Whose Archive is it Anyway? Throughout History, individuals and social organisations have shaped and preserved information about their personal activities day to day. Archivists are people who recognize and preserve these documents of significant, lasting value. These records and the places in which they are stored are known as archives. Keen Archivists and historians see archives as records that have naturally accumulated over time. They have been generated as a product of legal, commercial or social activities. Some people define archives as “the secretions of an organism.” Overall, archives consist of records that have been thoroughly selected for permanent preservation based on their cultural, historical or penitentiary value. Unlike books or magazines, for which lots of identical copies exist, archival records are normally unpublished and unique. Personally, I believe Archives are there to preserve memories, and events of significant importance; however the significant events throughout people lives vary from individual to individual. For example, something that is exceptionally imperative to one person may not be important to another person. In my perspective, there are two types of archives, and they should be kept distinctively separate. The two types are personal archives compared to public archives. There are many different types of public archives, including Historical societies, Museums, Religious archived and Government archives. Personal Archives are known as Special Collections. These are archives containing materials from individuals and families.
The main public Archive in Jersey is Société Jersiaise. It was formed in 1873. Collecting photographs is a priority throughout the society because they are a significant part of the society’s museum and library. There are plenty of aspects that photography is used in throughout the Jersey Archive’s. These include recording research, as documentary and scientific records and as an independent art form. The images are actively maintained by the society members. The establishment has lasted for over 140 years and has resulted in the collection of a huge photographic archive, with over 80,000 images dating from the mid-1840’s to the present day.
Archives are sometimes referred to as society’s collective memory. They transfer information from era to era, and therefore are sustaining memory from generation to generation. They transfer documentation, education, enrichment, and research to help sustain cultural traditions and values. It is argued that material objects, artifacts, and documents—including those contained in archival collections—play a special role in human communication. Their durability defines them as communicational resources that can be used to transmit information beyond the bounds of interpersonal contact.
Photographs have their place within most archives, public or private, educational or personal, however they have not addressed the question of what roles are assigned to these photographic records in the actual process of forming an archive. Both photograph and film have been prominent in archives ever since the first set of documents were gathered in ancient times. Photographs profoundly changed the way archives are produced and accumulated in our contemporary world – an impact that only more recently was relativized by the appearance of electronic documents. As ways of recording action and information, images contain a resource for expression that distinguishes them from other, verbal-based records found within documents gathered over the centuries. Photos also allow us to gain an understanding of different cultures throughout the world. The use of verbal documents would be very limiting because of the language barrio from county to country; however visual documents allow us to bridge this gap.
Using the book called Archives, Networks and Narratives by David Bate, I got a better understanding of what Archives really are and how they can be used in so many ways. He also talks about how Archives have expanded since the invention of the internet. Throughout Bate’s book he writes about the British museum, which was established as a state collection in 1753. According to Bate, a man called Roger Fenton was the museum’s first official photographer, who was employed in 1854 to document its artifacts. Fenton uses his photos to create an impression of what it would have been like to see the artifacts in the Victorian era. Bate describes the images of having “a ‘pastness’, which shows the effect a photograph itself can have on how we see the things in it.” This proves that photos aren’t just used to document peoples lives and activities throughout history, but they can also be used to document the objects passed down through generations. This is important because although the artifacts themselves may not last, the images still create an ‘atmospheric space, with a kind of silence around the artifacts.’
Looking through archival material would help enrich my personal study because I want to investigate the differences between personal and public archives. An example of archival images that I will be using within my personal study, are images that my great uncle took. He was a very famous local photographer. He took lots of images of Jersey, and traveled around the world taking images as well. I decided to incorporate these images into my personal study because they are images that have been passed down through our family, so they are therefore our personal archive.
Looking at archives has been very interesting because it has helped widen my knowledge about the importance of photographs. I’ve learned that photos are a prominent part of archives, and that they help form links between generation and generation so cultures and important information about people’s lives are not lost. I’ve also learnt that photographs can be a powerful tool, used to bridge the gap between language barrios across countries. From reading David Bate’s book, I learnt that photos are used to document peoples lives, as well as the artifacts that they use. This is important because it allows people to remember important cultural aspects that have been around for centuries.
