How do photographers such as Rut Blees Luxemburg and Naoya Hatakeyama tackle the tension between both the organic and synthetic world?

‘Photographs confuse as much as fascinate, conceal as much as reveal, distract as much as compel. They are unpredictable communicators.’ (David Campany, On Photographs, 2020).

The divide between an organic, natural world and a synthetic, man-made world has widened since, and very much because of, the technological advances of mankind, creating a parallel between what is considered natural and unnatural, or organic and synthetic. Photography as a medium and an art form represent this shift from the earlier techniques such as the Heliograph and Daguerreotype processes, to the far more recent digital era of photography representing the advances of technology. In recent years especially, it has come to light in the mass media, as well as the photographic community, that the synthetic has begun to bleed into, and perhaps replace or destroy, the organic. By analysing the work of Rut Blees Luxemburg and Naoya Hatakeyama, I aim to highlight this damage, or alteration, nature has received by interpreting the meaning behind the otherworldly, synthetic aesthetic and methods their work adopts. Luxemburg’s night photography especially creates a sense of otherworldliness, something she describes as a ‘transformation’ from the ‘mundane, everyday experience’, (Campany, 2018) perhaps highlighting the cities she photographs as being unnatural, or even from another world. While Hatakeyama’s photographs take a similar stance, some images blatantly detailing the destruction of natural landscapes, while others are more discreet, both are equally thought-provoking.

An otherworldly representation of a piece of nature (landscapes; objects such as plants; etc.) indicates a form of corruption or damage, perhaps mirroring society’s growing concerns of the Earth’s change of climate. What has led me to this topic would likely be some of my earlier work, involving themes of the Anthropocene and Islandness (where I opted to focus on the natural side of that subject), both of which had a similar concept to this project. In those projects I mainly focussed on using colour and pattern to make my images appear more vibrant, inspired by artists such as Andy Warhol and Troy Paiva whose work emphasises colour also. By focusing on artists such as Luxemburg and Hatakeyama, I will experiment with night photography, both in a city environment like in Luxemburg’s work, but also in a countryside setting, which will provide different perspectives from the same genre.

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It could be argued that the very creation of the photographic process was inspired by nature, with the pioneers of the creation of the medium, such as Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox-Talbot searching for not only a process that would be capable of what photo-historian Geoffrey Batchen describes as, ‘what they had created was something far removed from natural (and human) conventions, yet it was nature that was forefront within the process, something, to them, which was otherworldly (Batchen, 1997). In addition to the process of photography being otherworldly, the images created during their experimentation could be considered ‘of a different world’, especially by today’s norm. Each of the inventors of photography struggled to define in human language what they had created, as it was in itself a contradiction, ‘For Niépce, nature was central to photography, but he could never resolve with any precision how to articulate the relationship between the two’ (Batchen, 1997).

The first photograph taken, a Heliograph image created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1827, presents the viewer with the visage of curiosity and awe; we are looking into the birth of a medium that was likely considered a fantasy at the time. This otherworldly depiction of Le Gras was captured for purely scientific purposes, yet from an art perspective, it does not stray far from a typical pencil sketch from an aesthetic standpoint. This image does not stray far from the images created within the pictorialist era of photography, with the images depicting dreamlike, romantic scenes. The images created using Heliography do not have the clarity of the Daguerreotype that came after, giving them that nostalgic aura. ‘Light in the state of combination or decomposition reacts chemically on various substances. It is absorbed by them, combines with them, and imparts to them new properties.’ (Niepce, 1833). This scientific description of what he named ‘Heliograph’ can be taken as a literal description on how his process works, however it could conceptually represent the dilemma he (and the other scientists) faced upon trying to truly define their creation. Their processes used nature (not only light and resources, but the image of nature itself) to ‘combine’ with and ‘impart’ the image onto a plate, as if it was nature herself taking her own picture (Batchen, 1997). This definition links with the tension between nature and man-made: was the process chiefly a natural or synthetic phenomenon? This paramount interpretation of the process led to a confusion regarding the true name of what is now photography.

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While Luxemburg’s images are indeed visually appealing and provide a unique aesthetic within the genre of night photography, Luxemburg seems to be more focused on the ‘transformation’ of the scene she records on her camera, relating closely to the mindset of post-modern artists. In her own words, she describes this ‘transformation’ as ‘something other than what you can see during your mundane, everyday experience of the city’ (Luxemburg 2018). Focusing on the meaning of her photographs makes Luxemburg approach to image-making more postmodern, with a focus on meaning rather than appearance. This post-modern approach to her work leaves room for the viewers to speculate the true meaning and purpose behind the ‘transformation’ created by Luxemburg. This ‘transformation’ links with the conflict between the organic and synthetic. The synthetic ambient lighting, straight and ordered lines and patterns seen in many of her images gives them a very otherworldly aesthetic, despite being images of a scene we as humans have grown accustomed to. To me, this focus on the synthetic environment of a city highlights the conflict between the natural and unnatural. While searching for places and scenes to photograph, Luxemburg identifies that she is ‘looking for something that is sort of dismissed, marginal, but has its own luminosity somehow’ (Luxemburg, 2017).

