Lucian Wester - All descriptions

All Descriptions

First trimester

The object described is a photo installation at my graduation exhibition. The installation is contains a 6x6 medium format slide projector. The slide projector is standing on a small white base and is aimed ad a corner of the room in witch the installation stands. A book is placed beneath the front of the projector to give the projector an angle of about 45 degrees up instead off projecting horizontally. The projector projects a slide photo into a corner of the room. The projection covers two pieces of wall and a piece of the ceiling. The photograph that is projected is a photo of the exact same place or corner that the projector is projecting on. At first glance the projector seems only to project light. That’s because if the image fits exactly over the place you can’t see that there is a slide in the slide projector. But when the image is slightly out of position you can see that there is a photo projected. By closely looking at the projection you will notes that what at first glance was looking like a projector only projecting light is in fact projecting a image.

The slide photograph inside the slide projector must have the exact same scale of the wall where it is projected on, otherwise aberration will occur in some parts of the projection. Therefore the focal length of the projector must be the same as that of the camera where the picture is taken with. For this particular projection, with the 6x6 medium format projector, it was a focal length of 150 mm witch is a telephoto lens. The camera must be placed in the exact same spot where later on the projector will stand and has a same angle to match the projector.

The bubble image that the projector creates is bound to the place where the photograph was taken and can therefore only been seen in context off its origin. The projector creates a photographic frame on the wall, the frame where all photography is concern with, but this time we also see everything that’s outside of the frame. The projection lets us think about photography, how it recreates our world, what it frames and what is outside of the frame. Susan Sontag describes in her essay bundle ‘On photography’ that a second world has been created existing only off photographic images and that this second world lets us see the first in different way. The layer of photographic light that illuminates the wall is somewhat like this second world that Sontag describes.

First: My presentation consisted of 7 color photographs hang in a straight line.

In the beginning of the period I started to experiment with using colored gels in front of the flash of my camera. First I tried what would happen when you photograph green plants with a magenta flash but that mostly gave magenta pictures. But when I tried to make white light from green and magenta flashes together I found out that when the two are slightly in a different location you create colored shadows.

I soon discovered that if I used magenta and green or cyan and red people where confused with stereo photography so I decided to use only the combination yellow and blue.

By shooting at lost of different locations I started to look for mostly places with fences that gave lots of opportunities to give interesting shadows. Shadows that actually added something to the place, gave it a different/new meaning. I also stuck deliberately to taking these photographs outside, because these colored light and shadows are more common in a studio environment than in street. The fact that cant really see how these shadows are created is what makes it interesting.

One recommendation I got from the assessment was that it might have bin better to show these pictures on light boxes or with a projector or beamer. Because of the fact that light was such important part of the work and that wasn’t really reflected in the presentation. I think that it would be interesting to show these photographs on light boxes fore than the lightness of the colored shadows will really stand out.

Second: My presentation consisted of two projections; 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.

The feedback that I got from the teachers during assessment day was quit positive; they thought that there was a good combination between the conceptual parts of the works and the way they were executed. There were some questions and how to go further from here whereon I answered that I would like to explore a bit more what I can do with light. Maybe make some ligthworks.

Third trimester

My work Recently I had an exhibition of my own work in a gallery in Amsterdam for which I used a similar way of presenting my pictures. For this series of photograph, all depicting façades of buildings in a rather abstract way, I chose to show them without frames or white boarders. Quite the same way as the new prints in the Breitner exhibition with exception that my photographs where printed on a matt paper with matt ink which end in the result of a picture without any glossiness to it. Therefore it’s not so surprising that some people reject to them with: ‘Wow it looks almost like a painting’. Hearing this a few times I thought to myself: ‘should I see this as a compliment or not?’ What is the status of my work? Is it important that they are photographs or just works of art?

The fact that I didn’t frame my photographs hat nothing to do with the fact that maybe looked more contemporary that way, more like photographs. I wanted to presented the photos not as loose singles but as a series and frames would create barriers between them and the gallery space in which they where exhibit.

My decision to print on matt paper didn’t start of with the idea to make my photographs look like paintings, but after trying different kinds of glossy and matt papers I ended up choosing for a matt fine art paper with a little structure in it. Trough this paper I got the same softness back that the original wall that I photographed had when I photographed them. The photographs get a high tactility and immense richness in shades of colours. It’s almost like the image lies on top of the paper, although technical that’s actually the case, the directness of the image is not disturbed by any kind of reflection.

This might explain that I did not start of to imitate paintings but the fact remains that people mention that they look like them and still I don’t know what to think of it. But I might say that I like the ambivalence of it, the fact that is disturbing for people to look at and not really can tell what it is. In the end the works are photographs made with a new kind of printing process that gives them a different aesthetic than that we are used of photography.