According to wikipedia, Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.
Documentary photography follows a topic or story over time, whereas photojournalists who cover real-time events such as breaking news. Documentary photography further deepens our understanding and emotional connection between unjust acts throughout the world. It can capture and sustain the public’s attention and mobilize people who are interested in important social issues such as human rights.
According toGeoff Harris, “a picture is worth a thousand words” The image below is from the Open Society Foundation. The person who took the image is called Christian Holst, who is a documentary photographer. He writes about the image in great detail, talking about who the man is, and a bit about his life.
“A novice monk puts on a clean robe in a monastery in Rangoon. Novices like this young man will study for 10 to 13 years before they are able to pass required tests and be ordained as monks….”
Christian Holst’s In the Quite Land: Life Under the Military Regime of Burma
Documentary Photography is very important because it has the power to highlight stories that aren’t gaining attraction. They create a diverse range of perspectives. Photography has the influence to inspire people, and tackle issues such as corruption and discrimination. Documentary photography does this.
Here are some more examples of Documentary photography.
surrealism – a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. Surrealist artists use the unconscious to enhance the imagination as a tool for their artwork. They believed that the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination. Many Surrealists are influenced by Karl Marx. They hoped that they could reveal the contradictions in the everyday world and create revolution.
Surrealism grew out of the Dadaism movement, which was a also repelling middle-class ideas. The most influential character for Surrealists was Giorgio de Chirico.
Surrealism shared a lot of anti-rationalism of Dada. The original Parisian Surrealists used art as a get away from violent political situations. They used it to address the unease they felt about the world. They explored fantasy and dream
MAN RAY (1890-1976) ‘Cadeau (Gift)’ 1921 (Flat Iron with Brass Tacks)
According to wikipedia Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Also refereed to as ‘Dada’, it was a from of artistic anarchy born out of hatred for social, political and cultural values. It contained elements of art, music, poetry, theater, dance and politics. Dadaism was was more of a protest movement rather than a style of art.
Dadaism was a very large movement during WW1 because many artists , writers and intellectuals what extremely opposed to the war. They used their art as a way of creating confrontation and provocation. Many traditional art movements were attacked. They launched a full scale ‘assault’ on the art world. “Dada questioned the value of all art and whether its existence was simply an indulgence of the bourgeoisie.” People involved with Dadaism claimed to be anti-artists.
At the beginning of the workshop Jonny asked multiple people in the class is fear good or bad in photography and if we have fear what of. Many people said they have a fear of people not be able to understand their work or fear the work is not enough. Personally I have a fear that my work will not be good enough in my standards. For me I think a good piece of work/ photography is when you can look at the photo and get multiple meanings or even one prominent one. Basically something that makes the viewer think and find themselves drawn to it. My fear is that I will take a photo or a complete a project that has no thought behind it and is just there for marks as I do not want it to be the reason for my work.
After this Jonny got us to close our eyes and draw a random face. This was my attempt.
As you can see it shows some resemblance to a face such as eyes, nose and a mouth. However, it is quite clearly not a face. Jonny then asked us to close our eyes again and draw a persons face of someone in the room. My attempt is below. I found this exercise a lot harder than the first as there was something to compare my drawing too. We were then asked, if we were asked to draw a face with our eyes open which ones would be more interesting and the majority of the class said the ones we had done with our eyes closed would be. He then went onto talk about how mistakes can make a photo or a piece of art look better.
With this in mind we were then asked to make something out of the objects we were asked to bring but trying to make as many mistakes as possible. The objects I brought were as old mouse toy, a Pirates of the Caribbean necklace and a old PUSH wrist band as well as a photo of my brother. Here’s what I came up with.
When creating something in the mindset that if you make a mistake its ok really allowed me to be free with my creativity. I found this exercise very helpful and therapeutic as I could find meanings in the thing I had created with no thought process initially apart from making mistakes.