The title of this photograph describes it as being exciting and thrilling, which is definitely a valid interpretation, as the viewpoint and likely the process of making the image (having to dangle the camera over a ledge for at least half a minute due to the longer exposure times required for night photography) gives a sense of danger, of falling. However, on the other hand, the softer, almost painterly lines and colours gives the image the dreamlike, otherworldly feel described earlier, coming across as being almost calm and unmoving. The viewpoint is interesting as it is looking directly downwards, from a considerable height, in addition to suggesting danger, this could also give the viewer the feeling of being trapped within the setting. The lines are also almost always straight, similar to Luxemburg’s other work, creating the man-made and synthetic aesthetic. The colour palette in this image is fairly limited, being made up of mainly yellows and greens with a small amount of red on the cars, this reinforces that painterly aesthetic, while simultaneously giving it a more urban atmosphere. As a photograph taken at night, with no additional lights used specifically for that photograph, the use of ambient light makes the image appear more synthetic.

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Naoya Hatakeyama, similar to Luxemburg, has produced a range of work involving both the synthetic and organic as their subject matter. As a Tokyo-based photographer he has developed a work which ‘has a focus and relationship between dual themes of rural and urban, city and countryside, man and nature’ (Hutchison 2010), using the city to capture the synthetic aspects of human life. The ‘relationship’ he captures differs between each of his projects, some involving quarrying and the destruction it causes in the organic, natural landscape, or how little parts of nature (such as trees or rivers) can be found within a city environment. Hatakeyama’s work could be said to have a post-modern approach, as he focuses on the duality between the organic and synthetic rather than the aesthetic appearance of the image. Most of Hatakeyama’s images use line and pattern to differentiate the natural and man-made, with the natural elements having softer lines to represent their organic aesthetic (for example, his ‘Slow Glass’ project uses the raindrops to give the image those soft lines), while other images embrace the straight lines and patterns found within a city or quarry.

The title of the image has a literal meaning, likely reflecting the main process he used while taking the images, using a slow shutter speed to allow enough time for the streaks of light to be made and positioning the camera behind a window (likely a car window) and focusing the camera on the raindrops to blur out the background. This gives the image an otherworldly effect, almost forcing the viewer to make sense of what they are looking at and how Hatakeyama managed to capture it. The streaks of light could have been made in many ways, he could have positioned the camera behind the window and shone a light into them to create the lines manually, or he could have positioned the camera in a car and had someone drive around while he took the image so he could capture the light on the road signs. The colours in this image are vibrant, in a similar way to Luxemburg’s work, while still having darker areas due to the image likely being taken at night time, however this image appears more organic due to the raindrops and streaks of light having a softer form, as opposed to be far more rigid and angular lines and patterns seen in Luxemburg’s work. The image has a rather calm tone, much unlike Luxemburg’s images, likely as a result of the softer shapes and colours.

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The organic world has evidently colliding with the man-made world since the advances of human technologies, including those which are not inherently damaging such as photography, creating great tension. Artists such as Luxemburg and Hatakeyama highlight using their work the unnatural aftermath of the collision of the two worlds, either as a statement of protest and awareness, or a way to inspire other artists and photographers to do the same. The early processes of photography, having been invented to allow a way for nature to paint her own self portrait (Batchen, 1997), being man-made, ironically produces questions; is photography an organic or synthetic representation of nature? To what extent is it a natural or man-made process? The irony in taking pictures of what man has created using a medium reserved for nature’s use is the very reason why images such as Luxemburg’s and Hatakeyama’s (especially when compared to pictorialist images) are so effective in conveying their message, despite being silent, ‘unpredictable communicators’ (Campany, 2020).

In response to Luxemburg and Hatakeyama, as well as other artists, I have created images that aim to capture a sense of ‘otherworldliness’. To achieve this, I experimented with night photography to record scenes people are already unfamiliar with due to the darkness. Using artificial lighting (both light shone by me and ambient light from buildings) to create normally unseen shapes from the shadows, in addition to using coloured gels to give the images more colour, which adds to the unnatural and synthetic aesthetic of these images. Images that include organic subjects (plants, birds, etc.) change them in a way that represent the changes to nature and humanity’s attitudes towards it, for example placing a red light on a tree may be aesthetically appealing, however was it necessary to use it to truly capture its natural beauty? I made use of synthetic replicas of plants in my still life photoshoot, to mimic the style of a classic still life painting, the plants being synthetic perfectly symbolises the growth of human technologies at the cost of natural resources and landscapes.

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Bibliography:

Campany, D. (2020), On Photographs. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Batchen, G. (1997), Burning With Desire: The Conception of Photography. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abel-Hirsch, A. (2019), ‘ Blackwater River’ in British Journal of Photography. Issue 7890: 50-67

Company, D, Blees Luxemburg, R. (2018), So present, so invisible. Via Nizza: Contrasto

Niépce, N. (1833), ‘Memoire of the Heliograph.’ In: Trachtenberg, A (ed) (1980), Classic Essays on Photography. Connecticut: Leete’s Island Books

Luxemburg (2017). Art360 – Rut Blees Luxemburg, Art360: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLK7sThFDOo

Hutchison (2010). A conversation with the photographer, Naoya Hatakeyama. Location of site: https://robhutcharch.com/interview-naoya-hatakeyama Accessed on: 26/01/2023