The Meaning of What Remains - Richard Noble

Richard Noble discusses the paradoxical concept absence. It is often connected to emptiness or lack of something, someone or an event we would usually expect in an area. Noble notes that ‘emptiness is a relative condition.’ 1 They are dependent on our expectations. It is a space rather than a void, capable of having a physical presense. Absence is comprehended through the containment of physical mass. ‘Emptiness depends on it’s opposite, the absence it signifies can only be comprehended through the physcial presence of boundaries that define it.’ 2

Empty space is cast and given a physical presence in Rachel Whiteread's works. She inverts spaces, capturing foresnsic residual traces present on quotidian objects and spaces. Whiteread's sculptures challenge notions around relational embodiment, representation and the index through the transformation of empty spaces into physical forms.

1. Richard Noble, The Meaning of What Remains. In: Eckhard Schneider, ed. Rachel Whiteread: Doors Floors and Stairs. (Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2005) 66

2. Ibid

Test Install Display Case

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Literature Review

‘”The photograph was very old the corners were blunted from having been pasted in an album, the sepia print had faded and the picture had managed to show two children standing together at the end of a little wooden bridge in a glassed-in conservatory, what was called a Winter Garden in those days.” 1 

 In the often-quoted reference from of the most recognizable and significant pieces of literature in photography, Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes first describes a material object (the photograph) before drawing attention to the two children captured in it. Barthes acknowledges the fact that the photograph itself belongs to its own narrative beyond the image captured. It can carry evidence of the marks of its own history on its surface. “Photographs are both images and physical objects that exist in time and space, ‘capable of depicting and being a vessel for memories.”2 

Slippery and invasive in nature, memory can rarely be relied on as a candid recording mechanism. Memory has the power to formalize and make claims that can change our understanding of our actions and the world. I am interested in how memory is documented and represented in the context of contemporary art, specifically the separation that occurs in the process of selection, categorization from the whole. These archives are snapshots, synecdoche’s that are unable to represent the whole, but they do carry traces of it. Skin can have a similar function as a snapshot of our lived experience. In my practice, I have been utilizing these forms of inquiry to explore the notion of skin as a sight and site for our experience and engagement with the world. This idea that skin can be a form of archive has been the main conceptual focus for my bodies of work. To ground this, I will be discussing texts by Elizabeth Edwards, Janice Hart and Joan Gibbons. The texts I have chosen to unpack contain themes related to memory, trace, the archive in contemporary art.  These themes examine the complexities of the nature of memory, the process of recording and collecting memories', the selection of knowledge and representation of it. These texts question how we perceive the representation of archived memory and skin’s function as a material, medium and metaphor in contemporary art. 

Photographs Object Histories: On the Materiality of Images by Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart 

Photography is often reduced to a medium that tells the truth about a moment and is still one of the most realistic forms of representation. Its time freezing abilities allow it to act as a time capsule and mode of preservation. The photograph, however, is not a pure simulacrum. It is unable to capture the bigger picture, it fragments and isolates a moment in time. Edward and Hart draw attention to the physical qualities of the photograph as an object and emphasize its significance in affecting our reading of what is being represented. “'the functional context of materiality’ is often ‘glossed merely as a neutral support for image.’' 3 Edwards and Hart disputes the need to break this conceptual connotation and acknowledge the role of a medium's material properties in understanding image and subject represented.  Shifting the focus away from content, the material and its presentational forms are central to the function of a photograph as an object, highlighting its integral relationship to image and association.  

Reflecting Edwards and Harts notion, Mike and Doug Starn’s works subvert the initial premises of analogue photography and treat image as an object reflecting Edwards and Harts research. Constructing dream worlds, materiality and photography is open to a variety of sensory experiences, “that include the slow and layered accumulation of memory and history, and the melancholy decay of flesh and matter.”4 The insistence of material lifespan of the photographic medium is one of the foremost disconcerting elements of the Starn Twins works. Triple Christ is riddled with evidence of the handmade and constructed. Fragmented glossy papers veiled by various extended light exposures are held together by fingerprint covered scotch tape strips to form a contiguous image. Intervention of the artist in this fabrication is not hidden, breaking the state of mental transportation that is traditionally enabled in photographic images. The sickly yellow tones associated with death and decay stain the bruised images skin. The fact that the subject in this case Christ is secondary as opposed to any dead figure is drained of meaning and hierarchy. “The illusion must struggle to exist. The medium has a greater reality, and by calling so much attention to the artefacts of the medium, the artificiality of the medium is exposed.” 5 Focusing on the physical attributes of the photograph, the aesthetic choices of the maker, the traces of usage and time are all indicators that inform our understanding of the image and its status. This illustrate material's ability to act as a catalyst for object histories and highlights the significance of its relationship to interpretation representations and in turn its ability to distort and add additional layers of meaning.  

