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Alexandra Hass
BDCom, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1986
Diploma in Communication Design, Alberta College of Art, 1984
A THESIS ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF APPLIED ART
in
Media
EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
2009
© Alexandra Hass, 2009
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This thesis reports on an exploration of technology and the nature of visual perception through
the medium of a flatbed scanner. Natural laws and sensuality inform the content and the
methodology used in the construction of artworks that enlarge and engage the viewer’s
experience of hyper-realistic printed images.
The exploration of natural law consists of defining the role of opposition in nature. The terms
Dionysian and Apollonian as applied to Nature by the author Michael Pollan are examined as
analogues of the intersection of Nature and Technology. Five categories of opposites –
atmospheric, internal, objective, time-based, and material – are explored in scanner-based
images.
The exploration of sensuality is expressed through the subject matter of the scanner-based
images. Using the scanner, mundane and humble plant material is elevated in status and takes
on symbolic and metaphoric meaning beyond its existence in the natural world. The
exploration of technology uses the scanner as a disrupting medium in image production. By
reducing, removing and replacing components so it cannot function optimally, the scanner
leaves evidence of its role in image-making on the image itself. Analogies with responses to
externally imposed stress in the natural world are explored, as is the concept of the artist as
cyborg.
The exploration of visual perception draws on the work of artists Uta Barth and Wolfgang
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Tillmans, who use different methods to divert the viewer’s attention away from the primary
subject matter of an image and onto that which is absent or overlooked (in the case of Barth) or
the mechanics of image creation (in the case of Tillmans). The work of both artists is used as a
touch-point for a series of scanner-based image explorations.
Theorists Jeanne Randolph and Jonathan Crary provide a foundation for discussion of the
space between the viewer and a photographic image, as well as the psychological and
physiological engagement of the viewer wrought by the use of a technological medium. Plans for
future projects that extend and expand the ideas presented in this thesis are also discussed.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................................................iv
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................................................................vi
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S....................................................................................................................................vii
INTRODUCTION: the nature of technological visibility................................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE: over looking: discovering the sensual through technology......................................5
1.1 the influence of Uta Barth..........................................................................................................................................5
1.2 water & seedpod projects............................................................................................................................................7
1.3 comparisons with Uta Barth’s work..................................................................................................................10
CHAPTER TWO: control, chance and seduction..............................................................................................16
2.1 control & chance...........................................................................................................................................................16
2.2 seduction............................................................................................................................................................................18
CHAPTER THREE: dis-connection: the scanner as a disruptive medium.........................................20
3.1 the influence of Wolfgang Tillmans; back to Barth................................................................................21
3.2 embracing the accidental..........................................................................................................................................25
3.3 changing the scanner’s role......................................................................................................................................26
3.4 five categories of opposites.....................................................................................................................................30
CHAPTER FOUR: technology as metaphor..........................................................................................................37
4.1 Jeanne Randolph and object relations theory.............................................................................................39
4.2 technology educates....................................................................................................................................................41
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CHAPTER FIVE: future directions & material applications.......................................................................44
5.1 explosion | implosion..................................................................................................................................................45
5.2 printed images.................................................................................................................................................................45
5.3 sculptural form...............................................................................................................................................................46
5.4 timebased work..............................................................................................................................................................46
WORK CITED...........................................................................................................................................................................48
WORK CONSULTED.........................................................................................................................................................50
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figure 1Uta Barth, . . . and of time, 2000..........................................................................................................................6
figure 2 Alexandra Hass, release, 2006..............................................................................................................................9
figure 3 Uta Barth, Field #9, 1995.....................................................................................................................................10
figure 4 Alexandra Hass, waiting, 2006.........................................................................................................................13
figure 5 Alexandra Hass, self-portrait, 2007..............................................................................................................16
figure 6 Alexandra Hass, EarlyBurst, 2008..................................................................................................................20
figure 7 Alexandra Hass, light study, 2008..................................................................................................................30
figure 8 Alexandra Hass, entropy, detail, 2008.........................................................................................................31
figure 9 Alexandra Hass, w/teeth in the wind, 2008.............................................................................................32
figure 10 Alexandra Hass, folding light, 2008...........................................................................................................33
figure 11 Alexandra Hass, swimming, 2008................................................................................................................34
figure 12 Alexandra Hass, parchment, 2008..............................................................................................................34
figure 13 Alexandra Hass, entropy, 2008.....................................................................................................................37
figure 14 Alexandra Hass, chaos, 2008..........................................................................................................................44
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I am greatly indebted to all the people who took the time to critique my work and also to read
this thesis paper as it developed and grew to reflect my work. It has been an iterative process of
looping from reading to writing to scanning and I have benefitted from the gift of the time and
the enormous amount of thoughtfulness these people have generously given to me. My thanks
to Maria Lantin, Karolle Wall, Fiona Bowie, Glen Lowry, Sandra Semchuk, Rena Del Pieve
Gobbi, Lynne Gilroy and Cathy Beaumont.
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the nature of technological visibility
The idea of the form implicitly contains also the history of such a form.
(Prusinkiewicz and Lindenmayer, 58)
This paper investigates the optical, perceptual and metaphoric value in technological visibility
when it is embedded in a hyper-realistic artwork. Technological visibility in this paper refers to
visual marks that reveal the tool responsible for making an image. These marks create a
technological window, or technical layer, through which the subject matter is viewed and
interpreted. The particular technology I use and explore to make images in my practice is an
ordinary flatbed scanner, but I have enlarged the topic in this paper to include the camera.
Photographers Uta Barth and Wolfgang Tillmans, both of whom explore the medium of
photography and incorporate mechanical marks and intervention between the photographic
content and the viewer, do so to allow the viewer access to a larger subjective and visceral
experience. Wolfgang Tillmans explores the medium of photographic process, while Uta Barth
uses the camera’s failures or accidents to reposition the act of seeing – from referencing the
external to referencing the internal – the body and its optical constructs, limits and sensations.
This type of embodied experience is created for a modern observer who has the capacity to
toggle freely and consciously between the sensation of seeing and the act of seeing. This type of
observer was originally referenced in explorations and discoveries made by Goethe (and others)
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who wanted to discover how the body and the function of sight were woven together with the
imaginative mind in order to position the processing function of sight within the brain.
Let the observer look steadfastly on a small coloured object and let it be taken
away after a time while his eyes remain unmoved; the spectrum of another colour
will then be visible on the white plane . . . it arises from an image which now belongs
to the eye (von Goethe, 21).
What is important about Goethe’s account of subjective vision is the inseparability of
two models usually presented as distinct and irreconcilable: a physiological observer
who will be described in increasing detail by the empirical sciences in the 19c, and an
observer posited by various ‘romanticisms’ and early modernisms as the active,
autonomous producer of his or her own visual experience (Crary, 69).
