A Review of David Cotterell's "Monsters Of The Id" show at the Hansard Gallery

This has to be one of the most surreal , and eerie, gallery shows I’ve seen for a long time. David Cotterell’s “Monsters of the Id” show, comprised of several large installation pieces, is completely interactive, allowing viewers to survey the war in Hellman Province, Afghanistan, from multiple perspectives. However, this is not depicted in it’s typical “war-torn” state we are so used to seeing in the media. Instead, focus is placed more upon ideas of surveillance & our relationship to our surroundings.

The first piece to be seen, near the entrance of the gallery, is featured as a projection on a large curving wall. As viewers sit on the bench placed in the centre, facing this wall, sensors recognise their presence and create life-size figures that appear within the projection and seem to stare out at them. The more people present in this room, the more figures will appear.
This installation has the same affect on a later piece; a gallery-length model of a desert landscape, again with a projection laid over the top of it. Here, the projected image shows large groups of people from a birds-eye-view perspective.
I found this piece to be the most thought-provoking, as it prompted ideas of the insignificance of a human’s impact on a vast landscape. It also brought up issues of constant surveillance & being watched – you can’t expect privacy anywhere nowadays, not even in the middle of a desert!

Another section of the show featured a darkened room, lit by a single lamp on a desk, set up as a supposed military base. A computer screen, flashing with statistics, was also placed on the desk, across the room from a tent made of camouflage fabric.
This piece, I felt, didn’t fit with the rest of the show, due to its immediate lack of advanced technologies. However, after reviewing the exhibition as a whole, I now feel this room was designed to  fully immerse the viewer, in yet another way; from observing on the desert floor as figures pass you, to  hovering in a drone above the scene, this setting forces you to actually become involved in the war scenario.  

To conclude, as thought-provoking and enveloping as this show was, I feel it was more a demonstration of these new interactive technologies than anything else. The idea of war begins to get lost behind the work’s complex delivery, which I think is somewhere unnecessary.
Saying this, Cotterell’s intention of making viewer’s question their sense of presence was highly successful; we are either involved with or removed from the scene, and can only have so much control over it. We apply this idea to our own lives, and realise we sometimes have to strive to maintain our privacy. 

Researching the "Anti-Portrait"

Studying the work of Giorgio Ciam and Francesca Woodman has prompted me to look deeper into the world of the "Anti-Portrait". Through this, I have come across several methods artists have employed in order to remove themselves or their subjects from an image while still communicating information about them. 

In doing so, I explored the work of Lee Friedlander; a photographer who incorporates himself, sometimes comically, into pictures of his surroundings using largely his shadow or reflection. The following quote from his book "Self Portrait" (1970) I feel sums up the way he operates well: 

"They began as straight portraits, but soon I was finding myself at times in the landscape of my photography." - Lee Friedlander

Despite his body not present in the frame, Friedlander is very much a part of each image, with his shadow or reflection often causing an ominous distraction from all else within it. His style also reveals, as a portrait should, aspects of his personality. For example, (below) the first photo demonstrates a certain lightheartedness while he tries to make his shadow sit in a chair, whereas the second can almost be called voyeuristic, as he follows a woman down the street. 

Metaphor & Allegory

This week's lecture was based on the ideas of metaphors and allegories, and how these can apply in photography.

Metaphor - An implicit, but not literal, comparison.

Allegory - A hidden meaning within a text or image.

The main focus of this discussion was two images by feminist photographer Sarah Lucas, with the first of these entitled "Self Portrait With Fried Eggs" (1996). This depicts Lucas seen in a typically masculine position, photographed from a raised viewpoint as if we are looking down on her to indicate a sense of vulnerability. More notable are the fried eggs on her chest to represent her breasts, which can arguably signify ideas of female objectification and motherhood. 

From her defiant masculinity and feminism down to the cigarettes placed on the floor, this image appears to be all about the choices we make in life, and how often we are judged because of them.

The second photo we studied was "Au Naturel" (1994); a crude metaphor, made up of inanimate objects symbolizing the reproductive organs of a long-married couple. It communicates Lucas' feminist thoughts about the degrading effects of age and marriage upon the female subject, and the constant "readiness for sex" shown from the male.  

During a further discussion of "Au Naturel", we pondered the possibility of prostitution being the main theme of the photo, rather than marriage. This was sparked by the empty room surrounding the sordid mattress, as well as the use of melons and a bucket to stand for the female body. There is nothing personal about the space, and the particular objects used in this case indicate objectification and long-term sexual activity among women. 