Traces: Memory and Indexicality , Joan Gibbons

In Joan Gibbon’s book Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance, she discusses how memory is presented in the context of the gallery and museum. Gibbons unpacks the varied forms memory can take including personal, public and historic.  She explores memory as trace, art as autobiography, the archives' function, postmemory,  and the obliteration of memory. I will be examining the following chapter ‘Traces: Memory and Indexicality’ that surveys work by Rachel Whiteread, Miyako Ishiuchi, Nan Goldin and Bill Fontana that grounds memory through their signified connection to the represented subject. Discerning the role of the index present in these works, Gibbons unpacks how the approach of each of these artists to capturing these traces impact the position of the objects represented. 

Gibbons argues that Whiteread’s sculptures, inverted casts off objects surfaces are the closest to a pure indexical connection. They have a ‘'status of direct attachment to the signified, they essentially trace off the object and not part of an extension of it, and so are degenerate, or at least in the first stages of degeneracy.’'6  This degeneracy Gibbons refers to occurs due to the separation caused by the release agent in the casting process and therefore is not continuous materially. It is significant to note that this separation or gap that is created is a ‘liminal space at which both the fact of the object and its representations, imaginings and associations overlay one another. ‘7 Gibbons references Duchamp's notion of the infra mince, emphasizing that the attributes of the medium define the nature of the portrayal and the referent captured. Whitread’s works mark the absence of an object through the presence of a negative that carries evidence of the original's existence like a scar on a skins surface. This forensic status and gap are further reinforced by the monochromatic materials utilized by Whiteread such as plaster, creating a filtered version. This reductive process reveals only a segment of a whole but still carries indicators of a story personified in the residual.   A counter process takes place through this method of subtraction of color, form, and materiality allowing additional meaning to be composed through our own lens.  

This method of subtraction is also present in the photographic works of Miyako Ishiuchi specifically her series Mother who also monumentalizes her subject. Dispossessed of color her subjects are removed from their usual contexts, adds a loss of vitality. Differing from Whiteread’s work, Ishiuchi medium of choice photography generates a different kind of signifier compared to an imprint on a cast and is based directly on the human body, in this case her own mother and her belongings. This allusion to the subject is ambiguous. Photography has an unequivocal connection to reality, however despite photography's venerable history of reproducing realistic images the introduction of digital photography opens further the interference of fabrication and degradation.  ‘'The photographic process involves a ghostly transference of the real (loss of corporeality) in which objects are dematerialized and transformed into images, so that the connection to the real is not just a transmutation assisted by certain mechanical and chemical processes, it is also alchemical. ‘'8 Gibbons notes the transitory nature of photography as a medium and alludes to it as a phenomenon that finds the fantastic in the mundane. This notion that photography can possess the ‘spirit’ of a moment in time or subject captured and is not limited to physical resemblance. Indexicality is important of reinforcing the existential status it does not provide the whole story. Viewer comes with pretextual knowledge. Gibbons focusing on the medium to lead this examination of memory practice. It is significant to note how the properties of a medium alter the index or trace being recorded in memory art practices. 

Notes: 

1. Roland Barthes quoted by Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart, Photographs Object Histories: On the Materiality of Images. Tauris & Co Ltd, London, United Kingdom, 2007. 1 

2. Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart, Photographs Object Histories: On the Materiality of Images. Tauris & Co Ltd, London, United Kingdom, 2007. 2 

3. Ibid 

4. Robert Rosenblum, Introduction in, Mike and Doug Starn. Harry N. Abrams Incorporated, New York, United States of America, 1990.13   

5. Papadakis, New York New Art. Art & Design Academy Editions, New York, United States of America, 2004 61 

6. Gibbons, Joan. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance. London, United Kingdom. I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. 2009. 30 