The quotations above point to the choice a contemporary observer makes in seeing
reproductions of a realistic nature – to read an image in a poetic manner or with an empirical
and objective bias. The flatbed scanner has a number of visual qualities that confound the
purely objective reading and assist in engaging the poetic imagination. By virtue of its nearsighted optical construction, it creates uncanny, beautiful images when it scans threedimensional objects. It captures all the visual detail precisely and evenly across its surface, but
only if the object is in close contact with the scanner bed. The rest of the object is visually
diffused in a subtly different way from that of other optical systems. The scanner thus creates
images that are perceived to be at once both realistic and unnatural. This uncanny photorealism
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engages my curiosity about the parameters of our own optical mechanics and the veracity of
this sense of sight has on our interpretation.
By accessing and including the scanner’s flaws and faults within my images the observer is given
a technical layer or window through which to interpret the subject(s) of the scans. Seeing the
subject through this technical window allows the technology itself to become a point of
significance and a factor in this inquiry of the meaningful intersection of the eye, the machine
and nature. Scanning marks intervene with the visual, visceral experience and often create a
push-pull response in the viewer by appearing both seductive and broken. This layered
construction enables symbol and metaphor to be attached to the marks, the subject, and the
material presentation.
I have chosen plants, and specifically flowers, as my subjects. The scanner and plant
combination is powerful because of the tension between the polarized positions of these two
objects: technological and organic. The organic and the technological placed together in one
image create an opportunity for the viewer to contemplate the complex relationship between
wild, mutable and diverse Nature, and the order and control of Technology.
I come to this work with a background as a communication designer, art director and illustrator
trained in the philosophy of modernism. This mindset and training revolve around the purity of
the “less is more” core principle. Less is more finds expression in the scarcity of elements used on
the page, the cleanliness and sophistication of the concept and its realization through the
elements, and the mechanical process of production. Conceptual design is a top-down
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approach to image and project development. Solid strategy and intent predicates all action. One
of my goals in this Masters program was to invigorate my creative process, both as a designer
and as an artist, so I put aside this top-down approach and allowed another creative process to
take its place. It was challenging and initially uncomfortable to embrace a bottom-up approach,
which in essence meant doing and learning from the doing rather than having a clear concept
and intended outcome at the start. This underlying bottom-up approach informed my
investigation into the visual properties of the scanner.
The methodology and body of work I have made by adapting the scanner’s mechanical and
electronic method of reproduction have set my project and creative process goals in a new
direction. I will now design projects by including many levels of information, direct and indirect,
that when rubbed together subjectively create a possible interpretation rather than a direct
message. This open semiotic approach is surprisingly invigorating and adds a level of freshness and
vitality to my creative process that was missing in my earlier work, both as an artist and as a
designer.
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over looking: discovering the sensual through technology
the influence of Uta Barth
The photographic practice of Uta Barth has had a strong influence on my own artistic inquiries
and has informed the tone and objectives of my image making for the last two years. “Her work
is as much about the failures of vision as it is about its seeming transparency and consolidation;
as much about its fallout as that faith we place in its mechanics” (Lee, 37). Of particular
importance is the exploration of eye fatigue in her work. Eye fatigue refers to the physiological
compulsion to overlook or dismiss visual information that is well known (like the living room
of a family home) in order to focus on the new and unknown (a visitor sitting in the room). She
has photographically focused on the qualities that define the peripheral, the dismissible –
stillness, quiet and the softness of a distant object. Uta Barth develops photographic strategies
in her work that replace the act of seeing the subject of a photograph, with “seeing”, itself, as the
subject. Her photographs are meant to act as catalysts that spark a visceral, often pleasurable,
self-conscious response from the viewer. The images capture the peripheral, the mundane and
the often-unnoticed experiences of the everyday. Barth finds these visual moments and
reframes them into primary moments. “The work invests in ideas about time, stillness, inactivity
and non-event, not as something threatening or numbing, but as something actually to be
embraced. There is a certain desire to embrace that which is completely incidental, peripheral,
atmospheric and totally unhinged” (Higgs, 22). Rather than dull or static, her work captures
elements of life’s visual vitality. By consciously avoiding a primary subject and a privileged focal
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point, Barth’s work encourages the viewer to idle through the image and discover the value of
the visual stroll that is often overlooked, yet available in day-to-day moments.
FIGURE 1A, FIGURE 1B
UTA BARTH, TWO IMAGES FROM THE SERIES . . . AND OF TIME, 2000
LIGHT JET ON FUJICOLOR PAPER, 88.9 X 114.3 CM. COURTESY OF THE J.PAUL GETTY MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES. © 2000 UTA BARTH
Figure 1a/b above, part of Barth’s . . . and of time series, is about light – not the room’s interior,
nor a metaphor for the internal. She is taking the atmospheric and spatial background elements
back to a conscious plane for recognition. In an interview with Matthew Higgs she said, “There
is much attention to the optical phenomena produced by this sustained, prolonged, singular
kind of looking. There is a type of optical fatigue and a sense of duration that I’m trying to
figure out how to present” (Higgs, 30).
Barth’s work educates the mind/eye to see consciously, and this approach to art practice had a
profound influence on my work. It has opened the parameters and definition of art practice to
include empirical information and methodology from the sciences – particularly biology. It has
also given me an understanding of how to establish a personal distance – a cool-headedness – in
the practice of artmaking,. When I scan an object I often find my visual aesthetics are
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challenged. The look of the scan is not preordained and I have to live with an image for a long
time to comprehend it. In this stage of the work I have to overcome my own kind of eye fatigue
by looking for prolonged periods of time at an image before and after I’ve printed it. This
process is two-fold – I see and comprehend the scanners interpretation and I also look for the
symbolic and metaphoric value in the technological marks as they mix with the content of the
scan. This methodology has transformed my art practice from an activity that created great
stress for me on a personal level, to an activity that informs and engages my mind, as well as
giving me great pleasure in its process and outcome.
Darwin describes a similar experience when he steeps himself in The Principles of Geology by
Charles Lyell while on his groundbreaking, three-year Pacific voyage. “The great merit of the
‘principles’ was that it altered the whole tone of one’s mind, and therefore that, when seeing a
thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes” (Schneer, 288).
water & seedpod projects
I initially developed a painting project to explore these optical ideas. Focusing on ambience
without using a clear focal point became a goal while working on paintings of water. I
attempted to capture the silence, stillness and visual strangeness of an alkaline lake on Maui
without defaulting to landscape, image depth or true representation.
Further expression of these optical ideas developed into a second project to explore seeing the
unique in the everyday and bringing background elements into the foreground. I discovered a
number of interesting weeds and seeds in the ever-present piles of yard waste found on Maui
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and decided to paint a series of still life works in the Dutch botanical tradition, to celebrate
these wonderful little expressions of life that most Hawaiian landscapers are trained to remove.
