Reading Fire & Ice by Peter Wollen for our Narrative & Time lecture with Matt Lindsey gave me a lot to think about regarding our portrait series assignment. Part of our brief specifies that we should utilise the power of sequencing to create meaning, which immediately reminds me of dyads/diptychs and triptychs seen in art & photography. Wollen proposes that still photographs are "elements of a narrative", which implies that something is happening behind the illusion of the static display. There is a sense that there is more than meets the eye in photography, and images are just as dynamic as film in their own way. In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes made the bold statement that "every photographer is an agent of death", touching on a wider discussion about photography as a medium which 'kills the moment'. Susan Sontag believes each photograph taken is a memento mori. Taking images is freezing moments in time, moments which have passed and have thus 'died' in the chronology of our timeline.
This opens up lots of questions I might want to address in my portrait series. Could I construct a fictional narrative through a sequence of composited images? How do the concepts of representation and identity interact with linear presentation? What is the best way to convey intended meanings as the viewer reads the photo series in their own way (visual language, leading the eye, etc.)? This element of death in photography - does it trap the artform in the past, or can it be reimagined to represent the future? Is there a way to explore how identity coincides with an idea of the future? Is there a way to deconstruct the idea of a sequence automatically suggesting a story - to subvert that notion and instead allude to a fantasy which has not necessarily happened at all?
Mortality has a lot to do with identity; the way you choose to live your life says a lot about you as a person, and lifestyles are directly connected to death. Some people believe they had past lives and were reincarnated into their current forms, connecting their conscious identities across generations. Some people deeply believe in upholding family traditions, respecting their heritage and carrying on family legacy. Some people believe that your actions and life decisions illustrate who you are, which in turn links identity with karmic forces and the idea of fate. However, it seems paradoxical to develop a portrait series on the topic of personal identity from a determinist angle, as the message nullifies any sense of individuality that the images may portray.
Comments
Post a Comment