7. Ibid. 31 

Reparative Aesthetics - Susan Best

Susan Best offers a new approach to thinking about the role of politically engaged art in her book Reparative Aesthetics. Opening up a new field of aesthetics, Susan Best identifies how the reparative aesthetic can be employed to address shameful histories through examining the work of four women photographers from the southern hemisphere. Rosângela Rennó, Anne Ferran, Fiona Pardington, and Milagros de la Torre, whom make a break from the anti-aesthetic tradition by prioritizing critique over aesthetic engagement by focusing on other aesthetic traditions such as beauty, expression, feeling and discernment. To engage audiences with these histories, these artists use a complex array of aesthetic strategies to transform the feelings of shame around them.

Susan Best suggest one approach to confronting shame in art is by ‘recasting the viewer as a witness in response to this art of real events; debate about the cultural significance of affect, guilt and shame; and the reconsideration of the importance of aesthetics.’ [1] It is significant to note that the reprative position is not about fixing or reversing damage, but is an act to shed a new light that incorporates both positive and negative feelings. This ambivalent stance counters paranoid inquiry that favors an ‘exposure’ by attenuating guilt. Shame is a ‘self-aware and self-conscious response, which is triggered by the sense of being observed or judged.’ [2] This implies that the person who bares the shame is separated physically from the event, but through being observed is able to return to their own skin. Observation has the ability to act as a form of grounding and self-reflection.

It is vital in my work to consider traditional aesthetic strategies that I can utilize to confront the shame present in the histories depicted. It is important to consider not only the individuals trauma and how this is represented but also how this trauma could affect others that engage with the work through observation.

Notes:

1. Susan Best, Reparative Aesthetics: Witnessing in Contemporary Art Photography (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 2

2. Ibid, 25

Latex

A primary material within my current practice is latex, an emulsion of polymer micro-particles in a aqueous medium. Latex can be both a natural and synthetically made rubber or plastic that is attained through a process of forming polymer chains with monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction known as polymerization. Consisting of resins, proteins, alkaloids, sugars, oils, tannin and gums, this milky white substance is exuded after tissue injury to milkweed or spurge plants through tapping. 

Applications of latex include a wide variety of specialized items. Natural rubber latex is commonly found in products such as gloves, mattresses, catheters, rubber bands, swimming gaps and many other sport goods. Synthetic latex is often used in coatings such as paint and glues. It is often an additive to cement to aid with the process of resurfacing crack in cement. It’s versatile material properties allow it to both act as form of protection and bonding agent. These qualities of latex opens up interesting dialogue between boundaries and reparation conceptually in relation to skin. Skin also acts as a protective shield and container that is able to repair itself when damaged. . ‘The skin is a supple semi-permeable membrane that maintains the integrity of the body, providing a boundary for the body, and serves as the medium of passage or interchange between the body and its environment.’ 1

1. Amy Kathryn Watson, Complexion: Skin, Surface and Depth in Contemporary Art Practice, (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2010) 2

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latex accessed April 14, 2020

https://www.aceprodcon.com/what-is-latex made of accessed April 14, 2020

Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contemporary Art - Heidi Kellet

Heidi Kellet, examines the impact of “skin portraiture” on traditional notions of portraiture in contemporary visual culture in her essay Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contemporary Art. Skin portraiture is a sub-genre of portraiture that Kellet developed, which focuses on the epidermal likeness of the subject, that in turn disrupts conventional portraiture by removing the referent of facial features. Kellet notes, that “when the epidermis is fragmented, magnified, and anatomized in this way the barriers of likeness that tend to distance the represented subject from the viewer are dissolved.” [1] Therefore skin portraiture has the ability to conduct an encounter of bodies. Through the disruption of the boundary present between observer and the portrait, this method challenges both the autonomy of the portrait and body, allowing an intimate engagement through relation. This language makes the representation of the skin precedent which is one of the main concerns of within my own practice.