Most of the painting was to be done in Vancouver due to time constraints on Maui, I therefore
chose to document this plant collection using the scanner rather than a camera because it captures
better detail and the results can be seen immediately. The scanner and the photocopier have always
been favored tools of mine. In my career as a graphic designer I have created many book covers and
interior visuals using both the scanner and photocopier to capture and stylize images. I have also
used them in the early stages of image development to quickly run through compositional ideas. I
had not however, tried to capture a 3D subject with the scanner before, and therefore didn’t
anticipate that the results would differ from two-dimensional scans in any significant way.
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FIGURE 2 ALEXANDRA HASS, RELEASE, 2006
The scanner did more than merely capture images of the seeds in a traditional manner. Instead, I
produced images that interpreted the seeds in a singular way by portraying high-definition reality
wherever the object touched the scanner bed, and shifting to a soft-focus diffusion that defined the
rest of the object. In addition, there was no privileged focal point. When the focal point (the
compositional point within an image that is of primary significance) is removed and/or undefined,
the viewer is free to use their personal subjectivity as the navigational tool to define the important
point/s for themselves. The scanner’s carriage (containing the light source and light receiving
aperture) moved across the flatbed evenly, distributing the focal intensity across the whole of the
image. An illusion of depth is created by the near-sightedness of the optics, which quickly diffuses the
object into the background.
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comparisons with Uta Barth’s work
The artifacts are not exactly emulating the work of Uta Barth, but certainly have the spirit of
her work within them. They have the same unexpected technical softness, the hyper-real
melting into a soft focus, and the lack of a focal point, all of which create a visceral pleasure in
seeing. Essentially, the image experience is of a kind that can inspire the viewer towards a more
conscious act of looking. Rather than having an automatic or physiologically reactive
experience, the viewer can engage with, and compare the subtle differences of the scanners’
system of visualizing with their own .
After scanning all the objects and seeing the varied results, I came to realize that these scans reflect
the work of Uta Barth in one other way – they reveal their technological origin. Uta Barth has built
into her practice a relentless pursuit of revealing the photographic nature of the camera within her
images. To her it is another way of engaging the viewer in thinking about vision. She allows –
invites, really – blurs, blow-outs, hot spots and any other marks particular to photography. (Fig. 3).
FIGURE 3 UTA BARTH, FIELD #9, 1995
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My own scans are quite different in their aesthetic quality, but they too reveal their technological
nature in almost every scan. The seed in release (Fig. 2) reacts to the light of the scanner head by
reflecting a rainbow-like spectrum off of some of the individual hairs; in other cases liquids create
odd rainbow-like smudges, and sometimes, thin petals are interpreted as semi-opaque and become
visually layered with the petals behind them.
I am still working on discovering all the peculiarities of the scanner and its visual
interpretations. I consider most of the scans made in this discovery process as studies and
experiments that will generate or become finished pieces when I fully comprehend their visual
potential. The artworks depicted in figures 4, 5, 6 and 13 are finished examples of this, as they
have a set conceptual framework – discovered through the making – that I am now working
within. I will continue to search for and discover scanner mark-making capabilities until I feel
satisfied that the possibilities have been exhausted.
The seed scans have many threads that tie them to the work of Uta Barth, but they also part
company with her images in significant ways. The primary difference between my work and Uta
Barth’s is my distinctly different method of engagement with the image-capture process. My
role within the scanner’s image capture is to open the process to chance while working blind to
a large extent. Working this way is less calculating, more experiential –partly cyborg, and partly
technician. I introduce the term “cyborg” here as it best encapsulates my relationship to the
scanner – that of a person who has enhanced her natural biological capacity by mechanical or
electronic devices. The artist Stelarc has a somewhat harsh definition of cyborg that references
our cultural relationship to enhancing devices.
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Bodies are both Zombie and Cyborgs. We have never had a mind of our own and we
often perform involuntarily – conditioned and externally prompted. Ever since we
evolved as hominids and developed bipedal locomotion, two limbs became
manipulators and we constructed artifacts, instruments and machines. In other words
we have always coupled with machines. We have always been prosthetic bodies.
(Stelarc)
I do not wholly embrace Stelarc’s perception of our mindless and conditioned actions. I do
however agree that we are drawn to machines that enhance our capacities and engage our minds in
new possibilities or information. When I scan an object, I can’t predict or even anticipate what the
scanner will produce, or the manner of its interpretation. I can only choose and arrange the object,
set up the light conditions, adjust the programming settings, the level of magnification and the DPI
that affect the number of pixels; that is, set in motion the conditions that will affect the resulting
scan. Even when I preview the image in the scanning software before a final scan, I only see the
position and general appearance of the object – the details and anomalies are almost always a
surprise. The cyborg-like aspect is only realized after the scan is complete and the original object is
revealed in new, and unanticipated ways. The scanner’s mechanical and electronic method of
reproduction intervenes with my own visual intentions as it extends my visual capabilities. This is
surprisingly invigorating and adds a level of freshness and vitality to my creative process that was
missing in my earlier work, both as a painter and as a designer.
The plant-scans also differ from Barth’s photographs through a lack of situational context, a lack
of atmospheric conditions for interpretation, and most significantly, the existence of a central
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object. The primary subject in the plant scans is often metaphorically rich, and this again sets the
scans apart from the photos of Uta Barth. She has always maintained that her images are not signs
or indicators in the semiotic sense, but are to be experienced in and of themselves.
FIGURE 4 ALEXANDRA HASS, WAITING, 2006
The metaphoric discoveries made at this stage are visible in the figures 2 and 4 above. The scanner’s
interpretations of plant forms sets the images apart from the historic depictions of the botanical
object. Images made in that tradition reference the plants’ structural and textural details in a
rational and empirical manner to allow the viewer to fully comprehend a plant that was unknown.
The scanner’s interpretations are neither empirically, nor indexically authoritative examples of
botany’s representational tradition. The peculiarity and uniqueness of these images fool the mind
into “seeing” with a fresh eye. At the same time the vague and mysterious figurative aspect of the
central object opens the mind to metaphoric interpretation.
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In many cases the subject becomes anthropomorphized into a symbol of human life. The
presentation style of the green and brown seed pods clearly reference the cool botanical and
rational approach in the centered and simple presentation, but do not entirely depict the seedpods’
structure or textures. The added anthropomorphic elements add tension to the coolness of the
presentation and invite the viewer to contemplate another subject altogether. For example the
green seedpod has an overt sexual metaphor embedded within it — the opening of the seedpod
bears a strong anatomical resemblance to a woman’s labia, the shape of the space within the
opening and the motion of the seeds dispersing, allude to the vagina, fecundity and the moment of
sexual release. The way the light reacts to the different material elements of the seedpod, creating
an atmosphere of softness, also biases the viewer toward reading this image in a sensual way, and
lends additional visual strength to the sexual atmosphere.
