urban ku # 64/crafted ku # 6 ~ Parking lot at sundown
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 10:30AM 
Parking lot at sundown • click to embiggenMuch thanks to Bret Kosmider for passing along info about the Toronto Photography Festival. The festival's theme is The Constructed Image.
The festival organizers describe the festival as this - The exhibition demonstrates how the constructed image has irrevocably transformed photography’s relationship to reality.
Whether photographs are composites of multiple scenes or of various disciplines, materials and influences, hybridity is now a fundamental feature of the medium. Images are digitally altered, theatrically arranged, artificially staged and fabricated. Fashion, advertising and marketing strategies, many of which, ironically, were originally influenced by photography, are now frequently reinterpreted by photo-based artists as a means of expression. This directorial nature of working has moved photography away from the objective documentation of the world, and aligned it more closely with the freedom and infinite possibilities that theatre, film, painting and sculpture have always provided. Constructed modes of working are essential for these artists as they articulate concerns relating to contemporary global experiences.
This tidbit from Bret arrived at about the same time I was reading this from Barry Frydlender (see urban ku # 5 for link), a photographer who creates constructed pictures; "David Hockney said that if you put five photographs of the same scene together, people look at them five times longer." Frydlender, when asked if his constructed pictures (which are made of many pictures) were/are an 'act of resistance to a culture increasingly focused on instanteous understanding and gratification?', responded, "Well, what could be more desieable? Do you want prople to just blink?"
My answer to Frydlaender is an emphatic, "No". But then again, how many of you out there want 'people to just blink' when viewing your pictures? No One? OK, but the question is, how do you get and hold viewers attention?
Those photographer-artists who work the found/unaltered side of the photographic street are faced with the monumental task of standing out from the overwhelming photographic clutter of the instant communication age. It was ever thus but now it is exponentially more so, especially considering the fact that there is some damn good stuff floating around in the clutter. These photographer-artists must find either 'new' referents or very new ways of seeing 'old' referents. Otherwise, it's 'blink' and they're gone.
Those artists who use photography to create 'constructed' pictures (in all of their guises) have an advantage on the new playng field - at least when it comes to attracting attention. The naturally curious and eager-to-learn on the planet are inevitably attracted to these pictures because of the ambiguity most often found in constructed pictures. Pictures that are usually packed with information and possibilities just waiting to be explored. Of course, I have always thought that what distinguishes decorative photography from fine art photography is that the objective of the former is to turn off the brain and that the objective of the latter is to engage it.
So, I for one welcome the challenge of picturing in a way which 'transform[s] photography’s relationship to reality' and which 'articulate[s] concerns relating to contemporary global experiences'. In fact, although no one seems to have picked up on it, I have been posting quite a few 'constructed' pictures. Hint: if it says 'crafted' it's constructed (in some fashion).
PS - anyone interested in going with or meeting me in Toronto for the festival? Looks like there's at least a couple days worth of gallery cruising available.
Reader Comments (3)
Challenging read. Love the power line shot. Love me some powerlines. :D
Don't think I'm going to make the Toronto gig, but here's yet another photography festival, happening in my hometown in June.
Unfortunately I'm only in Toronto on the weekends, otherwise I'd have taken you up on offer to meet up.
I try to see as many showings as I can, but this year's been particularly hard.