Photography's role in Surrealism

 The Surrealism movement aims to recreate the dreamy, 'in between' moments of everyday life that we now describe as ‘surreal’, through the means of art. The movement started in Paris in 1924 when Andre Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto which in a summary aims ‘to free one’s mind from the past and from everyday reality so one can arrive at truths one has never known’. (source). It focuses on an interest in the irrational, often using a juxtaposition of objects and often not making sense.

                The role of photography in Surrealism strives to go beyond the rational with the use of a camera – an actual machine to not only capture, but distort and manipulate the way we perceive the world. I think that photography is a successful medium in portraying the surreal, in that it is able to capture images of real life that when presented in a surreal way, have a more intense effect as they are images of real objects, as opposed to painted representations. There is a truth in photography; people are more likely to believe photographs as they know they are usually a captured image of reality. However this belief is taken advantage of by Surrealists, creating images that force you to look twice to see what they are and the reason behind them being photographed.

                Sigmund Freud inspired the movement with his theory of the unconscious mind – that the things we have a desire to do but are repressed from doing, leads to desires being hidden, developing a dark ‘unconscious’.  An example of the ‘in between’ moments that inspire surrealism being shown through an image is Brassai’s series ‘Involuntary Sculptures’ from 1933, and in particular, the image of a folded and rolled up bus ticket. At first it is unclear as to what the image is, as it takes an almost abstract, sculptural form as the title of the series suggests. The usually mundane object of a bus ticket is shown in the image to be folded up and rolled, as if it has been absent-mindedly played with in a moment of boredom on a bus. This is the type of in between moments that surrealists are inspired by, where the unconscious takes over momentarily, whilst the mind is busy on other thoughts.

                Freud had methods to ‘reveal’ the desires of the unconscious through psychoanalytical exercises such as dream analysis and word games such as word association, where he would say a word and ask the person to say the first word that comes into their head in relation to this, generating seemingly random associations that may reveal the unconscious.  Photography was seen as a possible visual equivalent to such word association – with some photographers taking a haphazard approach of not looking through the viewfinder, or randomly photographing whatever comes into their head or in front of the lens. For photographers, the use of cameras were a method of sidestepping the rational mind, as there is an element of chance and chaos in photographing randomly. More modern movements in photography such as Lomography have clearly drawn on this surrealist approach.

Visual features and motifs of surrealism and in particular, surrealist photography include:

• ·         Body vs. Mind

• ·         Female Nude (often representing sex & desires of the unconscious)

• ·         Ordinary/extraordinary

• ·         The Unconscious (that could relate to the unconscious desire of the viewer)

• ·         Symbolic use of objects

• ·         Strange juxtapositions of the everyday (leaving viewers with an unsettling feeling of what should be normal)

• ·         Practices such as photomontage (fitting with the combination of random objects) and Solarisation/Brulage (creating surreal visual effects)

 

Another key figure in the Surrealism movement was Man Ray, also using photography as his chosen medium to portray the surreal. He used the technique of Solarisation to create a surreal and visually interesting effect to his images. This involved exposing either the print or negative to light briefly, whilst it is developing, resulting in a complete or partial reversal of tones, especially around the edges of objects in an image, creating a black outline around things, creating an artificial effect. This again manipulates the belief that a viewer has in photography, that the image is an image of reality, and therefore creates a sense of confusion and unsettlement when you realise there is something strange about the tones in the image, especially when you do not know how the image has been created to look like that.

Similarly, Raoul Ubac also uses processes in the darkroom to create surreal and confusing images. He used the technique brûlage which included heating the negative in the darkroom, which caused the emulsion to melt and form a deformation. The print created from these negatives showed patterned generated by the deformations, as opposed to the photographic equipment used. This conforms to the surrealist manifesto as it is a way of creating images purely out of chance.

 I really like the effect of this technique, in particular on this image where it has created a ghostly effect with all of the bodies merging together. As soon as I saw this image the surreal shapes reminded me of fire and tribal patterns, which lead me to think of some of MGMT's music videos which also involve a lot of repetition of figures and reversal of tones. I also like the idea behind the technique of burning the negatives, and the fact that an image is being created purely by chance with the photographer for once having little control of the result appeals to me, and is something I would like to experiment with in the darkroom.

Constructivism

Alexander Rodchenko, 1925 Photograph on Gelatin Silver Print

This black and white image shows a man climbing a ladder which is seemingly attatched to the side of a building. However the perspective in which the photo is taken from is the main feature of this image that brings up uncertainties. It is hard to tell exactly where the image is taken from on initial viewing, it could have been taken from a low vantage point, Rodchenko possibly being on the floor and looking up at the ladder and towards the man in the image. On the other hand it also could be taken in a way where he has also climbed the ladder himself, being high up off the groud, and have swung the camera around to the other side of the ladder to take the image; although I would doubt this due to the such tight composition of the image - the way the parrallel lines of the ladder are so perfectly set at each corner of the image and meet in the middle, makes me think that Rodchenko would have had to look through the viewfinder to achieve such accuracy. An article I came across on this website brings more explanation to these questions;

'Rodchenko’s camera of choice was the new lightweight Leica. It enabled him to take pictures without having to use a tripod and without having to frame the image while looking down into a viewfinder at stomach level (the Leica, he said, put paid for good to “tummy-button composition”). He used the freedom it gave him to frame unfamiliar, vertiginous views – long looks up, dizzying looks down. Having an innately emblematic frame of mind he found symbols of the brave new world of Soviet Russia in his own new ways of seeing. Gazing up at the rungs of a fire escape from the bottom of an apartment building in Moscow, he sees a new Jacob’s ladder, a Soviet stairway to heaven which anyone can climb.'