On the other hand, the brown seedpod acts in a different anthropomorphic manner by not
alluding to the sensual moment, but to the anxious moment. This seedpod has hardened into a
shape that resembles a pair of hands clasping in nervous anticipation. Even the hard, thin
texture of the wood-like bracts resembles the strain of skin tightened and pulled taut in anxiety.
Both of these anthropomorphic expressions lend additional value to the images without
diminishing the original objectives of the seed project. The metaphoric discoveries have added a
conceptual element to the work, which has greatly increased my interest in pursuing this
project. However, finding plants that are both humble in origin and rich in metaphoric
possibilities is a slow process of walking, seeing, examining, and then finally documenting an
object through the scanner. Looking for the abject object also requires a specific frame of mind
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and an attentive eye that can see the human aspect within a discarded botanical life form. It is
for these reasons a slowly realized series, with progress made by accident and opportunity –
naturally.
The seedpod project encouraged me to explore the potential of the human/plant relationship and
its complexities. I then began the next phase of my inquiries by researching biology and co-evolution
in search of interconnections that could inform the metaphoric content I was looking for.
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control, chance and seduction
FIGURE 5 ALEXANDRA HASS, SELF-PORTRAIT, 2007
“All domesticated plants are in some sense artificial, living archives of both
cultural and natural information that people have helped ‘design.’ Any cultivated
flower reflects the human desires that have been bred into it” (Pollan, 195).
control & chance
The investigation of the scanner as a visual tool continued as I explored various topics within
biology and evolution. I wished to find a model that I could use as a subtext for my plant choices
and scanner settings. It was important that there be an interplay of significance between organic
subject and technological tool. I discovered a conceptual model in the tension that exists
between monoculture and biodiversity – control and chance.
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The complex relationship we have constructed with nature has been both highly beneficial and
highly problematic. The tension lies in the interplay of the Logos (controlling principles) of Nature
and those of humankind as expressed through the objectives of monoculture and technology. My
guide in this area is Michael Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire. In it, Pollan examines the
reciprocal nature of our relationship with plants from a historic perspective that includes both an
appreciation of the benefits and an analysis of the failures of this marriage of human and plant. He
uses the term Dionysian to represent the wild mutability and diversity of nature, and Apollonian to
represent the other principle: order, control and drive to perfection. The Apollonian principle also
exists and is intrinsic to the technological ethos that created the scanner. According to the writer
Jeanne Randolph, “Technology could be defined as an ideology in which human experience is
defined and perceived exclusively in terms of goals to be achieved as efficiently as possible. An ideal
of technology is to find The One Best Way to accomplish each goal” (Randolph, 77).
I have adopted the Dionysian-Apollonian framework for my plant and scanner work because it
allows for a meaningful intersection of plants, and media within physical atmospheric
conditions like light or water that are then combined with technological intent and use.
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Seduction
The realistic yet uncanny visual quality created by the scanner optics continued to be emphasized
in the scanner experiments. I pushed the eye appeal further by adopting another strategy used by
Nature: the blatant use of seductive textures, colours and forms – to attract, even seduce, mobile
organisms to assist in the process of reproduction. Plants do this by making flowers with features
that attract the kinds of creatures best suited to help them reproduce. I determined that using
flowers – specifically cultivars (plants that have been hybridized artificially to become more
attractive to the consumer) – would imbue my scans with a seductive quality, attracting and
pleasing the viewer with flowers designed and modified for current visual appeal. While the
flowers are representative of both nature and human, the technological imprint would add an
element of both conceptual and visual complexity.
For look at a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature’s double
nature—that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spiring
toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it…Apollo and Dionysius were
names the Greeks gave to these two faces of nature, and nowhere in nature is their
contest as plain or as poignant as it is in the beauty of a flower and its rapid passing.
There, the achievement of order against all odds and its blithe abandonment.
(Pollan, 109)
The destruction of the order, the open invitation to chaos after achieving compositional
structure and complexity, was not one of the strategies of my original experiments. I have
adopted this methodology with the scanner by pushing its capabilities until it creates a rupture
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in the scan. In my upcoming projects (chapter 5) I will be incorporating this moment in the
flower within the scans – the moment it explodes or destructs.
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dis-connection: the scanner as a disruptive medium
FIGURE 6 ALEXANDRA HASS, EARLYBURST, 2008
When I created EarlyBurst, above, using a scanner, I discovered optical surprises that did not
exist in the object at all, surprises caused by stressing the scanner apparatus (a completely novel
action/idea to a print designer taught to scan optimally). Prior to creating this image, I had
focused on perfecting my scanner technique: what settings were best, what file sizes were
needed, what steps should be taken in Photoshop etc. I was pursuing information that would
enhance the hyper-real photographic interpretations of three-dimensional objects. These early
pure-minded scans contained reflective light and material anomalies, wonderful unexpected
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textures and structural details, but nothing that was outside of a realistic interpretation or
realistic visual information.
EarlyBurst has embedded within it three types of visual aberrations that contribute to a
discontinuous representation. The first of these aberrations is the broken seaming of the image
– the scanner is unable to properly fuse one pass of the image to another. This creates a visual
jostling in the image – particularly around the edges. Another aberration is the rainbow effect it
creates on some of the stamen and pollen. The third and most unexpected effect is the
flattening (by this I mean a three dimensional object becoming one flat colour, rather than
alluding to a plastic shape) of the pollen that is in turn interpreted as red or green or yellow, not
the original orange.
EarlyBurst changed my objectives and the direction of my work with the scanner’s technology.
Rather than attempting to perfect the image capture process, I began to pursue methods of
distress to discover the range of visual properties the scanner possessed.
the influence of Wolfgang Tillmans; back to Barth
Actively exploring the medium of a scanner is similar to exploring the medium of analog
photography, though the technical and material conditions of the scanner consist of making
imagery through light and programming, rather than light and chemicals.
Photographs can represent things in the world, but photography can also be selfreflective and explore its own possibilities as a medium, i.e. the technical and
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material conditions involved in the making of imagery through light and chemicals.
(Tillmans, 7)
Wolfgang Tillmans, quoted above, is referring to his photographic explorations in works such as
Silver, Paper Drop, Lighter, Studio Light, Aufsicht and If One Thing Matters, Everything Matters. In
Silver, Tillmans explores the chemical reactions used in film processing:
Silver’s images are mechanical pictures made by feeding them through a processing
machine while it’s being cleaned, so they pick up traces of dirt and silver residue from
the chemicals. Because they are only half fixed and the chemicals aren’t fresh, they
slowly change hue over a few days. Sometimes I use this instability to create different
shades and lines on them, before scanning and enlarging them to their final size.
