Material Practice

Concept

Snapshots: Everyone Has A Story is a photographic installation comprising a concoction of monochromatic black and white photograms depicting the life of a fictional identity. Revolving around the theme of ‘superfictions’ and Indian cultural identity, the work functions as a fragmented “story board”.

The concept revolves around elastic identity – facts relayed by an unreliable narrator, together with social and personal fragmentation. In this semi-detached visual documentary, one is confronted with a life that wavers between fact and assumption through the use of its medium – photograms.

The photograms depict hand-drawn figures and scenes from Indian cultural urban life. The images suggest observations and passages that define human existence. The process of creating a ‘photo’ without a camera, yet attempting to create a truthful rendition of a life, questions the accuracy of memory, observation, and the medium itself.

The work was installed in The George Paton Gallery as a photographic installation consisting of around 50 images varying from 4x4 inches to 6x8 inches - 15 of which are displayed in standard lightweight frames, hung on the dedicated wall space and/or placed on a table in the required 2x2 meter floor space. Having a number of the photograms framed, concretize the images and direct the spectator into viewing the ‘fictitious memories’ as photographs, whilst reinforcing the construction of the habitation of a fictitious protagonist.

Technique

A photogram is a cameraless, lensless image made by placing two- or three-dimensional objects directly on top of light sensitive material and then exposing it. The result is a silhouetted image varying in darkness, depending on the transparency of the objects used. Areas that have not received any illumination appear light, and those that have received light, appear dark. This operates in accordance to the ‘laws of photosensitivity.’

The camera is the only art practice that is concerned with capturing the moment – here, the eye and memory functions as a recording tool and the processing technique as the objective element. The replication of drawn photographs and negatives emphasize the metaphor of ‘writing’ your own memories, surface identity and interacting literally with technology. The photogram enables me to accentuate the notion of physical inscription of a track, the exploration of the individual through the representation of everyday lived experience - of fictional identities that are subjective as the nature of the represented medium itself.

Using overhead projector transparency papers, which are semi-transparent and thus appropriate for the making of photograms, images are hand-drawn onto the surface using permanent markers of varying thickness. In order to achieve fine textures, numerous images are drawn onto regular paper, enabling the use of different artistic materials such as crayon, pastel, and pen - and then photocopied onto acetate, allowing for tonal gradations and minute details. The acetate is placed onto photographic paper in the darkroom and is exposed and processed using traditional darkroom chemical processing. As a result, the illustrations of the images photocopied onto the acetate are mimicked on the “photograph.” The visual fragility of the lines that contrasts with the ‘graphic’ quality of the black and white harshness of the photograms is characteristic of the entire installation.

Influences

Typically, photography depicts a truthful rendition of an event – its accuracy being the sole important property that amazed the public. Though its aspects were born of scientific, optical and artistic aspirations, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western Culture. The medium of the photogram challenges the viewer’s expectations of what a photograph is supposed to look like. Whilst the process involved in creating the images dictates one to view the series as photographs, a certain sense of ambiguity and mystery arises as the viewer attempts to understand the reality being portrayed in the image. The photograms take away the power of true representation from the ‘photographs’ taken by the fictional narrator, and returns to the concreteness of the surface – the relations of black and white, plane and form. It is a photographer’s theatre, representing a record of a transient light experience – a flash of lightning that is as momentary as capturing a snapshot.

As a result of numerous early experimental attempts to find suitable photosensitive materials, the photogram was originally termed, “photogenic drawings,” and operates on a literal level in my work. More recently, photogramists have utilized the medium as a means of artistic expression to produce a variety of designs and surreal imagery. A number of 20th Century photographers have a prominent role in the development of my work. Theorists such as Moholy Nagy, Man Ray and Lotte Jacobi, of which their experimental approach has influenced me considerably, have employed the photogram as a means of personal expression. Research into the first period of photogram exploration revealed that its aims were to gain a scientific record of natural objects, for instance in the work of Anna Atkins. Such images triggered my experimentation with material possibilities that are compatible with the creation of photograms. The second period was a rediscovery of the artistic potential of the medium, and inspired me to push the boundaries of the conventional, as illustrated by Christian Schad, Man Ray and Lazlo Nagy in the Dada, Surrealist and Constructivist periods of art, respectively. Rarely have photograms been based upon the narrative format and it is this that is explored in my installation. Furthermore, Mary Schepisi’s Speculations (2004) series of portraits with its theme of superfictions inspired me widely.