User:Lucian Wester/draft gradProposal

Tentative Title: ……

General Introduction: My working method is strongly related to the questions about photography that I investigated. I might be described as a kind of ‘optical engineer’, someone who explores the visual side of scientific principles, phenomena and effects and tries to understand them in a different context than that of evidence of the truth. A context that is linked to the discourse of art and also relates to the everyday life. By deconstructing photography in several ways I try to reveal in an aesthetic way structures that underline photography.

Relation to previous practice:

Working Method The way that I worked during my BA was by looking and roaming around urban areas to find buildings that I could use for a photograph. I than made test that I cropped and printed to see if it would work the way that I wanted, the next step was to photograph it with a technical camera that gave me lost of precision.

After my graduation from my Bachelor I had the feeling that I needed to go beyond the photography image to answer questions that I had about photography. Questions like: how objective is photography? How does relates its to context? What is its relation to the Fine Arts? What’s its object status? Is it a document or more?

To answer these questions I got the feeling that I needed to work with different materials and media to be able to reflect on these questions; so for example I started working with light only, or making devises or designing spaces to create an environment that could reflect on questions you had about photography. In a sense I am making my own medium of photography. So my method has changed over time to be able to answer questions that I had. To clarify here is a description that I made about the work from the second period:

The installation that I made for the assessment in the second trimester consisted from two works; one made by a slide projector and a beamer and the second projection by a 35mm SLR camera with a construction lamp. The first large projection is projected by the slide projector at an angle to the wall that straightens the lines made by the perspective within the slide. The beamer project at a more straight angle the same image over the slide projection, although this image is inverted in color which turns the whole projection into black/grey/whitish. But because both projectors are not real close together and close to the floor you will block the lights of them with your body revealing the true color of the other projector. The second projection is made by a camera which functions as a projector. The camera shutter is opened and there is a slide where normally the film is. The back is open whereon a construction lamp is mounted that shines light through the slide and the lens onto a wall. Also this projection is in an angle, which straightens the lines of the picture. Both photograph are of façades of buildings that are well projected from the outside or inside world through walls and surveillance systems. The camera projects an image of two surveillance camera and the big grey projection is an image of a prison painted blue and orange. I tried to make the presentation more of an installation by projection not straight onto a wall but at an angle into a corner and by making the projector (in the case of the camera projector) into an object itself. The angle of the corner of the wall was in this case 90 degrees I would have liked it to more towards an angle of 60 degrees, so for future projections and installations it will be interesting alter the space by adding walls.

This was the description I made from the second period; what you see is that I constructed works/objects that tried to somehow turn itself inside out. For example I made a camera into a projector and thereby I show how similar these two machines are. Also the other projection shows an underlying construction of physical phenomena of light, turning these concepts into works that let us contemplate these phenomena is one of the goals that I want to achieve with my work.

Relation to a larger context:

In the essays from last year I have tried to investigate the discourses and the historical context to which my works speak. The first two might not directly reflect my own work but I tried to position myself within a larger context.

Abstract first essay: Why do we still want to see a photograph a newspaper to tell us something described in an article is true? For this essay I have taken two text; Objectivity by Lorraine Datson & Peter Galison and The burden of representation by John Tagg and tried to combine them to make a sketch of how photography developed. In Objectivity Lorraine Datson & Peter Galison describe the change in the scientific virtues and practices over time illustrated by the images from various scientific atlases. John Tagg describes in The burden of representation the history of photography and in particular that of the portrait and how it is used as a machine of power.

Abrstract second essay: This essay describes how photography became accepted within the fine art world through Conceptual art. The Conceptualist used photography as a documentation method (photography’s claim on the real) to make their work more conceptual, which ultimately resulted in an aesthetic of administration and photography as a fine art medium.

For my thesis I want to continue this investigations into the theoretical field that surrounds art and photography to give me an even better position within all these different paradigms.

Practical steps:

In the first period I want to create some works in the darkroom with some optics. But at the same time I want to start with reading and writing for my thesis, because I know that the thesis will take a lot of energy from me because I not the fasted reader and writer. In the other periods the installations will become more important; how multiple works will come together and react to each other.

References:

Artist Bend and Hilla Becher William Eggleston Piet Mondriaan Jan Dibbets Gerhard richter - http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/paintings/ Marcel Broodhaers Katja Mater - http://www.katjamater.com/project/the-human-colour-wheel/work/ Alexandra Leykauf - http://www.gmvz.com/?cat=artist&obj=7

Theory Kant after Duchamp - Thierry de Duve The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths - Rosalind E. Krauss Voyage On The North Sea - RosalindKrauss The Practice of Everyday Life - De Certeau Everyday Life and Cultural Theory - Ben Highmore And more…