The past decade has seen the emergence of a substantial body of research into the complex and elusive relationship between memory, loss and the photograph. From Bazin, Benjamin and Barthes to Batchen, Langford and Hirsch, photography's embroilment in life, death and time and the medium's ability to function as an allegorical meta-text, sets the stage on which we perform our theatres of memory.

Whilst the complex and elusive relationship between memory, loss and the photograph continues to fascinate, the concept of melancholia is often perceived as a modernist construct residing within the sphere of ‘negative critique’. Hamish Gane’s practice-led PhD research, A Pensive Sadness: Photography, Melancholy and a Space Beyond Representation, explores the notion of a photographic melancholy located within the realms of ‘affect’ and, following the affirmative aesthetic project of Deleuze and Guattari, attempts to transform it from an inactive emotional state of ‘being’ (within representation) into a creative affect of ‘becoming’ (beyond representation). 

Links:

http://www.hamishgane.com/