For tomorrows workshop we have been asked to bring in an image that can be destroyed, I chose this:
I simply tore it up, and stuck the pieces back together in a collage style photograph as I wanted to show the idea of a broken relationship.
This was because Johnny started talking about failures and mistakes in photography and if they were necessarily a bad thing. Interestingly, a wide range of viewpoints were expressed, including my own which felt that how can a creative subject like photography, ever have anything wrong. Obviously this leads to then in this context that a mistake, is when something occurs unintentionally and from this, this causes for us to go on a tangent. However I believe that it is hard to categorize mistakes in photography, because this comes very close to what the journey of photography is all about. Therefore mistakes are normal and are in a sense intentional as that is natural in photography.
To demonstrate this, we drew faces with our eyes closed and analysed how despite what we intended to do, how differing our results became. This task was very thought provoking because it led us to compare the figure in our head an how that can mask reality. This is obviously a very prominent issue in everyday society when we can be so focused on producing an intended result, our ayes can be closed to other areas that are opened up and let us develop our ideas.
Here Johnny told us to get an image and have a “play” with it, and show how we could explore the root of family relationships. I chose to create a torn effect by tearing the photograph into various parts, and stuck them back near together to create a jigsaw effect, with a stronger emphasis on the situation not being fixed, but permanently broken. I felt this way because I wanted to explore how despite family relationships breaking down, arguably the long term feelings towards one another are somewhat impacted. I like how I have created a smashed glass feeling which coincidentally links with our debate over the idea of mistakes as I initially was’t prepared to create this effect, and only after judging how close I wanted the pieces together I decided I could create a shattered glass effect. This way I feel I made the photograph to exaggerate its feelings towards brokenness.
Johnny’s statement: “In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialized into and create new ones with my parents and self.
Through these I use photography to explore my relationship with deception, the constructed reality of the family, and question the boundaries between my parents and I, between child/adult, self/other, nature/culture, real/fake in attempt to revive my unconditioned self, beyond the family bubble.
Although easily assumed to be photo-shopped or faked, upon closer inspection the images are often realised to be more real than first expected. Involving staged installations, the cartoon-esque and the performative, I look back to my younger self and attempt to re-capture childhood nature through my assuming adult eyes.”
On 04/07/17, Jonny Briggs came in to school to give us another talk and include us in his style of work again. He had more tasks set up ofr us to immerse ourselves into the style of photo collage and he gave us a briefing about his work again to refresh us. The more intimate and inclusive experience was really helpful and beneficial to my development in the field of photo collage and producing work int he style of both Jonny and Tanja.
The session began with Jonny asking us is we had any primary questions for him to answer. Then he began to talk to us about his recent works in Jersey and what he is doing in his residency that could provide an influence to what we produce. The most prominent topic of discussion was the thought of fear within work and if it is an aid to the creative process. A heated discussion on this concept leas to many different views about the question Jonny asked us – whether fear is a good thing, or if something good can come from mistakes in a creative process. Jonny began to tell us about a piece of work he is really focusing on in his residency and tat he feels has the most relevance to his life. He told us that he has a focus on creating series of works in locations of authority and an explanation he provided for this was that an authoritative figure was missing from his family when was younger as his relationship with his dad was lost but he re-gained this sense of authority in his life through the school he wen to being very strict. He said that he has a plan to produce a photoshoot in the old police station, in particular in its evidence room where there are empty shelves throughout the room. He plans to cover the room in red lipstick and says that this freedom to essentially create a mess makes up fro the strict upbringing he had where at times he would feel dislocated. This gives him freedom to make something that has an association with desire and something that possesses a sexual connotation into a thought of disgust if shown in large quantities – as in this sticky mess. I found this relation to family, although strange and unpredictable very interesting. He told us that fear should not be a thing that hinders the creative process and you should embrace it. He then transferred the question to us and told us to give our opinions on whether fear is a good thing and something that helps us move forward with our work. I personally believe this is true because a good artists will take the idea of fear and use to their advantage to produce something that questions the normalities of art. I said that in my personal experience, if I came across something that scared me, and if I did not not know what I wanted to do in order to advance and complete something, I would freak out and essentially implode with stress and fear but this would spur me onto to do better – I would use it as a tool of determination and use it to motivate myself. The idea of forcing myself to achieve a goal even it requires me to go outside my comfort zone is a determiner of success because it means I am trying new things and the risk you take as to whether the outcome will be a success is all part of the creative process and how you learn from your mistakes. This idea made me think more about how I can use fear to improve my work and I think I will take into account that when I don’t know what I’m doing, I should fight that and remove the blanket of comfort – as Jonny described it and move forward.