1.  Heidi Kellet, “Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contemporary Art,” in Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, eds. Caroline Rosenthal and Dirk Vanderbeke (Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2015) 5

Contextual Statement

“Skin is a liminal structure, it is in-between, it is the template on which our experiences, inner and outer, is inscribed, and our experience and inheritance, is there to be read by others. It is where the world confronts the I and the I confronts the world.”1 

Mundi suggests that skin is a performative surface, by which our identity is both formed and defined serving as a symbolic interface, for materialization and meaning. Meaning can be ascribed to skin, this marked surface has the ability to act as an autobiographical record.  ‘Skin remembers, both literally in its material surface and metaphorically in re-signifying on this surface.’2 Prosser proposes that through memory, we become aware of the skin as a visible surface. Holding a remembered past on the surface of skin, the present is immediately transferred through sight and touch of the skin’s surface both to others and to ourselves. In a sense skin is both a site and sight of memory for our personal histories. 

Engaging with individuals close to me and the marks on their skin, I make work through a collaborative process that examines ideas of representation, trauma, and authenticity. Utilizing analogue photography and video installations, I aim to foster a singular experience through materiality by dis-identifying with other reproducible digital forms. Focusing on the epidermal likeness yet retaining the anonymity of the subject, I use ‘skin portraiture’ as a method to disrupt traditional portraiture, while protecting the individual involved. Through the magnification, fragmentation and anatomization of the epidermis, this abstraction of the body through skin allows anonymity for the individual, only identifiable by the differentiating marks present.  

The intention is to reveal these often-unseen marks that bare testament to an individual’s experience. The act of uncovering these hidden tethers is an attempt to address the uneasiness connected to their concealment and exposure, in order to understand the complexities of embodiment and inhabiting one’s skin.  

Abigayle McLean 

List of Works:  

Tira  

Polaroids, a letter, Kawakawa oil diffused, encased inside eight Kauri display cases 30x22x6 cm 

Josh 

One channel video projection and audio through headphones 

1. Veronica Mundi in, Heide Hatry: Skin, ed. Heide Hatry (Berlin:Heidleberg, 2006), 22 

 2. Jay Prosser, ‘Skin Memories’, in Thinking Through The Skin, ed. Sarah Ahmed and Jackie Stacey (New York: Routledge, 2004.  

Duties of Care: What Measures am I Putting in Place?

Ethics are the principles that guide how we approach an activity. Subjective, contextual and fluid, ethics vary to each individual based on a person’s values and life experiences. The question of how to be an ethical artist and protect the individuals I photograph, the viewers and myself, is one that is integral to informing my practice. This question relates to concepts surrounding dignity, respect and responsibility. These concepts are the key foundations to developing strategies of care in my practice and work that impacts in a meaningful way.

1. How can I respect the dignity of the individuals I photograph?

   • Written consent from each individual photographed. The consent form should outline the context of culturally, politically sensitive, high-stigma or taboo issues that are present in the project. This ensures respect for the individual’s privacy and autonomy. Informed understanding of the implications, purpose and use of the photo. Clearly outlining and discussing my intentions should avoid harm to the individual and inappropriate publication.

   • Option to opt out. At any point if the individual feels uncomfortable about the images or how they are being used or presented, the images will be withdrawn. This allows the person photographed to maintain control over the representation of their body.

   • Choice of anonymity. If the individual photographed wishes to be photographed but remain unidentifiable, techniques such as cropping to remove recognizable features of the individual should be employed. This can be addressed in the consent form.

2. What is my responsibility to my audience?

• Power to choose to view the work. Since my work contains content that may cause a traumatic experience for some viewers, it is important that I ensure there are appropriate warning labels visible. Using divisions or privacy screens to conceal content should be applied when necessary such as public exhibitions.

References:

https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/nzmat-ethical-photography-guidelines-may2015.docx

https://globalphoto.unc.edu/ethical-guidelines/

https://www.iep.utm.edu/care-eth/

Key Questions

Skin as a site or sight for memory is the key concept that informs my practice in which I question the following: How does our approach to observing the skin have significance on the way we represent ourselves and others in portraiture and contemporary visual culture? How can skin as a medium and archive be analyzed and documented to inform how we communicate and experience embodiment? Engaging with individuals and the marks on their skin, I make work through a collaborative process that examines ideas of representation, trauma, and authenticity. Through the use of analogue photography and video installations, I aim to foster a singularized experience through materiality by disidentifying with other reproducible digital forms. Focusing on the epidermal likeness and anonymity of the subject, I use ‘skin portraiture’ as a method to disrupt traditional portraiture, and in turn also act as a form of protection for the individuals involved. 

