‘Comings and Goings’ presentation at ‘Framing Time and Place’ conference, University of Plymouth
Andrew Newman is presenting his recent online project ‘Comings and Goings‘ at the conference ‘Framing Time and Place: Repeats and returns in photography‘ at the University of Plymouth. The conference runs from April 15 until April 17, 2009. Newman will be presenting his paper at the ‘Phenomenologies of place’ session alongside David Reid, an artist lecturing at Nottingham Trent University and the artist Jem Southam who is a professor at the Research Centre for Land/Water and the Visual Arts at the University of Plymouth. Newman’s paper will explore through my project ‘Comings and Goings’ how repeats in photography inspire the imaginary while also instigating boredom.
Abstract:
Future art criticism will be structured by the measuring of the various phases of ugliness as it grows habitual: it will measure exactly how one gets accustomed to ugliness, how the new grows old.’ – Vilem Flusser
It happened by accident. I moved into a new studio and paranoid about security I set up a motion sensor webcam. Each day I arrived in the studio I would review the photographs that it had taken. There were no images of balaclava clad prowlers, only photographs of myself, entering and exiting the studio. I turned off the camera when I arrived and turned it on again when I left. The repetitive images of me opening and closing the door became bookends to that moment of time in the studio. A moment of time where I made art.
I began a blog documenting my entrances and exits entitled ‘Comings and Goings’. The repetitive documentation inverted the actual art object in time and space. The photographs of my entrances were titled ‘Andrew Newman enters the studio for purpose of making art’ and my exits were titled ‘Andrew Newman exits his studio having made art.’ The inversion of the artwork through the framing of its production encouraged the imagination of the artwork itself. Drawing parallels with Heidegger’s definition of ‘the thing’ these photographic bookends of moments of time illustrate that an artwork can exist not through the material in which it is formed but rather by the emptiness that is shaped through the documentation of its production. This imagination of the void is possible through repeats in photography as opposed to the repetitive image of video or film because by its nature photography misses moments of time. These missing moments extend the imaginary space, allowing the viewer to participate in the production of the image. As Godard said, ‘A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end.. but not necessarily in that order.’ The documentation in ‘Coming and Goings’ presents only the beginning and then the end, compelling the viewer to engage with the work and imagine the middle of the story.
The habitual repetition of the action of entering and leaving the studio also present a persistent passing of time not dissimilar from Beckett’s play ‘Come and Go.” The measuring of moments of time provokes boredom as attention is drawn to the passing of time and the new becomes old. Repetitive photography that records a daily habit invokes a narrative with no end. ‘Coming and Goings’ thus presents an experience that calls for the imagination of a middle while also because of its repetitive nature also incites an absurd experience of no end.
This paper will explore through my project ‘Comings and Goings’ how repeats in photography inspire the imaginary while also instigating boredom.