Courting Frustration
Precinct 35
14 JUNE – 7 JULY, 2019
Can a
photograph look at us? Is there such a thing as the ‘purely visual’?1 A picture functioning without repressive linguistic, cultural or ideological sinew clinging to it. The camera as an appearance recording instrument has the power to land the viewer of an image directly in the shoes—or eyes—of the author to present a frame and composition of a reality that does not cease to exist. The viewer is however, devoid of any command over the scene, where and what we are looking at—and indeed what we are not looking at—is all in the hands of the ‘other’.2
To re-present the three dimensional on the surface of a two dimensional material, is to reduce the physical world we all acknowledge to shapes, tones, and projections of reflected light. Our perceptual mind instantaneously translates what we see into a recognised concept, and connects a natural name to it. But what if this preconscious processing is purposely hindered, a disruption of visual perception. Victor Burgin commented that:
To look at a photograph beyond a certain period of time is to become frustrated: the image which on first looking gave pleasure by degrees becomes a veil behind which we now desire to see. To remain too long with a single image is to lose the imaginary command of the look, to relinquish it to that absent other to whom it belongs by right: the camera.3
To re-present the three dimensional on the surface of a two dimensional material, is to reduce the physical world we all acknowledge to shapes, tones, and projections of reflected light. Our perceptual mind instantaneously translates what we see into a recognised concept, and connects a natural name to it. But what if this preconscious processing is purposely hindered, a disruption of visual perception. Victor Burgin commented that:
To look at a photograph beyond a certain period of time is to become frustrated: the image which on first looking gave pleasure by degrees becomes a veil behind which we now desire to see. To remain too long with a single image is to lose the imaginary command of the look, to relinquish it to that absent other to whom it belongs by right: the camera.3
Ten seconds is said to be the threshold that we can comfortably view a still image, and to look longer is to court a frustration.4 Interestingly, this was also similar to the average length of a shot in classic cinema, which has declined from about twelve seconds in 1930 to two and a half seconds today.5 With this series of photographs, Lamb encourages this frustration, by giving nothing but the image. The seeking of answers when all that is provided are questions of location, narrative, formality and ultimately, perception.
Courting Frustration is a selection of works that after prolonged looking, cease to receive. Images that avoid our gaze—where we are not centralised, but alienated. Intentional in the fact that considered composition prolongs our command, or at least the illusion of it. Taking priority are images that hold a canonic generality, where an individual subject represents a whole ‘type’. In today’s level of mass communication, is the linguistic message indeed present in every image?
Courting Frustration is a selection of works that after prolonged looking, cease to receive. Images that avoid our gaze—where we are not centralised, but alienated. Intentional in the fact that considered composition prolongs our command, or at least the illusion of it. Taking priority are images that hold a canonic generality, where an individual subject represents a whole ‘type’. In today’s level of mass communication, is the linguistic message indeed present in every image?
1 ‘Looking at Photographs’, Screen Education, n. 24, (Fall), 1977, reprinted in, The Camera: Essence and Apparatus, Victor Burgin, MACK, London, 2018, p. 30.
2 The ‘other’ in this case being mechanical apparatus of the camera, and possibly—but not necessarily—the photographer themselves.
3 ‘Photography, Phantasy, Function’, Screen, 21, n. 1, (Spring), 1980, reprinted in, The Camera: Essence and Apparatus, Victor Burgin, MACK, London, 2018, p. 50.
4 ‘Looking at Photographs’, Screen Education, n. 24, (Fall), 1977, reprinted in, The Camera: Essence and Apparatus, Victor Burgin, MACK, London, 2018, p. 35 – 36.
5 G. Miller, ‘Data From A Century Of Cinema Reveals How Movies Have Evolved’, WIRED Magazine, 8 September 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/, (accessed 29 March 2019)