Amy Kathryn Watson in Complexion: Skin, Surface and Depth in Contemporary Art Practice, presents her interpretation of skin’s role as “a medium of passage, interchange and the vehicle in which our other senses are embedded.” 1 Watson employs a phenomenological approach of unpacking skin as a medium, material and metaphor by rationalizing with and through the skin. “Thinking through the skin is a thinking that attends not only to the sensuality of being-with-others, but also to the ethical implications of the impossibility of inhabiting the other’s skin.”2 Applying this phenomenological lens as a strategy to inform my process of making and thinking is vital to understanding the physiological components of skin and what it is to inhabit one.  

Thinking through the skin is a thinking that attends not only to the sensuality of being-with-others, but also to the ethical implications of the impossibility of inhabiting the other’s skin. “Skin is a liminal structure, it is in-between, it is the template on which our experience, inner and outer, is inscribed, and our experience and our inheritance is there to be read by others. It is where the world confronts the I and the I meets the world.”3 Mundi suggests that meaning is ascribed to the skin, and the skin is further opened to being read and interpreted. Skin has the ability to act as a “soft clock”4 highlighting Steven Connors sentiment that skin is an autobiographical record. Guiding our representations of skin, skin metaphors are a part of a language, which in turn shape and reinforce our relations with our own skins and those of others. 

Documenting these traces on individuals' skins and utilizing skin portraiture as a method is integral to accentuating these signifiers or memory tethers. Through the magnification, fragmentation and anatomization of the epidermis, this abstraction of the body through skin portraiture makes the subject anonymous, only identifiable by the differentiating marks present on these skinscapes. “Skin portraiture highlights how our outermost edge communicates the vicissitudes of embodiment across bodies.”5 This technique makes me consider skin as a mediator and filter that is able to convey embodiment. In turn this also makes me question how the autonomy of the portrait and body through skin portraiture disrupts the boundaries between the object and subject. By combining a phenomenological approach with the use of skin portraiture as a technique, I intend to open up the testimonies documented to a comparative manifestation when witnessed.

References:

1.  Watson, Amy Kathryn, ‘'Complexion: Skin, Surface and Depth in Contempoary Art Practice.’'  (PhD diss.., University of the Witwatersrand, 2010), 9. 

2. Sarah Ahmed, Jackie Stacey, Thinking Through the Skin (New York: Routledge, 2001), 7.

3. Veronica Mundi in, Heide Hatry: Skin, ed. Heide Hatry (Berlin:Heidleberg, 2006), 22 .

4. Steven Connor, The Book of Skin, (New York: Cornell University Press, 2004) 46.

5. Heidi Kellet, “Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contemporary Art,” in Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, eds. Caroline Rosenthal and Dirk Vanderbeke (Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2015) 1

Exhibtion Review:

On the Last Afternoon: Disrupted Ecologies and the Work of Joyce Campbell
Curated by John C. Welchman
27.07.19 – 20.10.19 

Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, NZ 

On the Last Afternoon: Disrupted Ecologies and the Work of Joyce Campbell, is a substantial presentation of New Zealand artist Joyce Campbell’s photographic practice, currently at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi in Wellington New Zealand.  Curated by LA–based contemporary art historian John C. Welchman, this exhibition examines Campbells works over three decades and unfolds her reflection on the interconnection of physical systems.  

Installation View of L.A Botanicals (left) and After it Falls (right)

In dialogue with the architecture of the gallery, this exhibition illustrates the variety of approaches Campbell has taken to her chosen subjects. As it Falls (2018-2019) engages directly with the space and scale of the south-eastern wall. The work, like the wall, cuts through all three floors of the gallery. Long unframed resin–coated photographic scrolls of multiple exposures, photograms and films strips hang loosely from the matte black wall.  Exploiting the full height of the building this work is visible on all three levels from discrete viewing platforms. The work is never seen in its entirety from one position, shifting the space and focus from close–up details to overall effects. The impact of this installment strategy creates a vertiginous cascade of fractured elements. This treatment articulates to a larger network similar to the root systems from bacterial colonies and crystal structures depicted in the photographs. Branching out into the different levels of the gallery like vines creeping across the floor, the scrolls seem to take on a life of their own, mirroring the organic systems present in her other works such as L.A Botanical (2006 – 2007). 