Jonny then set up a task for us to do and he told us to draw a face – any face at all – a generic face, but with our eye closed. He gave us 3-4 minutes and then we had to open our eyes and see what we had produced. It was very weird to see what we had drawn because obviously the image was not what a face would look like because usually when you tell someone to draw a face, they would spend lots of time finalizing the intricate details of the features but crating s simple drawing with no boundaries apart form the limitation of us being blind created much freedom for me experiment and go wild with my thoughts. Although it looked very odd, there is no rule that states something does not look how it should or that if something does not provide a direct representation isn’t good. Breaking boundaries can result in a pleasing result and differentiation is a tool for creating new work as it can encourage new thoughts and new ideas from seeing things in new perspectives. I really enjoyed the task as it allowed dot be free in what I produced with no one to tell me that it is not good – and this is how everyday art should be.
blindfolded drawing of generic faceblindfolded drawing of someone’s face
I then drew an image of someone in the room, I chose to draw Harrison. I found this task much more difficult than the first because I was given a criteria to fill and limited my freedom for creativity in a way because I was not allowed to draw anything knowing that it would be accepted either way; I had to draw someones face and use my memory to put the features in the correct position. This task limited me more so and I therefore did not enjoy it as much. I would prefer to be told to get on with something and then do it in my own personal way that suits my style. This is how many photographers and artists get by nowadays because creativity and uniqueness is key. However, there is a theories who stages. His name is Kirby Ferguson and he says tat you cannot create without being influenced by others. I can totally agree with this but he also goes as far as to say that there is no originality in art today because each idea is derived form something that already exists. He describes the idea of copying as ‘simple-mimicry’ which I find quite fascinating and amusing because, yes, to some extent it is true.
Overall, I really enjoyed the workshop with Jonny because he is a modern day photographer who suits my style of work and he addresses personal issues through his now art which I admire and think is very brave – which I will have to become as I unveil my own archives gradually. He also wanted us to use the objects and images we brought in to create some photo collages or photographic scenes that mean something to us and gave us a task for homework to find five was to destroy an image. I am eager to get going with this and hope to conjure up some weird and ‘outside of box’ methods. I will publish these once finalized.
Here are the objects I brought in:
teddy given to me by my sister when she was bornteddy I had when I was a childapron I used to wear when I was a childbag made by Nan which I used to put my toys incricket ball given to me by my Dad when I was younger
Make a folder named: Photo collage workshop (you may already have done this.
You should already have completed 1 – 3 previously
‘1. MY IMAGES’ (it should contain 5 images from previous work on Landsape)
‘2. ARCHIVE IMAGES’ (it should contain 5 images from research at Photographic Archive Societe Jersiaise)
‘3. ARTISTS REFERENCES’ (it should contain 5 images from research of Tanja work and her inspirations/ influences)
‘4. RAW PHOTOS’ (15 SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPHS made from our walk at Gronez to L’Etacq on Tue 20 June)
‘5. NEW WORK’ (2 DIGITAL PHOTO COLLAGES IN PS FORMAT, made from the above images)
When I see the students on our group sessions I would like them to show me the content of these folders in Adobe Bridge.
Wish you all a good rest of the week and looking forward to seeing you on the 11th July where we will be working on photo collages.
Best regards,
Tanja
Following on from Tanja’s workshop on photo-collage we want you to complete the following before the summer holiday. If you want to make something unique you should plan a new shoot where you make a set of images for a photo-collage. Only relying on images from the school trip to Gronez-L’Etacq is not enough.
