MEMORIES IN PLACE
Stephen Elvidge
Since both my parents and older brother passed away, my response to this through my artwork, that started as looking at how memories fade through time; has been developing from the literal to the ephemeral that attempts to show representations, portraits in absence, aftermaths within a space, and a signifier of something that is recalled.
Much of my work was set in the council house where I was born, and my parents had lived in for over 50 years. I tried to document my parent’s presence, through projected texts and images; signs of faded occupation. Now these images form an archive, and my response can no longer be from first-hand experience; with my parents or the house.
It is an on-going project that now deals with absence/presence. I have previously specifically responded to what Roland Barthes in his book: Camera Lucida refers to as ‘punctum’. How an aspect of an image; not necessarily the intention of the photographer; could illicit an emotional response from the viewer, triggered by a past experience. Which has led me to research the writings of Gaston Bachelard in ‘Poetics of Space’, the ancient Greek theory of ‘Khora’, and the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’; and specifically aspects of work by artists Rachel Whiteread, Christian Boltanski, and Cornelia Parker. How do they and I respond and contextualize in the problems of theorising the highly subjective and how can the work be read in the sharing of codes (specifically referencing Stuart Hall in: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices), and the various theories of language of representation.
The most recent images I have produced are referring to objects, images, experiences left behind – last vestiges; and what we take with us, i.e. memories and dreams; when confronted by bereavement and a sense of loss.
As an artist/photographer working with retrieval of memory I am creating ‘events’ in which the work searches for its own context and boundaries; it is time itself that is revealed and experienced as the central subject. Since all narratives reference time, I use these techniques to remind the viewer of their own story and experience of time.
In essence, the photograph, far from being a literal or mirror image of the world, is an endlessly deceptive form of representation. In the end, it is a sealed world to which we bring meaning; a complex play of absence and presence. But is also part of a dead world. As Barthes insisted, whenever we look at a photograph we look at something that no longer exists. It replicates what we have lost, and in one sense suggests a deep psychological need to record, retain, and to classify the world of our actions. For if a photograph depends on light, it also depends on the dark, and what falls between, the shadow; hence the gap, space, something not seen but imagined or remembered.
I have produced a film (in a photographic darkroom), titled 'Memories in Place', which attempts to show in visual form absence/presence in process; where I produce negatives of personal images related to absence/presence on acetate; then in the darkroom expose these to photographic light sensitive paper. I then place this paper onto a wall and in safe-light conditions; then film the following: I paint ‘developer’ onto a selected part of the image; as this develops, I spray ‘fix’ onto selected parts; then I switch on the main light; this starts to turn undeveloped parts black. This is speeded up by painting developer around the fixed part of the image. This process is then repeated for other images.
The resulting film (combined with a recording of one of the last conversations I had with my father – who was in a care home shortly before his death. Numerous strokes had brought on early onset dementia, which affected his own memory retrieval and inhibited his speech) shows interplay between images appearing/disappearing replicating our own retrieval of memory. It is to be projected onto an image that shows traces left by a mirror that had been removed from a wall in my parents’ house prior to the council taking the house back.
The film 'Memories in Place' is available to view on YouTube
Two photography books (and downloadable PDF versions) are available on the Blurb online bookstore that relate to this body of work:
‘Memories in Place’, and ‘Aftermaths Within a Space’ (the latter being the individual images created during film-making for 'Memories in Place')
I am also a member of research and exhibition group A Place in Time (APT)
www.aplaceintime.info
Stephen Elvidge
Since both my parents and older brother passed away, my response to this through my artwork, that started as looking at how memories fade through time; has been developing from the literal to the ephemeral that attempts to show representations, portraits in absence, aftermaths within a space, and a signifier of something that is recalled.
Much of my work was set in the council house where I was born, and my parents had lived in for over 50 years. I tried to document my parent’s presence, through projected texts and images; signs of faded occupation. Now these images form an archive, and my response can no longer be from first-hand experience; with my parents or the house.
It is an on-going project that now deals with absence/presence. I have previously specifically responded to what Roland Barthes in his book: Camera Lucida refers to as ‘punctum’. How an aspect of an image; not necessarily the intention of the photographer; could illicit an emotional response from the viewer, triggered by a past experience. Which has led me to research the writings of Gaston Bachelard in ‘Poetics of Space’, the ancient Greek theory of ‘Khora’, and the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’; and specifically aspects of work by artists Rachel Whiteread, Christian Boltanski, and Cornelia Parker. How do they and I respond and contextualize in the problems of theorising the highly subjective and how can the work be read in the sharing of codes (specifically referencing Stuart Hall in: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices), and the various theories of language of representation.
The most recent images I have produced are referring to objects, images, experiences left behind – last vestiges; and what we take with us, i.e. memories and dreams; when confronted by bereavement and a sense of loss.
As an artist/photographer working with retrieval of memory I am creating ‘events’ in which the work searches for its own context and boundaries; it is time itself that is revealed and experienced as the central subject. Since all narratives reference time, I use these techniques to remind the viewer of their own story and experience of time.
In essence, the photograph, far from being a literal or mirror image of the world, is an endlessly deceptive form of representation. In the end, it is a sealed world to which we bring meaning; a complex play of absence and presence. But is also part of a dead world. As Barthes insisted, whenever we look at a photograph we look at something that no longer exists. It replicates what we have lost, and in one sense suggests a deep psychological need to record, retain, and to classify the world of our actions. For if a photograph depends on light, it also depends on the dark, and what falls between, the shadow; hence the gap, space, something not seen but imagined or remembered.
I have produced a film (in a photographic darkroom), titled 'Memories in Place', which attempts to show in visual form absence/presence in process; where I produce negatives of personal images related to absence/presence on acetate; then in the darkroom expose these to photographic light sensitive paper. I then place this paper onto a wall and in safe-light conditions; then film the following: I paint ‘developer’ onto a selected part of the image; as this develops, I spray ‘fix’ onto selected parts; then I switch on the main light; this starts to turn undeveloped parts black. This is speeded up by painting developer around the fixed part of the image. This process is then repeated for other images.
The resulting film (combined with a recording of one of the last conversations I had with my father – who was in a care home shortly before his death. Numerous strokes had brought on early onset dementia, which affected his own memory retrieval and inhibited his speech) shows interplay between images appearing/disappearing replicating our own retrieval of memory. It is to be projected onto an image that shows traces left by a mirror that had been removed from a wall in my parents’ house prior to the council taking the house back.
The film 'Memories in Place' is available to view on YouTube
Two photography books (and downloadable PDF versions) are available on the Blurb online bookstore that relate to this body of work:
‘Memories in Place’, and ‘Aftermaths Within a Space’ (the latter being the individual images created during film-making for 'Memories in Place')
I am also a member of research and exhibition group A Place in Time (APT)
www.aplaceintime.info