As it Falls, Joyce Campbell

Joyce Campbell’s L.A Botanical, is a series of ghostly negative images of poisonous flora on square glass sheets mounted on a matte black shelf. The shelf extends as an L shape into the corner of the gallery space opposite After it Falls, subdividing the white walls, again disrupting the white cube. The photographic images shift as you walk past, looming in and out of the darkness like phantoms alluding to the spiritual nature of early photography. There is a sense of mortality associated with plants, specifically flowers, which are favored by poets, painters and photographers as a metaphor for the passage of time. These photographs carry a sinister reminder of the power of plants to sustain or take life. L.A Botanical in comparison with As it Falls is a structured composition, each glass plate is evenly spaced at the same level.  This controlled approach connects to ideas of categorization and agriculture which is reinforced in the title.  

L.A Botanicals, Joyce Campbell (Installation View)

Campbell’s prints in After the Fall have been organized to produce a series of purposed and latent connections between her various bodies of works by acting as visible tethers that branch out through the gallery. The imagery of organic systems is present throughout the exhibition and is evidence of the artist’s investigation into morphogenesis – the biological process by which organisms develop form. She shifts scale from the microscopic close–ups present in After it Falls to the larger focus of the herbarium in L.A Botanicals to give visible form to the beauty, complexity and perseverance of endangered life.  Campbell ‘believes in the potential of photography to resist the global techno-capitalist hegemony that underpins the exponential collapse of biodiversity and the decline of spirit and mutual understanding in the contemporary world. ‘1  Campbell calls for a green revolution that disrupts the destructive cycle threatening our ecosystems, by conveying the interdependent relationship of complex biological, spiritual and symbolic structures 

On the Last Afternoon: Disrupted Ecologies and the Work of Joyce Campbell, is an extensive survey that brings together 130 new and existing works. Clarifying the planted wisdom and inherit histories that inform and are revealed by her practice, John C. Welchman’s curatorial dialogue with the architecture of the Adam Art Gallery further extends the foundation for Campbell’s work. This exhibition projects the aims of the artist, functioning as both an objective and opinionated documentation and divination of the impact of natural and cultural systems. Connecting to the wider discourse of ecological issues, this exhibition reflects the educational turn present in the contemporary art world. Campbell’s work reminds us that we are ‘dependent on what is outside of ourselves, on others, on institutions, and on sustained and sustaining environments.’ 2  

1. “Adam Art Gallery: Current Exhibition,’’ Victoria University, last accessed 01/08/2019, http://www.adamartgallery.org.nz/current-exhibition/ 

1. Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (New York: Verso 2010), 23. 

Contextual Reflection

Skin; the largest organ of the body, functions as a substance, a signifier and a protective container. The role that skin plays, however, is not just purely instrumental: It is a site of contact and mediation with the world, a performative surface by which our identity is both formed and designated, serving as a symbolic interface of materialisation and meaning. ‘’Skin is a liminal structure, it is in-between, it is the template on which our experience, inner and outer, is inscribed, and our experience and inheritance, is there to be read by others.” 1, In a sense, skin is a form of archive that holds traces of our personal histories. Preservation and documentation of this record is vital and forms the contextual focus of my practice.

In my inquiry into the notion of skin as a site of inscription, I aim to draw attention to the often-overlooked scars and marks that bear testament to our experiences, whether accidental or self-made. The act of uncovering these hidden tethers is an attempt to address the uneasiness connected to concealment and exposure, which is necessary in order to understand the complexities of embodiment and inherence of inhabiting a skin. This attempt to capture this elusive nature of skin is an investigation to reveal evidence and questions embedded beneath the surface about identity, memory and the inextricable connection of the body and the embodied self.

My role in my practice is to be an archivist and creator. Material explorations in photographic medium’s qualities have been the primary vessel of preservation and creation. Photographs are reminiscent of time capsules and can only represent the past and therefore, like scars, signal an absence due to its temporal physical constraints when depicting the present. Both scars and photographs exist in a liminal space as a trace, ethereal and fleeting in their link to an event. ”The medium of photography speaks to the possibility of escaping the skin, for the negative is a vulnerable surface, is nothing but surface disconnected from its referent thus pure signifier and, most significantly for me, is a membrane, much as the skin is, upon which other things come to be inscribed.” 2 The properties of the medium not only dictate the nature of the representation in this space that is indexical, it in turn, determines the nature of the memories, imaginings and associations that overlay each other. Informed by the underlying substrate in which other processes are enacted.

