Stretching the Moment
Greg Leach
Photography is not what it used to be, this is irrefutable. The maxim that change brings both loss and gain is, I think, applicable in this case. But identifying what constitutes loss and what constitutes gain is not always easy. With this in mind, the exhibition "Andmoreagain" is both a product and a reflection of the shifting photographic climate in which we live. Its underlying premise is that the dawning of a new technological era has catalysed a re-evaluation not only of what photography has become, but what it has always been.
The two most important drivers of this ongoing photographic revolution are, fairly obviously, technology–notably the radical alteration in the process through which photographs are captured, selected and stored–and, less obviously, a kind of restlessness on behalf of those who seek to employ it creatively, often through an exploration of its representational parameters. The age-old question–What can photography do?–has never really gone away. Just as we were beginning to think there might be some sort of definitive answer, the rules have been fundamentally changed.
A change of this magnitude is, inevitably, set against a personal as well as a cultural backdrop. Anyone who has practiced seriously as a photographer can recount anecdotes about seminal experiences or even a life-changing epiphany–the moment when photography, if you’ll pardon the pun, clicked. This is often associated with witnessing the alchemy of the process, the magic at the medium’s heart that, despite having a rational explanation, seems somehow to transcend logic. At this euphoric point of discovery, the urge to make images is all-consuming. In my own case, the compulsion extended to playing with what was then cutting-edge technology: video. Not, I hasten to add, shooting it, but freeze-framing pre-recorded (usually Hollywood) films. With my nascent eye for the offbeat, I would spurn the iconic or encapsulating moments–those that might have adorned the film’s poster–in favour of the enigmatic, the fragment that defied easy reading, often as characters were entering or exiting the frame. This, however, was pure play; in no way was it comparable with the act of taking "real" photographs in the "real" world. My contention is that now, for many, it has become comparable. Consider: A large percentage–possibly even the majority–of photographs taken today are done so via the intercession of a screen that presents a perpetual amateur-movie version of the context in which the photographer finds him or herself. He/she then selects from this two-dimensional depiction, effectively freeze-framing at the appropriate moment. This process therefore involves an extra layer of mediation, one that takes place at the point of exposure (if that term is still applicable). Moreover, it fundamentally transforms the way we think not only about taking photographs, but also about photographs themselves. These pictures are effectively film stills, single-frame extracts from a fragmented, inconsistent movie of our life experiences, into which we intermittently dip. Naturally, all this has had an impact on how photo-artists think and act. It is a contributory factor in their desire–clearly illustrated in the "Andmoreagain" show–to extend the still image beyond the customary split-second of exposure, to explore the intersection between stillness and motion. This is the restless tendency I referred to earlier: the ambition to make pictures that represent through, not merely in, time. It is an attempt to shake off photography’s temporal shackles. But the question remains: Is time photography’s jailer or its key?
Paradoxically, the work in this show that utilizes the moving image appears to be heading in the opposite direction, using repetition, or minimal change within a static shot, to lock the viewer into a kind of metronomic or meditative hypnosis. It is this counter-intuitive urge that lies at the core of "Andmoreagain."
Appropriately, the heart of this exposition lies at the heart of the Open Eye Gallery itself. To get to this sanctum we shall have to ignore the work of three exciting young artists whose names should at least be acknowledged: Idris Khan, Martin Newth and Katy Woods, all of whom make integral contributions. But it is the smaller room beyond that houses perhaps the most striking and apposite juxtaposition, that between Maiko Hatano and Simon Cunningham. Hatano’s piece consists of two long-exposure images of the same place, a train station, one taken at night, the other during the day. These are overlaid, one over the other, to create a superimposition. Neither, however, is predominant, because the photographs are printed on opaque material of differing densities, which in neutral lighting allows them to merge into a single twilight version of the scene. Shift of dominance is nevertheless a feature of the work, not to say its raison d’Ítre. This is achieved by a computerized dimmer that controls the back-lighting of the images, which, as it successively fades and brightens, creates a time-lapse impression, a sense of the scene passing inexorably from day to night, from night to day. For me it epitomizes the photographer’s restless urge to shake off the temporal shackles mentioned earlier. It is an acknowledgement of the blurring of the boundaries between motion and stillness that digitisation has brought to the fore.
Simon Cunningham, on the other hand, has departed from his previous photographic approach to present three moving-image pieces on separate plasma screens. One in particular is a capricious desecration of the classic war movie, The Great Escape. Our protagonist, played by Steve McQueen, finds himself trapped not only in the camp but also within a fragment of the film itself. In the most potent of these his head is framed within a small cell-door window –again extending the theme of entrapment–and he is endlessly repeating the line, in true scratched-record style: "You don’t have to worry about that." Immediately we recognize the insouciant nature of McQueen’s cool-guy delivery, encouraging us to accept his placation. After a while, however, his insistence becomes increasingly unnerving and sinister, until it begins to dawn on us that we really ought to be worrying, worrying very deeply indeed, even though we don’t know what about. This, then, is the solitary confinement of a moment whose meaning is normally circumscribed by its narrative context. Stripped of this–and yet never fully liberated from its significations, which live in our collective imagination–the inconsequential fragment begins to careen off into darker territory, playing on our minds like a paranoid mantra. This shard of action is a glitch in time, a form of arrest that nevertheless refuses to be stilled. In duration, the segment is much shorter than most of the original exposures of the photographs with which it shares gallery space. In some ways it is the moving image aping the self-encapsulation of the photograph–the very opposite of Maiko Hatano’s piece. The tension between these two pieces is emblematic of our tension, our confusion: In the digital age, what is stillness, what is motion?
On a personal note, it leaves me wondering whether I should have taken my video freeze-framing more seriously…
