"The Projection Screen: Thinking,
Inspecificity and Memory"
"Without the breadth of life, the human
body is a corpse; without thinking, the
human mind is dead." Hannah Arendt,
The Life of the Mind, 1971
"If...there is no perspective without
immediate categorization, then the
photograph is verbalized in the
very moment it is perceived."
Roland Barthes 1961
"A screen is a surface that displays
pictures and yet can hint that something
is concealed behind it." Laura Mulvey,
Son + Image, 1992, p.76
How do we overcome photography's reproductive tendency- its reliance on
sight's ideological posturing and its apparent incapability to
facilitate our own voice, our own place, our own angle? Sight, with its
noble distance, suppresses desire, feigns objectivity, and functions as
a surrogate for thinking. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle claimed that
"all men begin by wondering." However, the curious beholder becomes
invisible once he/she is excluded from the frame. Here, wondrous
regard, the activity thought to inspire and motivate, paradoxically
fosters alienation.
Currently, several photographers are attempting to provide space for the
viewer, enabling the viewer to participate within the frame, rather than
remain situated outside. By avoiding photography's representational
prowess, they recognize the medium's possibility as a site for
contemplation, not just looking. Replacing the common model of
photography as a handy mirror with that of a projection screen overcomes
photography's epistemic urge to conflate a picture's believability with
propositional truth. The empty projection screen coaxes subjective
pleasure, but the mirror's obsession with the ugly truth excises it.
Moreover, the act of producing content, rather than passively absorbing
visible information, engenders memorable experiences.
The projection screen's inspecificity offers repose, a place to locate
oneself amidst the wealth of images that gladly manipulate one's
attention. Citing the example of the Eiffel Tower, Barthes observed how
"the pure -virtually empty- sign is ineluctable, because it means
everything (A Barthes Reader, 1964, P.237)." the ineffability of an
empty photograph thwarts what Barthes observed as the tendency to
verbalize perception. Great philosophers "have almost unanimously
insisted on something 'ineffable' behind the written words (Arendt,
p.113)," which generates further inquiry. Representational photography
shares writing's capacity to implant forgetfulness, yet a provocative
projection screen spurs memory, the very measure of human aliveness.
Michael Brodsky's computer-manipulated images decompose
publically-available information into their unique digital equivalents,
which offer an abstract alternative to reality. The photos produced by
D.E.M. (Erie Otsea and Jan Tumlir) are so abstracted from their original
source that they have lost their identity entirely. Clifford LeCuyer's
simple black-and-white photographs of folded paper generate infinite
read games. Blair Townsend's large-scale photographs of "moments in
time" inspire the viewer to locate the object in their personal lives.
by Sue Spaid, L.A. independent curator
