The gallery wall – Documentary as art exercise

Look at some more images from this series on the artist’s website. • How do Pickering’s images make you feel? • Is Public Order an effective use of documentary or is it misleading? Make some notes in your learning log.

It is unfortunate that the coursework already pointed out that the work was of police training grounds as it would have been interesting to have gauged my own reaction. AS it was I cannot say how the images made me feel as my perception was already biased. They do have a feeling of desolation and you are aware as a viewer that there are no signs of human life in the images. The closest hint to human existence is the police helmets with the wall text of ‘violent man’ and ‘guards’, or the bottles in the frosted shop front. The CCTV lends a dystopian feel, an aftermath of human existence.

Without the information about it being a police training ground it could appear misleading as it represents an apocalypse style view.  If the information is provided then it documents an area that most people do not have access to in a similar fashion to Sally Mann’s Body Farm.

The effect could be attributed in some way to the ‘Uncanny Valley’ effect. This is usually viewed more in terms of people’s fear /wariness of things which share human traits such as dolls, clowns or robots hence their inclusion in horror films. However I would image that the fact that our brain tells us that humans should live here yet cannot find any recognition or signs of existence could lead us to the ;uncanny feeling’

Gregory Crewdson’s work also leaves me with this feeling as my brain tells me that something is not quite right’. I recognise the human element yet it appears unnatural.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

 

The gallery wall – Documentary as art

Research point

Look online at Paul Seawright’s work, Sectarian Murders. • How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art? Listen to Paul Seawright talk about his work at: http://vimeo.com/76940827 [accessed 24/02/14] • What is the core of his argument? Do you agree with him? • If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its meaning?

I found Paul Seawright’s Sectarian Murder images interesting. Documentary is considered ‘cold’ and the text accompanying the images denotes no leaning to any religious viewpoint. The images put us at the scene albeit at a later date similar to aftermath photography. It becomes art because the images leave the viewer to interrupt or ‘fill I the blanks’. He explains that if his work is too explicit it becomes journalistic, this is true in the sense that if he added names or more detail it becomes ‘news’ rather than a reflective piece of work. The draw to the work is initially the title, you know that it relates in some way to sectarian murders, the pull is the small snippet of information which paints the scene so that it transforms a child’s playground into a dark sinister place. The interpretation is left to the viewer, the viewpoint in the children playground has been taken from to top of the slide (the view of the innocent child) looking on to what could be the spot! The motorbike passing the caravan with the description stating the gun was fired from a motorbike encourages you to take on the view of the victim.

I think that defining documentary photography as art is more about the reflective / contemplative nature of the work. Joel Meyerowitz’s photographs of the twin towers seems to sit more within documentary as he documented and made a visual record of the aftermath although if the images were curated differently to offer up alternative information in which the viewer might contemplate more on a particular smaller story within the bigger picture it could be seen differently. Unfortunately our knowledge of the twin towers and visual exposure is so great that it would seem inappropriate to focus on minute details to contemplate in the name of art, perhaps the passage of time will change that view.