(Eichler, 1)
His explorations also include composing and capturing light as it plays with the simple shapes
of folded photo paper in the series Paper Drop, and extends to three-dimensional, physically
folded photographs, which then become sculptural explorations of the photographic medium
in works within the series Lighter.
Some of them I expose to different coloured light sources in the darkroom after
first folding them in the dark, and some are made in reverse order. Some are not
folded at all – they only suggest the possibility of a fold – but they are all highly
intricate. We are still blind to what it exactly is that makes a photograph so
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particular, so deeply psychological, even though it’s supposedly a mechanical
medium. The Lighter works are a continuation of the three-dimensional approach
of the paper drop pictures (2001–8) of hanging and flipped-over pieces of
photographic paper. (Tillmans, 7)
In these works Tillmans reveals an obsession with the “chemical magic” of photography and the
photographic process. The discoveries he makes in these material explorations often find
expression within his depictions of still life, his portraiture, his documentary style shots of 90s club
scenes, and most noticeably in his landscapes. He also uses other mechanical interventions –
notably the photocopier – to add the atmospheric interpretations he believes will complete the
image experience.
When I work on the non-figurative pictures in the darkroom or use photocopiers,
it is a direct engagement with physical realities: the colour and intensity of my light
sources or the electrostatic charge on the copier drums. I use them and play with
them to make pictures possible. For instance, under the burden of all the clichés it’s
not really possible to photograph Venice, but I still wanted to, so I made the
photocopier-enlarged image Venice (2007), in which the details that indicate
‘Venice’ are reduced heavily. That makes them feel almost appropriated, but in
fact all the photocopy pictures are based on photographs, which I took for this
type of enlargement. (Eichler, 1)
I believe that Tillmans, through his material explorations, informs and educates his inner or
mind’s eye, which in turn strengthens and fine-tunes his spatial sensibility and his ability to find
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poetic moments in the everyday. This experimentation also increases his capacity to see
potential opportunities for mechanical intervention after he has taken the images –
opportunities to add in layers of purely photographic mark-making that take the image to a
new experiential plane. This work is done in the darkroom (as opposed to Uta Barth who
composes her shots to contain the photographic mark-making).
It is this celebration of what photography is that connects him to the work of Uta Barth. The
intent behind his abstract work differs from Barth’s as it is grounded in the exploration of the
photographic medium rather than Barth’s overt exploration of visual perception through
photography. The two approaches however, share a common goal in their quest to enlarge and
engage the viewer’s optical experience.
Tillmans’ work and mine connect in the common pursuit of discovering how a technological
tool and its associated materials react to various unanticipated or undesirable conditions. These
conditions create visual disruptions that potentially create an enhanced visual interpretation of
the image/art piece and deepen the possibilities of a meaningful viewing experience.
My own artistic goals are informed by both Barth’s and Tillmans’ approaches, and sit
somewhere between the objectives of these two photographers. I wish to maintain the hyperrealistic and uncanny quality of the original Maui seedpod scans, which connect them back to
Uta Barth’s gentle proddings into the “physicality of vision . . . exploring the differences
between looking at the world and being conscious of that looking” (Barth et al, 29). I also
believe that embedding evidence of a technical nature into an image can add subjective and
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metaphoric depth to the content of that image. An example of the can be found in Entropy (figure
13, Chapter 4), where the rainbow-like striations that have been created by scanner force
themselves between the viewer and the plant. Their presence has been read in two distinct ways.
One is a poetic interpretation of the sunlight being converted to a rainbow by the scanner. The
other interpretation falls in the category of a critique of our relationship to Nature. In this
interpretation the coloured bars of the striations symbolize a cage, the flowers symbolize a Nature
that is trapped and impotent. The embedded evidence makes the technology visible in the images,
which allows to the eye/ mind to comprehend the boundaries - real and illusory - and actively
work with and transgress them. These marks will always have a metaphorical association to our
technologically mediated society. Fused together with the plant matter they create a semiotically
rich image that is lightly directed, but still very open to a subjective interpretation.
While Uta Barth denies or de-emphasizes the metaphoric nature of a technical mark, Wolfgang
Tillmans captures this subjective richness in many ways – most of them through phototechnical intrusions. An example of this can be found in his photocopy work, where the poor
visual quality of the photocopier toner and non-archival paper add a sense of loss to the
temporal nature of the moment captured and reproduced, only to be lost to the decomposing
processes of time.
embracing the accidental
Both Barth and Tillmans reference Nature and everyday experience in their process of
exploration and in the content of their work. “ . . . control and chance, intention and liberating
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accidents are a constant theme in Tillman’s work” (Birnbaum, 8). Intention and liberating
accidents also play a part in the work of Uta Barth.
This embrace of the accidental within the larger scope of calculation and control is a methodology
that echoes the process of evolution in Nature, so it was to that process that I turned to frame and
inform my own methodology for the exploration of the scanner. The scientist and writer Hans
Meinhart, on the topic of structural development and evolutionary behaviour in nature, wrote,
“Sooner or later self-enhancing processes provoke antagonistic tendencies” (Meinhart, 1). I have
interpreted the term “antagonistic” as oppositional, i.e. opposing a particular action, or growth, in
an attempt to rebalance or strengthen a larger system. This is the core premise of the oppositional
strategy I developed – technology (representing the Apollonian aspect) versus the organic (here
representing the Dionysian aspect), which has evolved (forgive me) to also encompass the overlaps
and similarities that exist between biology and technology. The complexity of their relatedness
exists in the fact that they are both technologically created. The evolution of the image and the
evolution of domesticated nature are tied to technology. In that sense the oppositional nature of
the technology is illusory inasmuch as the technology is part of nature (just as we are).
changing the scanner’s role
The flat-bed scanner, in its objective role of digital interpretation, simply captures a two
dimensional image in digital form. The better the input and scanning device, the more perfectly
the scanner reproduces the image without adding any visual sign of its presence. When asked to
interpret a three-dimensional object, it adds a subtle and unique visual flavour. Under optimal
light and programming conditions, it produces images that interpret three-dimensional objects
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in a visually pleasing manner capturing fine details when the objects touch the scanner bed and
instantly diffusing to a soft blur of colour where they do not. This technological visual quality,
combined with the innate sensuality of plants, creates images that are easy to access, both
because of the subject matter and because they are an uncanny interpretation of reality. The
uncanny quality of the scanner lies in the fact that its optical construct is horizontal, table like
and shallow, unlike human organic optics which work within a cone shape, have a precise focal
point and incorporate large distances for seeing the larger territory that needs to be negotiated.
The scanner’s technological vision is reduced to a one-centimetre depth distributed across the
glass surface evenly. It can be thought of as the surface of a table with a thousand little
nearsighted eyes scanning down and across the glass bed, picking up each and every detail where
there is contact with the scanner bed, and alluding to the rest of the information with a blur.
