MEMORY, MELANCHOLY & THE
PHOTOGRAPH
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. Current PhD research explores concepts
of (post-) photographic melancholia, a pensive sadness emanating
from the medium's relationship to the digital and metonymic
of a wider post-modern cultural predicament. The exhibition
and publication ‘Apron’ (Hamish Gane,
Mission Gallery 2005) is the culmination of an aspect of this
research relating to the domestic and familial.
Distant Evocations is an ongoing research area under
investigation by Head of the School of Photography and Video,
Mark Cocks, which provides a contemplative view of the peripheral
unnoticed spaces at the edges of familiar domestic environments.
The photographic moment transfixes these empty fragments into
distant evocations, which attempt to defy the restrictions
of linguistic interpretations. The outputs include a range
of editorial commissions such as book covers.
Links:
http://www.hamishgane.com/
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