This unusual viewpoint is typical of the constructivism movement as it gives an unsettling effect to the viewer as Rodchenko has not provided any view of a floor or footing from which the image is taken, and also no face of the man can be seen. The effect of this leaves the viewer feeling disorientated from such a surreal viewpoint. This feature also gives the image an again, typically Constructivism style 2D flattening effect to the image. The lines and angles of the flat surface of the building, along with the washed out sky in the background show that Rodchenko has purposely made no attempt to show sculptural elements in the image. Personally I think this effect works well, especially after staring at the image for a while, which leaves you with a feeling of confusion towards the image. 

Rodchenko has also sucessfully shown the relationship between the person and buildings, another element which Constructivism sets out to achieve. The man holding onto the ladder shows a vital relationship between man and construction, in that the ladder itself is keeping him safe and preventing him from falling yet enables him to reach further up the building.

Pictorialism

Pictorialism is a photographic movement that became fashionable following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process, around 1885. It reached popularity in the early 20th Century and declined after 1914 due to Modernism which brought the idea that a photograph should look like a photograph. This idea contrasts greatly with Pictorialism; the aim of a Pictorialist being to take and create photographs that look like and are inspired by paintings. The general style of the images were usually black and white or sepia, also using methods such as soft focus, unusual printing methods and a lot of manipulation done in the darkroom. Some artists even etched the surface of their prints using fine needles, to gain the worn, textured look of a painting.

I have chosen this image by Edward Steichen (The Flatiron, 1904) to look at elements that make it fit in with the Pictorialism movement. The fact that the image is a combination of two photographs, combined by Steichen, makes it fit in with the Pictorialist approach. This result could never be achieved by taking one simple photograph, making it more painting-like in that it appears to be un-achievable through photography. 'The Flatiron' is seen to be the quintessential chromatic study of twilight, which is what I think has drawn me towards the image. As a fan of double exposures and the dreamy effect of such Pictorialist photographs, the image immediately stood out to me, along with the rich blue tones of this print. The image wqas created by adding the Gum Biochromate process over a platinum print, to add the colour effect to the image, a popular process in the Pictorialism movement. It appears alongside two other prints which vary in colour, which also shows the Pictorialism element in the image, in that the photograph can be seen in different colours, showing that it is more than just a photograph which when taken has one fixed set of colours, and that it can be interpreted and open in the same way a painting can be.

Amber is for Caution

Amber is for Caution by Valerie Phillips

Amber is for Caution is an exhibition of photographs by Valerie Phillips based on her interest in Amber, a young girl she met when she came to her studio for a model casting.
 'She was quiet and feisty at the same time, and kind of bratty and fascinating. I loved her slow-paced, drawn out Kentucky sentences, so perfectly out of place in East London. And I really liked how she didn’t seem to give a shit. She was just Amber and that was good enough.'

 However Amber decided to cut her hair off, quit her modelling career and move back to Kentucky, and Valerie Phillips decided to document this to see how it changed her personality and apperance, giving a personal insight to Amber's unpredictable nature and 'couldn't give a shit' attitude.
This particular image, with text reading 'Amber is gonna show you what a little girls made of...gun powder'. The image shows Amber jokingly posing for the camera with her fingers up, instantly reflecting her personality and attitude towards life. She is standing in front of a house which could be hers, giving the fingers up pose a context of possibly being a 'fuck you' to her previous modelling career, showing that she was happy to return home. The image had been overlayed with a colour block, as have several other images in the series. All the colours a bright and eye-catching, again being a reflection of Amber's punchy personality that comes through in the portraits of her. The text could be interpreted as a reference to Amber's personal social networking sites, it seems to be phrased in a Facebook style status update, especially with the reference to herself in first person. Also the fact  that her name is written in a dark blue text has links with the facebook style of text and colouring. This could be to show Amber's highly social and typical teenage life, as social networking sites such as Facebook are a way to express and show her personality as much as she does in the photographs.

Again, this image has similar connotations with the expressive poses showing her fun personality and attitude,the bright poppy colour overlay also reflecting this and the facebook style status update reference in the text. This image shows more of a reference to popular teenage culture with the use of MGMT's song lyrics. This shows Amber being in touch with her teenage culture and shows that she expresses herself and personality through social networking style websites.