The visceral pleasure in the simple act of seeing is brought to the forefront by this shift in visual
interpretation – heightening the difference between our own optical sense and that of the
scanner’s.
The scanner, as an imaging device, is situated between the computational world of programming
and the optical world of the camera. It functions in a very limited way within each of these
categories, but does not have full membership in either. This tool was designed to function in a
narrow technological field - specifically to digitize two-dimensional analog imagery. As a visual
medium it has not been fully explored, and this exploration is a multifaceted undertaking.
Additional exploration of the flat bed scanner has entailed systematically reducing, removing and
replacing many of the technical requirements and supports that allow it to function optimally.
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This is analogous to the logic of Nature: if stress is introduced the organism must respond with
change – either immediately or gradually through reproduction. The changes can be interpreted as
aberrations or adaptations. In the case of the scanner, the stress might entail a process of operating
it in bright sunlight, which is a condition under which it would not normally perform at an optimal
level.
In my visual experiments I have cast the scanner in the role of an organism whose natural
environment is a dark, clean, dry lab. For optimal performance the scanner bed must be clean;
the two-dimensional objects placed on it must be devoid of water, oil or dust. The objects to be
scanned are synthetic- photographs, paper, and transparencies – and are not found in nature.
The scanner’s interpretation of the two dimensional object (the actual scan) is usually reviewed
to ensure the scanner has left no mark of its use and has captured the original object perfectly
without any aberrations. In the lab environment the scanner functions perfectly and invisibly.
This lab environment has emerged from a long line of rational thinking and pragmatic tinkering
that now has a firm place in our industrial and computational society. The rational mind and
methodology of the 17th and 18th century, which have been instrumental in creating this
environment, are perfectly encapsulated in the following quote from Descartes who was
writing about his experience of the natural world within a camera obscura:
I will now shut my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall disregard my ‘senses.’ The orderly
and calculable penetration of light rays through the single opening of the camera
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corresponds to the flooding of the mind by the light of reason, not the potentially
dangerous dazzlement of the senses by the light of the sun. (Descartes, 24)
I wanted to open the eyes and flood the “mind” of the scanner to see what would happen when
the scanner was introduced to and engaged with the larger spectrum of the natural world. To
oppose the airless, sunless scanner environment meant adding back sunlight, organic objects,
dust, dirt, oil and water – dazzling the scanner’s senses with nature. It also meant throwing out
the programming instructions and even the program itself. The focus of my research became
the discovery of the role of chance – through provocation and liberating accidents –in creating,
amending and destroying visual form, as well as how these amendments and/or aberrations
worked to enhance an image by giving it a greater visual trope.
To adapt oppositional processes to the exploration of the scanner’s visual potential, I separated
its programming functions from its contextual needs. Making an oppositional or contrary
change to both the programming and the operating conditions, I then scanned to see what the
resulting visual interpretation would be. I connected this concept of opposites back to the two
ruling aspects of nature – between the Apollonian tendencies towards control and perfection
versus the Dionysian tendency towards mutability, chaos and change.
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five categories of opposites
The explorations to date fall into five categories: atmospheric opposites, internal opposites,
objective opposites, time-based opposites and material opposites – each one illustrated and
explained on the following pages.
FIGURE 7 ALEXANDRA HASS, LIGHT STUDY, 2008
ATMOSPHERIC OPPOSITES refers to the light quality – dark, and still vs. light, open or moving.
In figure 7 the scanner interprets the plants and sunlight in a semi-photographic way because it
is being used to optimize the image, not distort it. This image creates a push-pull tendency for
the eye by engaging it equally between the visually intense, yet playfully diffused interpretation
of background light and the hyper realistic foreground details.
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FIGURE 8 ALEXANDRA HASS, ENTROPY, DETAIL, 2008
INTERNAL OPPOSITES are proper scan procedures and inputs vs. inputs and procedures that
intentionally stress the internal mechanics and programming. In figure 8 the scanner software is
stressed by increasing the magnification past the proper settings, which greatly slowed the
scanner functions. Addition stress was introduced by scanning in direct sunlight. Various image
aberrations were created all within one scan: the scanner broke the image into flat 2D areas,
photographic planes, colour-spectrum striations, and RGB defined elements – i.e. parts of the
plant were interpreted as red, some parts green, and some parts blue. This outcome has multiple
effects on the image, the eye and the viewer’s experience. There is the pleasure of identifying the
realistically captured stamen within the blown-out diffusion of sunlight near the centre of the
flower. Added to this effect is a posterizing of the petals overlaid with bands of rainbow
striations – all these elements weave a visual effect that takes time to absorb and create a less
automatic, more engaged viewing . The temporal lag allows for multiple readings of the layers,
and for assessing the relationship of the subject to the technology. The digital artifacts divert
the perceptual processes, preventing a dismissal of the image as yet another flower.
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FIGURE 9 ALEXANDRA HASS, W/TEETH IN THE WIND, 2008
OBJECTIVE OPPOSITES invert visual priorities; capturing the material object with the scan vs.
capturing the effects of the surrounding sunlight, wind, and negative space. In this example there is
a visual focal inversion occuring with the plants – those in the background are brighter and of
greater visual interest than those in the foreground. This is caused by sunlight’s greater visual
power – the scanner light source, though it is enough to define the objects well, doesn’t have the
same intensity and is captured almost as a type of shade. The spatial quality of the background of
this image is another type of inversion,one where the space becomes a dominant aspect because it
is implying movement, while the plants are still. This causes the eye of a viewer to move back and
forth between the two in order to understand their relationship to each other.
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FIGURE 10 ALEXANDRA HASS, FOLDING LIGHT, 2008
MATERIAL OPPOSITES is a category of opposite material type and use. For instance the scanner
bed is usually dry – therefore I scan through water. As the glass is usually clean – I apply oils, or
dirt and allow water and/or pollen to fall onto it. The scan interprets the objects through the oil
or water, or captures the dirt and pollen as though they are floating in air, detached from the
plant altogether. Another material opposite is scanning a three-dimensional object versus
scanning objects that are flat.
In this example the plant is scanned through an inch of sea water with sunlight shining through
the water on half the scanner bed only. There are three visual aspects created by this aquatic
medium that are unnatural – one is how the background is interpreted, and the other is the
colour spectrum effect ringing each stalk of grass breaking the water. The third is the scanner's
deficiency in making coherent seams.
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FIGURE 11 ALEXANDRA HASS, SWIMMING, 2008
FIGURE 12 ALEXANDRA HASS, PARCHMENT, 2008
TIME- BASED OPPOSITES takes advantage of the fact that a scan is usually quick and perceived to
be similar to a snap shot – one moment in time. However a scanner can be programmed to take
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over an hour on a scan if the programming is adjusted. The image reveals the object’s
deterioration over the duration of the scan and can be interpreted as a time-based document.
