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| Breakfast on Saturday morning at the Lucky Beach |
Rather than comment on all of the exhibitions we visited I'm going to limit this post to the items that spoke to me.
'Afterimage' by Cornford and Cross
"This was series of works produced from the removal and destruction of their photographs, which were previously conservation mounted onto aluminium substrates." (Taken from the gallery write up.) After much discussion in 'my' immediate group, it was decided this this was not photography, in fact we decided to call it not-photography. Nonetheless we all agreed that is was interesting conceptual art.
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| Reflection of the OCA group in one of the Aluminium substrates |
'36 views + Sub-Urbia' by Adrian Turner
"In the summer of 2002, I stopped driving the 1.3 miles to work and instead started walking and taking photographs along the way." (Taken from the gallery write up.) AT selected a number of his photographs and printed them A5 on quality card for visitors to take away - a nice touch. I will always have fond memories of 'Manor Hill'.
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| Manor Hill by Adrian Turner |
Another interesting discussion about landscape and about tutor feedback re landscape submissions. One of these landscapes was what we considered to be 'classically' romantic, drawn directly from the style of the old masters - a soft-focus view through trees towards distant buildings. This lead us to discuss the influence (or not) of painting on contemporary photographic practices; this further lead to a discussion re what was acceptable to include in a photograph as an urban landscape - for example, is it ok to leave litter, telegraph poles and wires or gutters in your image? Do these items add to the overall aesthetics of the image? The general view was that whilst it may not be a 'pretty' aesthetic, it was still fundamental to the overall feel of the image and therefore an important part of the overall aesthetics.
I found it interesting the number of students that commented (afterwards) as to similar feedback that had received about 'sanitising' their work re the un-pretty aesthetics of everyday life.
'City Gorged with Dreams' by Currie and Gates
"All the images have been shot in and around Brighton over the past year, and are an attempt to glimpse a side of the city that is often overlooked or ignored." (Taken from the gallery write up.)
In my opinion this is psychogeography in its purest form and this particular exhibition contains some very well seen and composed images.
'Assembly' by Anthony Luvera
Allegedly these images were taken by the individual in the image - might as well start on a controversial note... The photographer taught this group of homeless people how to take photographs and then 'left them to it'???? It is remarkable as to the similarity of the final images. I stress at this point that the images are excellent, impactful and even compelling, I just don't accept that they were taken by the homeless individuals. Naturally our discussions centred around what it meant to actually 'take' a photograph, does Crewdson actually press the shutter - no, but does anybody dispute he's the photographer - no! In this particular case, I feel the situation may have been reversed; the shots were set up (composed, choreographed) by the photographer, but the actual shutter was pressed by the individual - possibly as part of the engagement in the project. This lead us down the murky road towards authorship - hay, ho...
This exhibition was unfortunately rather overtaken by the Photo Publishers Market and limited the amount of time we spent there. I did manage to pick up a little book of old photographs taken of my home town - I think this will be an excellent springboard for a personal project.
'Re-mapping the flaneur' by Wideyed Photography Collective
The feedback regarding this exhibition was very mixed - I liked it, the concept and the format of the presentation.
Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and the advent of cloud printing, it is the result of a collaboration between 97 photographers from 20 collectives based in 15 countries, and was designed to provide an overview of the global collective movement, of contemporary photographic practices, and the complexity of urban life worldwide.
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| Unrolled scrolls creating a wave |
Basically there were lots of small images printed/exposed at various intervals along very long scrolls of paper. The images were of nothing special - just everyday life, the sort of thing you take on your phone to show your friends then delete; photographic white noise. In the first room the scrolls were threaded over pipes to create a waveform, then in the second room there were pinned to the wall - this gave the impression of walking through a life that was time-stamped by images. At the end of the scrolls, there were a little set of wooden draws that held all of the images - even the ones you couldn't see because they were hidden in the rolled up paper.
The Photography of Extremes in 1970's Italy
This collection of images attempts to communicate the challenge faced by the press photographers of the day bounced between snapping celebrity images and covering the civil war.
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| Photographs, videos and film presented in the old wooden bookcases |
Curated by Roger Hargreaves and Federica Chiocchetti, the presentation forces the visitor to engage with the exhibition - sometimes by stepping back in order to be able to see images presented on the upper shelves of old wooden bookcases, and sometimes by leaning in or bending down to look closely at images lying in the floor. Interestingly we are required to step back from 'riot' images - a natural reaction for most people, why would you want to be close to or involved in a riot? Conversely we are required to step forward to look over dead bodies, an uncomfortable situation especially as some of these images are very graphic.
'Silent Fore to Aft' by Tom Pope and Terrence Smith
This was a collaboration in that the two decided to cycle on a tandem from London to Brighton and make a film about their trip - the constraint the gave themselves was not to speak to each other for the full 7 day journey!
The film (15 minutes) was an absolute hoot. The film began relatively normally, recording the journey, the scenery, etc; but as they got into the journey it became more and more bizarre with their exploits, at times, becoming pure slapstick comedy. At one point in the film, (about 3 days into the journey) you can feel the tension building as they realise the enormity of the task they've agreed to take on.
We were fortunate to have them present their journey and explain the rationale behind the collaboration. It is a mad film and an equally mad task, but it was very interesting hearing them talking about how seriously they took the 'mission'. Well worth seeing the film if you can, but before you watch it think about how you would cope spending 7 days with the same person and not talking to them!
Overall a fantastic weekend - I highly recommend it!
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