photos taken by other people for other reasons, mostly non art
related. Therefore, they exist with a very straightforward agenda
and function. By using them as raw material on a work about the
image as a medium I am trying to point towards the way it works,
outside the world of aestheticized products and hierarchy of
taste.
But you are very alert to point out the hypnotizing effect of the
slowly rotating image. That I don’t know what to make of as yet,
except consider it as a validation of the power of the image in
transfixing perception and somehow reaching the unconscious.
There is also the passing moment of a process of stretching and
distortion within rotation. I am thinking of these within the
contextualized space of the uncunny photographic image but also
within the vast territory covered by the digital and the gaps in
our knowledge and understanding of the ‘code’.
You then offer some very useful critique by saying: ‘And here I
presume when there is chaos and an over abundance of information
one remedy is to go for the seductive and the hypnotic.’ I
find that a very useful point. But I think there is a lot
more to it as well. There was a massive and very bloody debate
during the byzantine times (about 10th century) about wether
icons should be banned or allowed, as the faithful started to
adore the icon rather that the deity depicted. Piles of icons
were burnt and many people, who resorted in hiding the precious
icons got killed. Looking at images produced a lot of guilt in
some cases as well as comfort.
Even before that, there has been the ongoing philosophical
debate about the truth in the material through experience and
experiment (Descartes) or symbolism, superior/sublime ideas that
exist beyond the material (Plato and the cave with the shadows-
the symbol and the shadow, a projection of something on a wall
could not have a bigger affinity with the semiotic/projected
image). In projecting rotating images, I aim to brake down the
fixation of the image. Wether I succeed in that, it is another
matter. I am looking at the results of the Considering
presentation installment and I am not sure what to make of it.
Perhaps I need to invest more in offering stimuli for the viewer
to be reminded of his/her own image/physicality.