Figure 12 is part of a larger scan that began as soft fresh white petals. By the time this section was
scanned the petals had become dehydrated and browned on the edges. The effect of the whole
image is unnatural as it presents very gradual decomposition and yet is perceived as a snapshot-like
moment. The tension that exists between the fresh and new petals and the old and dehydrated
ones is clearly visible, though does not jump out at the viewer at first glance. Reading it is
perplexing because of the massive quantity of petals used – this scan could have been set-up with
the old and new composed in this manner, but the set-up would have taken so long that the fresh
petals would not have lasted long enough in their fresh state for the image to be taken.
The scanner experiments have defined and identified specific limitations, particularly in the
scanner’s programming. To further explore capturing the temporal potential of the scanner, Dr.
Maria Lantin, the director of IDS, wrote a new scanning program for the Epson scanner. The new
program allows for random scanning of the image bed rather than the preset, linear, top to bottom
progression of the scanner head. This new program allows images to be scanned in a nonlinear way
and pushes the time-based aspect of the visual information into the unnatural territory of seeing
different temporal moments seamed together in what initially appears to be a single moment in
time. I anticipate that the resulting images will engage the viewer in attempting to make out the
subtle pattern of freshness and dehydration as it is distributed across and throughout the image.
My hope is to reveal a temporal whole in the disjointed spatial assembly.
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The visuals produced by these oppositional pairings are byproducts or offspring of the scanner
– echoing biological themes in their unknown outcome and far-ranging results. Just as an apple
forms five seeds that do not replicate the original fruit, these scans do not replicate either the
object within the scan or its environment, but a new interpretation of the two. An additional
echo of evolution is based on the survival of the fittest strategy – in my selection process only
those images deemed successful are printed (or replicated).
Adapting nature’s predilection to chance in my use of the flat bed scanner has freed the scanner
from the constraints of controlled invisibility as a tool of digital translation. Unfettered by the
limitations of the lab, the scanner has revealed itself as an artistic tool with its own interpretive
vocabulary of image and mark-making capacities that both distort and heighten our visual
experience.
Throughout the experimentation with the scanner I have noticed my own visual awareness and
aesthetic go through a significant shift. In the manner of Wolfgang Tillmans, I have discovered
that my awareness of the environment and the spatial and atmospheric conditions of the day
has increased. This experimentation has also given me a greater understanding of the value of
visually intervening between the image and the viewer with a mechanical mark.
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technology as metaphor
FIGURE 13 ALEXANDRA HASS, ENTROPY, 2008
There are many theories about how a viewer interacts with a photographic image. The viewer
might mentally fuse with the photographic space and content, or perhaps contemplate the
technology or the photographer and the type of mind that created the image. Another
possibility, which I am exploring in my images, and which Uta Barth and Wolfgang Tillmans
also use, is the concept of a “third space” that locates the place of engagement for the viewer
within the intersection of the photographic content, the technical elements, and the artist.
Where final meaning rests with the viewer. A type of reality is referenced, but because of image
distress, distortion or abstraction, it is, as with all imagery, open to varied degrees of
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interpretation and nuance. The visual evidence of the technological in an image is generally
perceived as a metaphor for our industrialized society and the plant becomes a symbol of
nature.
In his book Techniques of the Observer, Jonathan Crary explores the history of human vision and its
perceptual developments as informed by scientific inquiry in tandem with technological
advancements. He addresses the gap that exists in discussions about past and current perceptual
capacities, which usually focus on empirical data. He also addresses the subtle changes in the role
of the observer as he or she becomes more adept and sophisticated in seeing, deciphering and
making meaningful the processes of nature and our industrialized, technological environment rich
with images and signs. Crary’s book pivots around the premise that technology educates, shapes,
refines and enlarges our visual and perceptual capacity both individually and collectively.
Crary’s book begins with the invention of the Camera Obscura in the sixteenth century and its
influence on the perception of life through the processes of nature. He focuses much of the
book on the transformational impacts these technologies have had on art and philosophy. He
addresses the current impact of digital technology only in the first paragraph of the first
chapter. There he states that we are
…in the midst of a transformation in the nature of visuality probably more profound
than the break that separates medieval imagery from Renaissance perspective. The
rapid development in little more than a decade of a vast array of computer graphics
techniques is part of a sweeping reconfiguration of relations between an observing
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subject and modes of representation that effectively nullifies most of the culturally
established meanings of the terms observer and representation. (Crary, 1)
Crary’s book has influenced my work and research because it explores the development of
perception through enhancing technological devices. His “observer,” much like Marshall
McLuhan’s, sees the technological context as meaningful. McLuhan’s famous statement “the
medium is the message” asserts that the function of seeing includes and gives priority to the
method of its delivery.
Jeanne Randolph and object relations theory
In her essay “Technology as Metaphor,” Jeanne Randolph outfits Jonathan Crary’s new observer
with a specific ability: the capacity to maintain an illusionistic space within a technologically made
artwork. “This is a subject who welcomes the conditions in the “third area,” conditions that are
ambiguous, self-contradictory, approximate. These conditions necessitate an act of interpretation.
By an act of interpretation this hypothesized subject deliberately co-authors illusions . . .”
(Randolph, 77). The specific technology Randolph refers to is photography, but her ideas can be
applied to many artworks that reference “reality,” yet reveal and use their technological origin to
attach additional layers of meaning within its aesthetic presentation.
Jeanne Randolph’s ideas revolve around the complicit role of the viewer of a photograph in
sustaining and building its illusionist force. This is the viewing ability my work anticipates and
engages with, one aspect of which is the metaphoric tendencies of the viewer’s mind. This is an
audience that actively engages in sustaining the illusionary “working fiction” of an artwork, and
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welcomes the opportunity to engage with and use their subjectivity as a navigational tool.
Jeanne Randolph’s ideas have assisted me in articulating the desired relationship I seek to create
between my images and the viewer.
That area between autistic, private fantasy and public, pragmatic, convention, between
bodily function and sociopolitical function is, in fact, culture. Phenomena that are
brought into this intermediate or third realm of activity no longer exist solely on their
own terms. In the cultural realm the objective and subjective merge … In this third,
cultural realm of activity, phenomena become found objects that are free to be redefined as well as actually reshaped, so that their interpretation is multiplied.
(Randolph, 48)
Both Uta Barth and Wolfgang Tillmans explore and engage “the third space,” in works that define
and/or activate the space of visual, visceral illusion, and engage the viewer psychologically and
physiologically through a technological medium. This conceptual framework is pivotal to the ideas I
am developing with the scanned image, and the expectations I have of viewers’ metaphoric
tendencies and capabilities.
Jeanne Randolph reads the observer of the photograph through the filter of object relations
theory, which places great emotive power on the visual connections made by the viewer.