Produce a blog post with at least 3 -5 digital sketches where you annotate the process and techniques used to construct the photo-collage
Produce at least one final photo-collage that is close to completion and write an evaluation. (In the next academic year there will be time for you to refine or modify photo-collages and you may consider to explore this further in October and November when you develop your project, Personal Investigation in an individual manner)
Prepare a presentation of your photo-collage work for Thurs 20 and Fri 21 July. (Tanja will be back in Sept to give feedback on your work in progress)
HELP & GUIDANCE: When constructing your photo-collage remember to consider the following:
Notes from Tanja’ workshop 11th July
In camera: When shooting new images for photo-collage
Camera settings: Use the same camera settings such as aperture f/stops, exposure and focal length on your lens. It is impossible to combine, in a photo-realistic way, images which are shot with both wide-angle and telephoto lens
Lighting: Choose to shoot images needed in the same lighting conditions, e.g. use overcast weather. Avoid making a collage using images shot outside in natural light and images made inside using artificial lighting or studio lighting. It won’t work!
Perspective: Maintain close to same perspective when shooting i.e. if you photograph from eye-level maintain that throughout. If perspective is not correct, it pays to go back and re-shoot an image rather than trying to’ fit it’ in Photoshop
In post production: Use Bridge to organise images and folders. Photoshop to construct photo-collage.
Blank canvas: Create a new document size A1 = 594mm x 841mm at resolution 300 pixels per inch. Total size of new document should be: 199,4 Mb. Then begin to import images or selections of images into new document and build up your collage.
File management: Organise layers by renaming them and collate in group folders in the layer box
Image adjustments: Use meta layers for colour adjustment/ B&W/ brightness & contrast to sit on top of all the other image layers. It’s easier to adjust individual layers as you go along.
Yesterday, on the 4th July, Jonny Briggs visited Hautlieu to talk to us during our lesson. I thought we would start the task straight away but he first sat us down in a group and asked us a particular question. He went round everyone and asked whether they though fear was a good thing or a bad thing when working on a project. My response was that I thought fear could be turned into a good thing if you are able to control your fears. If the fear overwhelmed you, it could cause you to give up, or make irrational mistakes. However, the most successful people are able to take the fear and use it to push them forward.
Briggs’ whole talk was about fears and mistakes. He did a task with us, were we had to draw a face of a person with our eyes closed. I thought it was a very unusual thing for us to do, but Briggs’ explanation of the task at the end was very interesting.
For the next part of the task we had to draw the face of someone in the room with our eyes closed. Here is my response of that part of the task.
Briggs then asked us which one of the images we found most hard to draw and why. Drawing the image of the person we knew was the most difficult for me because rather then just using my imagination to make up simple features of a person, we had to draw someone we knew which meant we had something to compare to. The second had to be more accurate which was difficult with your eyes closed.
Briggs then asked us whether we would find an image that we drew with our eyes open more interesting compared to the image that we drew with our eyes closed. The quality of the drawing would be much better if I drew it with my eyes open, but the image drawn with my eyes closed would be more interesting because the shapes and abstract forms create a greater artistic feel. Briggs then used this theory and explained that although the image we drew was full of mistakes, such as the eyes not being right, it doesn’t mean we have to regard the image as bad. Its the mistakes that make the images interesting.
The next task we did with Briggs was destroying an image that we brought in. I brought in an image of my parents at their wedding because it links with the project that we are doing at the moment, about family. We were asked to manipulate and destroy the image in some way with a meaning behind it. I decided to cut out the faces of my parents and swap them over. I then stapled them back onto the image again. I wanted some gaps within the image so light could be seen through. I’m really happy with the outcome of the process. I choose to swap there heads over to symbolize that through their marriage they would have to take on the roles of each other, and learn the traits of them.
Surrealism grew out of the Dadaism movement, which was a also repelling middle-class ideas. The most influential character for Surrealists was Giorgio de Chirico.Surrealism shared a lot of anti-rationalism of Dada. The original Parisian Surrealists used art as a get away from violent political situations. They used it to address the unease they felt about the world. They explored fantasy and dream
