CIARAN BEGLEY, JACK DUNBAR, JACK HARMAN (CUR), MATTHEW JAMES, SARAH MOSCA & ZAN WIMBERLEY.
’PHOTOMECHANICAL.’
13 FEBRUARY – 20 MARCH, 2020
“Photomechanical”, installation view, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
A discarded copy of ‘The Focal Encyclopaedia of Photography: Desk Edition’ (1969) has made its way into my possession where it currently resides… on my desk. It’s rather cumbersome, as are most of the entries: boasting over 1,700,000 words, 1,750 illustrations and the inclusion of 276 contributors, it is a wealth of information. The encyclopaedia marvels at photographic technologies and aims to educate the reader by ‘providing in-depth factual material of a type which readers often look for in reference books. A fair amount of additional historical, statistical and geographical information has been included…’ (1) primarily addressing the topics of: colour, economics, education, science and techniques. It’s not particularly scholarly, at a glance its contributors are hobbyists, enthusiasts, commercial successes and various other industry professionals, each eager to contribute to the canon.
Photography is difficult. (2) While its canon is inundated with theoretical, material and political discourse it remains elusive and unidentifiable. We can observe aspects of the photographic processes which we know to be essential to the medium. Thumbing through the encyclopaedia I find a leaflet enfolded between the pages, inviting the reader to contribute knowledge for the next edition. Despite its value, the publication is outdated and inherently biased as it presents photography through the lens. All considered, I thought it an interesting contribution to revise and extend the dialogue on the intersections between photo and object. The following are definitions taken from the encyclopaedia and include my annotations:
Zan Wimberley, Coal and Ice, video, Duration 18:31min, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Photomechanical.
Noting or pertaining to any of various processes for printing from surfaces prepared by the aid of photography.
Photomechanical effect.
The complex interplay of photochemistry and heat when a material is exposed to light.
Photographs are images sculpted by developer, modelled by shadow, moulded by light and carved by exposure time. (3) These materials and their handling are a sculptural process, the photographer’s hand is subjective and distorting.
The photomechanical explores the slippage between photo and object: how light is used as a tool for sculpting photographic material and how these processes might adumbrate some knowledge of the medium. In this way, each artist considers the basic physical and chemical properties of photographic materials, their histories and methods of production. Their works traverse between the two and three dimensional planes, spanning from the immaterial to the tactile.
Artificial Light.
Natural light is the light from the sun, moon or stars; all other kinds of lighting are classed as artificial. Electricity provides the principal source of artificial lighting used in photography.
Photographic materials are generally less sensitive to artificial light than to daylight, although in practice the difference is very slight and is dependent on the nature of the light source.
This exhibition presents artists whose work is to be looked at, not looked through, and gives an account for works created with artificial light based objects. Cumulatively, this a narrative of ‘light writing’ that is more emanative and reflexive of its own nature. A key facet of this is using illuminators not as a tools for the acceleration of images but as slow methods of carving out time. In this way, light is held as an assistant, rather than existing in abundance as natural phenomena.
Luminescence.
Visible glow of certain substances when subjected to stimulation by electro-magnetic radiation, electric fields or heat.
Schlieren Photography.
Schlieren is a German word meaning streaks or striations. It is applied to a class of optical system which make it possible to see small local changes of refractive index or thickness in transparent media. Schlieren systems are refined methods for observing those disturbances which in everyday life are seen by virtue of the apparent distortion the background.
Breaking down the fundamental mechanics of photography, light source - subject - image, Zan Wimberley makes heat cognitively understood and physically felt but invisible - though visible in real time with an obscura. This reveals the malleability and volatile stream of heat produced by a light source. Presented as an installation to be navigated by the audience, Wimberley’s work ‘Cascade’ transgresses photography to become physics as installation and performance. A diptych of video works accompany ‘name’ employing Schlieren imaging, to manipulate light in order to visualise invisible phenomena, to describe and understand the physical world in a way that no other medium can. The works ‘Coal and ice’ visualise and bring together the abstract, hyperobject concept of Climate Change and its consequences, in a way that is unique to the artists process.
Zan Wimberley, (L-R), “Cascade”, wax candle, studio light, plinth, variable, 2019, “Coal and Ice”, video, Duration 18:31min, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Flash Reflectors.
Electronic flash tubes are invariably mounted in a reflector to concentrate the maxi mum amount of light on the subject.
Reflector shapes vary enormously both according to the size of the flash and unit and the purpose for which it is intended.
The photograph reflects light; the object that produces it is often unknown or unacknowledged. In constructing his own flashguns, Matthew James explores the ways in which different materials and reflective surfaces cast light and shape an image. The flashgun is elusive; James’ work seeks to capture the moment of ignition, illuminating the illuminator.
Matthew James, installation view, mixed media, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Luminance.
Property of emitting light either as a source, or by reflection.
Similarly, Ciaran Begley’s practice is concerned with the projection of light. Using processes more akin to scientific experimentation, his ‘Limelight’ investigates limelight as both a perforative and literal incarnation of intense white light obtained by heating lime. This investigation is presented as a series of porcelain objects that work in conjunction to produce an image of their own being. In this iteration Begley’s ceramic objects have been fired completely black via a process of sooting. Rendered in this way the works no longer function as projectors of light, but absorb it, becoming receptacles of light.
Ciaran Begley, installation view, mixed media, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Photosculpture.
Method of automatic sculpture based on a camera image or images of the subject… attempts to use the camera for producing either bas reliefs or solid sculptures.
Jack Dunbar’s ‘Studies in light, movement and time’ explores the separation between images and objects. Formally the profile of a vase, the photographs depict what appear to be complete objects - seen only through the mediation of photographic apparatus. Each vase is only ever complete somewhere between the two and three dimensional space.
Jack Dunbar, Jack Lanagan Dunbar, Studies in light, movement and time (vase #3 Purple and blue Vase), (vase #10 Pink Vase), Archival print, 780 x 630 mm, 2016 Archival print, Holvast Moran Family Collection, Eldorado, 2016. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Sarah Mosca, installation view, mixed media, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Still Life.
To the photographer, still life subjects offer opportunities for experiments in composition, lighting, colour arrangement studies.
Since its inception, the photography of sculpture, specifically still objects, has become an intrinsic foundation from which the medium has come into its own. In his series of sculptural photographs, Jack Harman deconstructs the conventional photographic form. By pulping photographic paper into a refined clay and generating new forms that reference still life ceramic vessels. Using experimental firing techniques, Harman simultaneously exposes the photographic detritus and fires the clay, thereby fixing both the filmic surface and the photo in a single process.
Jack Harman, “Sculptural photograph (vessel #1, 2, 3, 4, 5-8)”, Gelatin Silver photograph, 700 x 210 mm, 2020. Photography Zan Wimberley.
Photomechanical imagines new photographies and modes of image making; before photographs were a community they were an experiment, a chemical reaction with penumbral limits.
FOOTNOTES
1 Unknown. (1969). The Focal encyclopedia of photography. London: Focal P., p.viii.
2 Mikuriya, J. (2017). A History of Light: The Idea of Photography. London: Bloomsbury, p.1.
3 Didi-Huberman, G. (1997). Contact Images.
Jack Harman