Consisting of a series of portraits, the body of work is a collection of documented marks on individuals’ histories. Close-cropped, these scars left on the bodies pictured have come to stand in for memory, allowing the subject to be anonymous and only identifiable by the presented fragment. Treatment of these individuals as magnified skin-scapes, rather than traditional portraits depicting a face for reference, release an experience between bodies. ‘’Focusing on the nuances of skin, skin portraits allow our attention to move from the subjects’ identity to the experience of embodiment of many bodies, including the viewers. ‘’3 This push and pull between the viewer and their physical relationship with the portraits reveals a thin-skinned disposition, forcing a personal encounter that feels invasive in a public setting; a crossing of boundaries takes place. The motivations and concerns of my work are to challenge the value skin beyond a mere surface or receptacle and consider the embodied knowledge present.

Notes:

1. Michael J. Amy, Hans Gercke, and Heinz Norbert Jocks, Skin (Berlin: Heildberg, 2002), 22

2. Watson K. Amy, Complexion: Skin, Surface and Depth in Contemporary Art Practice (Johannesburg: The Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010), 84.

3. Kellett, Heidi. “Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contemporary Art. (Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, 2015) 244.

Bibliography:

Brown H. Elspeth and Phu, Thy. Feeling Photography. (London: Duke University Press, 2014)

Burbridge, Ben and Pollen, Annabella, Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contempoary Photographic Culture. (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2018)

Gibbons, Joan. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remeberance. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2009)
Kellett, Heidi. Skin Portraiture: Relational Embodiment and Contempoary Art. (Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, 2015)

Michael J. Amy, Hans Gercke, and Heinz Norbert Jocks, Skin (Berlin: Heildberg, 2002)
Watson K. Amy, Complexion: Skin, Surface and Depth in Contempoary Art Practice (Johannesburg: The Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010)

May 3, 2019Context, Contextual, Reflection, Research, skin, StatementLeave a commentEdit

Questioins and Answers with a Further Inquiry

Kira O' Reilly - Unknowing Remains

Research

Kira O’Reilly’s performance for Small Acts at the Millennium took place on her birthday and in the form of a private party to mark her time and existence through memory. Her guest comprised of ten invited strangers in a hotel function room. Brandy glasses with a fragment of text engraved on it, were handed out to toast this event. A traditional happy birthday was sung with no name followed with a ritual action. O’Reilly cleared the table and lay on the tablecloth. The brandy glasses used to toast earlier were gathered for a cupping. Each of the ten glasses was heated to create suction and applied to her back or legs. After ten minutes blood had collected beneath the skin. Each glass was removed, a cut made, the glass heated and replaced again. The suction acted to pulled through a slight opening in the skin.  Eventually the glasses were removed and the blood could spill’ onto the tablecloth, which was wrapped around her leaving traces of the event that took place. The only evidence of this work is the scars, the memories of the guests as well as O’Reilly herself, the few photos taken, the stained tablecloth and brandy glasses.

Miyako Ishiuchi uses methods of representation, that memorialize her subjects in her series Mother’s. Ishiuchi deprives her photographic works of colour in turn disassociates the subject from its original context and meanings, creating a degenerate copy of the real trace.

Ishiuchi’s close cropping of her mother’s ageing body, further removing us from the subject despite its intimate nature. Photographs are characterised their ‘dynamical connection both with the individual object, on the one hand, and with the senses of memory of the person for whom it serves as a sign, on the other‘s.”1 The images flatten the subject and emphasise the transitory nature of light and shadow enabling a ghostly transference of the remnants of her mother. the subject matter is based directly on the photographing of objects and accessories of the human body to document the trace of her mother’s life. 

Refer to: http://lhoaglund.com/behind-things-left-behind-ishiuchi-miyako (Retrieved: March 25, 2019)

Notes:

 1. Gibbons, Joan. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance (London: I.B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007), 33 

Illustrations:

https://www.klinebooks.com/pages/books/44568/ishiuchi-miyako-photography/miyako-ishiuchi-yokosuka-story-apartment-endless-night-1-9-4-7-1906-to-the-skin-mothers-signed (Retrieved: 12/03/2019)