Constructed Landscapes
The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface.
Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces (1967)
Constructed Landscapes transforms colour negatives of landscapes initially taken as mere keepsakes through the act of slicing and splicing. The resulting photographs allude to an imaginary place, idealised spaces or as Foucault states, “a virtual space that opens up behind the surface”.
The work stems from a frustration with photographing landscape, something I refer to as photographic agoraphobia. For years, my work consisted of photographs taken in interior spaces, with suggestions of outside space, as seen through the ongoing body of work entitled Obstructed Views. As soon as I stepped outside with my camera, I felt overwhelmed with the possibilities and became aware of the lack of limitations (provided so neatly by an interior space).
My practice is based on an obsessive preoccupation with home. As a result of this obsession and despite my ambivalence, whenever I travelled, I found myself taking pictures of landscapes. These photographs were taken out of a purely personal need and desire to ‘take’ a piece of that land or place with me. As the photographs were initially taken with no conceptual agenda, I felt the very loaded history of the photographic genre of landscape impeded me from finding a use or purpose for the resulting images. I therefore found myself with rolls of film I was utterly disappointed with; the negatives sat and accumulated for years in boxes, neglected of any artistic function.
I have always found limitations inspiring and so what was initially a cause of frustration and disappointment, led to the idea of merging different places of personal meaning to create idealised and utopian landscapes, of giving meaning and function to these seemingly defunct negatives. As a result, photographs taken over several years in my country of birth (Israel), where I was raised (Venezuela), across the UK (where I currently live) and the US (where my sister resides) have formed the basis of this ongoing project.
The act of physically merging landscapes from different parts of the world refers to the transitional aspect of our contemporary world in a metaphorical way. Following on from my previous work, Constructed Landscapes is interested in creating a space that defies specificity, refers to the transient and to the blurring of space, memory and time.
Passing through different locations on a regular basis points to the accumulation of memories (both individual and collective). The spaces created could be anywhere, they are ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary; they are a conflation. One could say this conflation transforms place into space, a specific place that is initially loaded with personal meaning, memories and connotations to a space that has been emptied of subjectivity and becomes universal.
Constructed Landscapes allows me to engage the loaded histories of landscape photography. The technical aspect of the work is very consciously in direct conversation with the history of photography, or more specifically with pictorialist tendencies of combination printing and the use of multiple negatives. Inevitably, this creates a link to painting and the ongoing dialogue painting and photography continue to share in terms of constructing an image and different modes of representation.
Aside from referencing early photographic manipulation, the work is in dialogue with more modern tendencies of experimental photography and film techniques such as montage, collage, multiple exposures, etc. While distinctly holding historical references, the work also engages with the contemporary discourse around manipulation, of analogue versus digital and how in turn this affects photography’s status and relationship to reality.
By permanently removing unwanted aspects of the negative with a scalpel, an irreversibility comes to the fore which is not present in current digital manipulation where one can ‘undo’ an action repeatedly and maintain an original ‘master’ file. It is this irreversibility and the slight idiosyncrasies caused whereby the two negatives meet and overlap that I am interested in; how the areas around the incisions flare up, leaking light and creating certain stains around the edges going beyond the frame. On a conceptual level, the violent and destructive connotations of the act of cutting and removing certain elements of a negative could be perceived as a political and environmental metaphor, referring to the destruction of land and nature.
Where only one layer of negative remains, an interesting visual effect and metaphor is created. When printed, the one-layered area is transformed into a black stain. The black area becomes an obstruction and opening simultaneously. It can be read as an element of landscape in its own right such as a river or a geological cut (depending on its placement within the image), or in a more metaphorical or abstract way. Even though it is a black space that can be perceived as a void, it refers—through its absence—to what was once there or to what is actually there but hidden from view. The elements mentioned above- the black stain, idiosyncrasies and imperfections- also point to the manual intervention and provide a fitting juxtaposition to the mechanical aspect of photography.
It seems important to discuss the decision of working specifically with colour rather than B&W film. The overlap of B&W negatives is a familiar and traditional process whereas the overlap of colour negatives presents very particular challenges. When overlapping two colour negatives-especially when two films from different manufacturers such as Kodak and Fuji, that have different tendencies, are used - an interesting conflict arises. Rather than being able to attain the ‘correct’ filtration that is such an intrinsic part of colour printing, one ends up having to find a compromise and accepting what could be deemed as an ‘incorrect’ colour cast.
Aside from the visual effect and air of artificiality the colour casts create, I am interested in how this need to compromise on the so-called ‘correct’ colour filtration could be read as another political metaphor. This seems particularly relevant considering the original locations of the photographs (not that this is referred to in the titles but would inevitably come up as a question or referred to in any accompanying text.) The subject of land is loaded in itself but even more so considering some of the recurring merged locations in Constructed Landscapes are Britain and Israel (a former British Mandate).
Even though I speak of the connotations these specific locations hold (in this case focusing on the political), so far, in the majority of the work, man-made elements have been cut out of the negatives in an attempt to ‘neutralise’ and remove clues or connotations these elements may provide to a certain location. It is this precise contradiction and conflict, of attempting to avoid specificity versus the loaded connotations of land or place inherent in these photographs, which I find interesting and am continuing to explore further.
Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces (1967)
Constructed Landscapes transforms colour negatives of landscapes initially taken as mere keepsakes through the act of slicing and splicing. The resulting photographs allude to an imaginary place, idealised spaces or as Foucault states, “a virtual space that opens up behind the surface”.
The work stems from a frustration with photographing landscape, something I refer to as photographic agoraphobia. For years, my work consisted of photographs taken in interior spaces, with suggestions of outside space, as seen through the ongoing body of work entitled Obstructed Views. As soon as I stepped outside with my camera, I felt overwhelmed with the possibilities and became aware of the lack of limitations (provided so neatly by an interior space).
My practice is based on an obsessive preoccupation with home. As a result of this obsession and despite my ambivalence, whenever I travelled, I found myself taking pictures of landscapes. These photographs were taken out of a purely personal need and desire to ‘take’ a piece of that land or place with me. As the photographs were initially taken with no conceptual agenda, I felt the very loaded history of the photographic genre of landscape impeded me from finding a use or purpose for the resulting images. I therefore found myself with rolls of film I was utterly disappointed with; the negatives sat and accumulated for years in boxes, neglected of any artistic function.
I have always found limitations inspiring and so what was initially a cause of frustration and disappointment, led to the idea of merging different places of personal meaning to create idealised and utopian landscapes, of giving meaning and function to these seemingly defunct negatives. As a result, photographs taken over several years in my country of birth (Israel), where I was raised (Venezuela), across the UK (where I currently live) and the US (where my sister resides) have formed the basis of this ongoing project.
The act of physically merging landscapes from different parts of the world refers to the transitional aspect of our contemporary world in a metaphorical way. Following on from my previous work, Constructed Landscapes is interested in creating a space that defies specificity, refers to the transient and to the blurring of space, memory and time.
Passing through different locations on a regular basis points to the accumulation of memories (both individual and collective). The spaces created could be anywhere, they are ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary; they are a conflation. One could say this conflation transforms place into space, a specific place that is initially loaded with personal meaning, memories and connotations to a space that has been emptied of subjectivity and becomes universal.
Constructed Landscapes allows me to engage the loaded histories of landscape photography. The technical aspect of the work is very consciously in direct conversation with the history of photography, or more specifically with pictorialist tendencies of combination printing and the use of multiple negatives. Inevitably, this creates a link to painting and the ongoing dialogue painting and photography continue to share in terms of constructing an image and different modes of representation.
Aside from referencing early photographic manipulation, the work is in dialogue with more modern tendencies of experimental photography and film techniques such as montage, collage, multiple exposures, etc. While distinctly holding historical references, the work also engages with the contemporary discourse around manipulation, of analogue versus digital and how in turn this affects photography’s status and relationship to reality.
By permanently removing unwanted aspects of the negative with a scalpel, an irreversibility comes to the fore which is not present in current digital manipulation where one can ‘undo’ an action repeatedly and maintain an original ‘master’ file. It is this irreversibility and the slight idiosyncrasies caused whereby the two negatives meet and overlap that I am interested in; how the areas around the incisions flare up, leaking light and creating certain stains around the edges going beyond the frame. On a conceptual level, the violent and destructive connotations of the act of cutting and removing certain elements of a negative could be perceived as a political and environmental metaphor, referring to the destruction of land and nature.
Where only one layer of negative remains, an interesting visual effect and metaphor is created. When printed, the one-layered area is transformed into a black stain. The black area becomes an obstruction and opening simultaneously. It can be read as an element of landscape in its own right such as a river or a geological cut (depending on its placement within the image), or in a more metaphorical or abstract way. Even though it is a black space that can be perceived as a void, it refers—through its absence—to what was once there or to what is actually there but hidden from view. The elements mentioned above- the black stain, idiosyncrasies and imperfections- also point to the manual intervention and provide a fitting juxtaposition to the mechanical aspect of photography.
It seems important to discuss the decision of working specifically with colour rather than B&W film. The overlap of B&W negatives is a familiar and traditional process whereas the overlap of colour negatives presents very particular challenges. When overlapping two colour negatives-especially when two films from different manufacturers such as Kodak and Fuji, that have different tendencies, are used - an interesting conflict arises. Rather than being able to attain the ‘correct’ filtration that is such an intrinsic part of colour printing, one ends up having to find a compromise and accepting what could be deemed as an ‘incorrect’ colour cast.
Aside from the visual effect and air of artificiality the colour casts create, I am interested in how this need to compromise on the so-called ‘correct’ colour filtration could be read as another political metaphor. This seems particularly relevant considering the original locations of the photographs (not that this is referred to in the titles but would inevitably come up as a question or referred to in any accompanying text.) The subject of land is loaded in itself but even more so considering some of the recurring merged locations in Constructed Landscapes are Britain and Israel (a former British Mandate).
Even though I speak of the connotations these specific locations hold (in this case focusing on the political), so far, in the majority of the work, man-made elements have been cut out of the negatives in an attempt to ‘neutralise’ and remove clues or connotations these elements may provide to a certain location. It is this precise contradiction and conflict, of attempting to avoid specificity versus the loaded connotations of land or place inherent in these photographs, which I find interesting and am continuing to explore further.