Semiotics

This week's topic was semiology; the study of social signs we encounter in day-to-day life. We discussed the various types of symbols we subconsciously analyse and gave examples of signs for roads, restrooms etc. The types of signs are as follows:

• Non-coded iconic - Information retrieved through pictures 
• Linguistic - Information retrieved through reading words
• Coded iconic - The connotations an image carries with it; what further information is triggered by viewing a particular symbol?

Whereas the first two of the above three types tend to mean the same from person to person, the third, we discovered, often differs due to the interpretation of the viewer. The individual's past experiences will have an effect upon how an image is perceived, and what they associate with it.
To further our understanding, we watched Johnny Cash's haunting music video for song "Hurt", analysing it first without the sound, then secondly with. The effect this had was to remove any lyrics that indicated meaning to the imagery, then afterwords, to view the sequence of images with their context.

If I apply the above three codes to this poignant music video, these are my personal results -

• Non-coded iconic - Imagery related to aging (showing him young), religion (Jesus on the cross), vanitas paintings 
• Linguistic - Lyrics tell of his regret ("What have I become?"), his memories of loved ones
• Coded iconic - Closure (closing of the piano, music building & then ending abruptly), loss of loved ones (portrait on the wall) 

Charlotte Cotton on Tableaux Photography

Through studying a chapter of Photography critic Charlotte Cotton’s book “The Photograph As Contemporary Art”, I developed a greater understanding of the concept of Tableaux Photography. This, I discovered, is the practice of constructing every aspect of an image before it is captured, in order to make the staged appear real. For example, Cotton refers to the work of James Casebere who produced the below photo, "Pink Hallway #3" (2000), through building and photographing a miniature version of a hallway from Massachusetts boarding school The Phillips Andover Academy, and flooding it with water. The desired affect of this image, which I believe is achieved, was to spark an unease in the viewer and force them to question the supposed strength of man-made structures.

Through discussion of this work, we came to the conclusion that people often trust and expect to see the truth in photographs, more than they do paintings, and so are often fooled by the technique of tableaux. This quote from Liz Wells’ “Photography: A Critical Introduction” (1996) I feel sums up the key ideas thought about during this seminar -

“We speak of taking photographs rather than making them, because the marks of their construction are not immediately visible; they have the appearance of having come about as traces from the scene itself, rather than as carefully fabricated cultural objects.”

Another artist that operates under this method of working is Jeff Wall. In this photo of his, entitled “Mimic” (1982), Wall has recreated a scene he himself witnessed in everyday life; a white couple making a racist gesture towards a Chinese man as they pass him on the street. The artist, inspired by his memory of this sight, then reconstructed it by employing actors upon a chosen setting but, at first glance, this scene appears genuine and spontaneous. 

Similarly, in his painstakingly-built images, Gregory Crewdson, along with a large lighting crew, fabricate elaborate scenes complete with actors, sets, etc; all the production values of a Hollywood film - just to achieve a single shot. His surreal images, such as the one shown below (from his series "Twilight") which took 11 days to capture, often involve extensive post-production, thus further distorting reality. 

John Berger - "Ways Of Seeing"

The chapter of John Berger's "Ways Of Seeing" we analysed was made up completely of images. It involved the themes of social status in the cases of women, slavery, different races, and varying wealth. The images shown, some photos and some paintings, depict these in varying levels of respect and dignity. The effect of having no text to accompany these pictures, allows the viewer to make their own interpretation of each of them. These interpretations are often based upon the experiences of the viewer themselves, and so differ greatly from person to person.

For example this image, entitled "Woman With White Stockings" by Gustave Courbet, depicts it's female subject objectified, in a position of sexual vulnerability. The detailed and graphic portrayal of this would have been somewhat shocking when it was produced in the 1800's. However, to people viewing it today, having grown accustomed to a new generation of increasingly sexualised media, this painting, although still objectionable when seen through feminist eyes, is not quite so remarkable in that respect.
These are some questions we were given to discuss while studying the extract -

1. Consider why Berger has produced a chapter in a book based solely on images? 

2. What narratives are suggested by this sequence of images? What ties them together? 

3. What are the similarities of the images stylistically and from what periods of of art history do they come from?

4. Following on from this how can readings of these original images change over time?      

While studying this extract from John Berger's "Ways Of Seeing", I found a series of videos, hosted by Berger himself, of the same name -

This, like the extract we analysed, places emphasis on the ways in which our interpretation is effected by what we are surrounded by. In the video, Berger uses the example of paintings, and how they have become so easy to reproduce today. We are now able to see these paintings anywhere - in magazines, on television and computer screens etc - because of their reproduction, whereas we were once restricted to viewing just the original piece in it's initial state and setting. Therefore, the context of the artwork changes, adapting to our own lives; it is now surrounded by what we find familiar and so, to an extent, we associate the painting's circumstances with our own.