CHARLOTTE COTTON TEXT DISCUSSION.

Our reading this week was a section from the photograph as contemporary art written by Charlotte Cotton.
In our seminar groups we were each given a number of pages to analyse, all different from each other (mine being pg. 56-63).  After discussion this helped us to get a wider view on the book as a whole without having to study the entire text.

After the reading I understood that 'contemporary photography' focuses on the ideas of narrative very strongly.

I first looked at how Cotton has investigated the narratives in the work in this chapter and from this I noticed that a lot of these photographers images are linked to wider ideas and start to use specific imagery and cultural codes for their narratives.

Diary of a Victorian Dandy 19.00 hours, 1998

Yinka Shonibare created a series in 1998 called 'Diary of a Victorian Dandy' where he takes on the role of Dandy.

The work is a recreation of 'The Rake's Progress' written by William Hograth in 1735.  
It is heavily constructed and each scene is set in a historical interior, displaying a cast of models all wearing Victorian fancy dress.

Referencing past products such as novels, plays and traditional paintings is a common quality to spot in contemporary photography and follows postmodern ideas suggested by theorist Fredric Jameson.  He believes that modern media creates nothing new and that it only recycles old ideas, images and texts either through parody, pastiche or self-reflexivity.  He also says that we have 'lost our understanding of history' as it is no longer being accurately depicted - this links to what Cotton suggests next in the text...
She stated that  ''A dreamlike quality is often created by reducing the specificity of a place and a culture to such a degree that it closes down our expectation of uncovering the 'where and when' of a photograph.''

This can be seen through another postmodern theory written by Jean Baudrillard surrounding the ideas of 'Simulacra' and 'Hyperreality' as photography now blurs our understanding of a time and place in which an image was taken.

Some other photographers shown in the text who use an unreferenced narrative I will show below..

Sarah Dobai, Red Room, 2001.

Wendy McMurdo, Helen, Backstage, Merlin Theatre (the glance), 1996.

Both of these pieces use empty locations to the best effect, there are no personal objects in either of the images so this makes it quite hard to connect with the subject, as no information about them is being offered.  They are both quite uncomfortable photographs to look at, 'Red Room' has a sense of awkwardness and Wendy McMurdo uses digital manipulation to the best advantage in her piece, managing to puzzle the viewer.
Stylistically the work shown by Cotton was varied but I did notice a quality that was used a number of times, see if you can spot what it is from the selected images following?

Frances Kearney, Five People Thinking the Same Thing,  1998.

Hannah Starkey, March 2002, 2002

Justine Kurland, Buses on the Farm, 2003

Did you notice the similarity between the images? What I picked up from the work displayed was the element of hidden identity, in the work of Kearney and Starkey is it obvious as the models are positioned facing away from the camera, in the last not quite as noticeable but I feel it is still present.

Frances Kearney - Five People Thinking the Same thing, 1998

After viewing Kearney's work for the first time in this publication it made me want to research further into it as I guessed, due to the image title, that there must be additional photographs in the series.. these are a few I found.

By depicting the figures with their faces turned away from us it leaves the characters unexplained and creates anxiety and uncertainty about the meaning of the image - this is a key factor of 'tableau photography'.

SOMETHING NEW THAT LEARNT THROUGH THIS READING.. TABLEAU PHOTOGRAPHY..
Never coming across this term before intrigued me to find out more..
- 'Tableau photography' is to do with narrative and how a single image tries to tell
   a whole story by itself.
''For a piece of art to qualify as tableau it must be produced for the gallery wall (large print), it must be pictorial (beautifully composed) and must take into consideration the intrinsic qualities for the camera (chance).  Digital manipulation is often a prominent technique used.''
- They are all deliberately produced in this certain way to make the viewer think
   deeper about the work that they are consuming.
Cotton said.. ''One of the great uses of tableau photography is a format that can carry intense but ambiguous drama that is then shaped by the viewer's own trains of thought.''

My own response to TABLEAU PHOTOGRAPHY in the seminar discussion:

These images are constructed (under tableau photography) and the elements are primarily there to make the viewers reading a bit more difficult in the sense of simplicity. Either through how they purposely compose shots, frame it in certain ways, choose and direct their models or even at the moment in which they capture the photograph.. they are all there to make the audience work.

If we are going to get a meaning out of these pictures, understand what, who, where and why it has been shot and presented to us in this way.. then we strongly have to examine the artistic creations in order to depict any kind of sense!