A question that came to my head look at the exhibit of Breitner was: would it be interesting to an audience to show my sketch material? Although they are made in the same medium as the final works they will have a different character, they are much more like documents. Not only by sheer fact that they are documents to me but also in the way they look and are made. For instance they contain more information because in most cases they are made with a wide-angle lens so that later I can crop them to the exact size I want. When I know what I want I go back to the place and re-photograph the scene with a large-format camera. I have to admit that this could be interesting to see for an audience, just as it is interesting to see the pictures made by Breitner and how he used them for his paintings but not as works of art because they where not produced with that purpose. By turning his pictures into street photography avant la lettre the curators are just trying to exploit an oeuvre by turning it into something that is popular these days. Everyone owns a camera these days and the easiest way of getting started with making nice pictures is to go out onto the streets to take pictures of people and buildings. That’s the exact same way I started out when I got my first camera from my father. It sounds strange to me to claim that Breitner was a pioneer of street photography because his photographs where never showed in this context before and street photography is approximately 80 to 90 years old. In cording to the definition of a pioneer the pioneer enters new territory that has not been discovered jet with the purpose that other can follow him. So Breitner may be called a street photographer in hindsight that doesn’t make his a pioneer. The true pioneer of street photography is mister Oskar Barnack the maker of the first Leica camera not because he made pictures but because he made the tool that made it possible.

27 august 2012 An attemption to describe my current exhibition and work. The combination of work show in the exhibition ‘JEK Bezet’ at the Krabbedans in Eindhoven is build out of four independent works. The work I will try to describe individually now:

Natural Gradients #1 (colour photograms) What: three colour photograms all 14cm high and 40cm wide. Each photogram has two colour gradients, pared complementary (red/cyan, green/magenta, blue/yellow), flowing in to each other from the sides. The two gradients on one paper are not in the exact same position, which result that for example there’s a stroke with a red gradient than a stroke of both red and cyan gradients flowing into each other and another stroke with cyan gradient.

How: the work where made in a colour darkroom with a colour projector set an angle of about 30° to the paper. Though this angle one side of the paper was situated closer to the light source than the other end of the paper. One physical property of light is that over a distance in space it will decrease in strength, which leaves on the photographic paper a gradient. To get two gradients the paper had to be exposed twice and in between reversed in place and the colour filtered light set to be complementary.

Why: with this work I wanted to see how abstract I could make a work and still reflect on the medium photography. The fact that the works are purely made of photographic material, colour paper and colour projector, and light makes them very true photographic but completely abstract at the same time. This is also one subject that interest me al lot; the both abstract and objectiveness (or indexallity) of the medium.

Next to Natural gradient #1 a presented a work, untiled. What: the work is a photograph of a view from a window; the window is half open and bright white. The rest of the view is out of focus but it is clearly a small city, there’s one large tree in the fore ground but around are only houses and other buildings. The sun is setting over the scene and cast a yellow/orange light over the buildings.

How: the photo was taken with a flash on top of the camera, which gives the window the bright white tint that it has.

Why: the brightness of the window creates a second frame within the picture and thus emphasizing the fact that a photograph has a frame. The fact that this work and the Natural gradients #1 are facing each other on the wall creates a connection between the two. Both images on their own ask questions about the abstractness or abstract part within photography and between them the question is almost literal; both made out of photographic material but at the same time very different. The notion of ‘blind sight’ describes the abstract part of photography quit beautiful.

Basalt What: six colour photographs of a basalt quay, every time the same subject but with different colours in the space between the rocks. The colours are: Red, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Blue and Yellow.

How: The photographs are created with two light sources that are both coloured, but always complimentary. The white light created by these two lights shines over the rocks, but due to the fact that both light sources are not in the same place coloured shadows appear in the spaces between the rocks.

Why: because the light was split up but trough the complementary colours put together again which leaves the coloured shadows that makes the photographs an unnatural look. In some the photographs the coloured shadow becomes lighter than the object itself, which gives the idea that the coloured shadow is painted into the photograph. I used the basalt not only for the fact that is has nice spaces between the rocks but also because it has by nature a nice geometrical form and is building material used to make dykes that can withstand storms. After the stones are laid they form together a strong grid.

Natural gradients #2 (coloured light) On exhibit in this exhibition only one pair: Green/Magenta. What: six coloured fluorescent tube lights paired complementary; Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta and Blue/Yellow. The pairs have about 20 centimetres between them and one hangs higher than the other. Also the wires are still visible.

How: the fluorescent tube lights are stripped of their light fixtures and screwed into the wall. Every tube has a different colour gel around him that creates the coloured light.

Why: I wanted to go a step beyond photography and make a work entirely based upon light. Also to see how this would speak or interact with the other more photo based work that I have made so far. In this work, I deliberately choose to let the technical construction, such as the wires, visible. This element is also present in the work ‘Natural gradients #1’ where some corners are consistently odd because the magnification window blocked the light. Elements like these expose the construction or the traces of the construction that are often hidden fore the viewer and are like the alterations that are left behind after the disassembling and reconstruction.