“Object relations theory is a modern adaptation of psychoanalytic theory…object relations
theorists believe that we are relationship-seeking rather than pleasure-seeking as Freud
suggested” (Klee). To me, relationship-seeking implies an urge to understand where one fits,
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what one sees, and how one is affected. In this light it is a perfect fit for the audience that Uta
Barth and Wolfgang Tillmans attempt to reach in their work. This is an audience that is ready
to see meaning and value in the technical abstractions produced by the camera.
Both Barth and Tillmans have created their work for an audience that is technologically
literate; viewers who are able to interpret technological marks like pixilation, moiré patterns,
striations and screen break-up as signifiers. The beauty of the work of these two photographers
is their ability to invert the meaning of the technical mark generally signifying a “problem,” to a
mark created for the viewer’s engagement and the image’s enhancement.
technology educates
“In his projections regarding the popular apprehension of Film, Benjamin was not
able to anticipate the ways in which technology would discipline the audience into
particular ways of seeing or the ways in which that technology would develop.”
(Stewart, 11)
Susan Stewart’s concept of disciplining the audience can include the concept of educating the
audience, if discipline is used in its original meaning. The term “discipline” comes from the Latin
word “disciplinare,” which means to teach. Therefore to see an image through the lens of
technology and interact with the image and its technological origin together, creates a type of
seeing that is quite different than the automatic vision we use for scanning to negotiate the
details of daily life. Uta Barth and Wolfgang Tillmans use this new ability to bring daily life
back into the framework of a gallery or book with new eyes and engagement. It is their shared
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belief that viewing is or can be a conscious “process of perception, and the visceral and
intellectual pleasures of seeing” (Higgs, 32) and can be triggered by allowing the technology
used to visually reveal itself and become part of the aesthetic experience.
The meaningful convergence of nature and technology in my images relies on the observer’s
semiotic engagement. Over the past year I have been developing scanning techniques that
interpret the object scanned in combination with a variety of visual, technological noise. I
combine this technological noise with a plant-form presented in an indexical composition. This
exploration of nature is designed to allow the observer to attach meaning at various or
combined conceptual coordinates; the scanner’s noise, the plant-form and how it has been
presented, the meanings of the two combined, or the material presentation.
Entropy , the image at the beginning of this chapter, has a number of visual aberrations embedded
in it and is a good example of the wide range of visual responses and metaphoric attachments that
can been read into an image. One example is the interpretation of the scanner’s visual presence as a
signifier for society, imprisoning nature – the striations act as bars, the plants are captured and
immobilized. Another quite opposite reaction is seeing the striations as a rainbow captured by the
optics – a moment where the two systems find each other and celebrate that moment of contact
with a visual party. The flowers then, act as catalysts for the momentary fusion of the two opposing
systems. These disparate responses have confirmed the validity of my approach: attempting to
keep the metaphors open while creating the potential for a semiotically rich visual experience. Leo
Steinberg, an art critic known for his engaging and lucid writing said something similar about the
work of Jasper Johns in his essay about the artist’s process of engagement with the viewer. “ . . . he
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puts two ideas together and makes them work so hard that the mind is sparked, seeing them (the
paintings) becomes thinking” (Steinberg, 96). What I admire so much about this concept is that
the “thinking” is not predetermined and closed. Similarly, the technological lens, by which I mean
the marks made by the scanner, functions because the marks are open and ever changing –
determined by the viewers subjectivity.
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future directions & material applications
FIGURE 14 ALEXANDRA HASS, CHAOS, 2008
“For look at a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature’s double
nature—that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spiring
toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it. . . . Apollo and Dionysus were
names the Greeks gave to these two faces of nature, and nowhere in nature is their
contest as plain or as poignant as it is in the beauty of a flower and its rapid passing.
There, the achievement of order against all odds and its blithe abandonment.”
(Pollan, 109)
This quote is revisited here as it points to the change in direction of my current projects. The
quote addresses the two faces of Nature – the Apollonian system of control (creation) and the
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Dionysian system of abandon (dissolution). My scans up to this point have explored distressing
the tool that captures the images, the plants within the scans have been manipulated in many
ways, but this was done to either find their inner structures or to capture internal material
qualities. I have not attempted to capture the plant itself abandoning its structural order.
explosion | implosion
“ There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” (Cohen)
printed images
I have developed a number of projects that explore different material applications of this
calculated plant dissolution. One expression of the idea will rest with large printed images that
capture dissolution in the subject (figure 14, chaos is one example) and in the rupture of a
perfectly captured image as it is broken-up by the scanner with markings, odd interpretations
and problems with seaming. This dual moment of dissolution references not only the moment
of rupture, but also the system of control that it is attached to. This moment represents vitality,
freedom and renewal.
Additional metaphoric elements will be added to the images by the manner of their
presentation. The prints will be framed without glass in thick wooden frames that reference the
aesthetic found in early European museums of Natural History. The choice to display the
prints without glass was made because of the velvet nature of the paper itself – its material
surface is lost when glass covers it. This surface adds a painterly patina to the experience of
these images, and though subtle it is important to retain as it adds one more tangible element to
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the experience. The wooden picture frames that reference the museums of Natural History are
a device that sets a tone – or alters the tone (as Darwin states) of the mind of the viewer –
alluding to an earlier time when the observer was looking in a leisurely way at a drawing or
painting to learn or to comprehend, but not to be entertained.
sculptural form
The second project is a freestanding sculpture made of a transparent duratran print with a seed
explosion (part of the same sequence of scans as chaos). The transparency will be sandwiched
between sheets of plexiglas that are patterned with a star-like spatter and lit from within its base.
My hope it to create a very delicate visual, visceral experience by combining light, glass and
elements of hyper-realism. The celestial addition is inspired by a project by August Strindberg
called the Celestographs. In this project he placed glass plates on the ground or a windowsill and
exposed them to the night sky. He did this work in the 1890s. The marks that were developed
could have been image captures of the sky, but could just as easily be particles of dirt, or stray light
from another source. It is the poetic gesture within this project that appeals to me. My work will
reference the micro and the macro in a similar manner within the juxtaposition of seed and sky.
timebased work
The third project will explore creation and dissolution in the cycle of life of a growing plant(s)
using a time-lapse video. The video will be made using the scanner programmed and positioned
to show its marks and aberrations – the theme of rupture in the plant juxtaposed with rupture
in the image will be the core premise of the visuals.
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I will scan a plant as it grows, flowers and explodes with seeds, then stream together hundreds of
scans into a stop-motion video. The scanner will be directed to capture strips of the plant
randomly, with a specified delay between each stripe until a complete scan has been obtained.
The process is repeated for each frame, again with a specified delay between frames. The plant
(and therefore the scanner) will be exposed to sunlight, so this process will create a video of the
plant metamorphosis containing a shimmering effect caused by the variation in growth and
light level, and scanner stresses. How the eye/mind will engage with motion and the scanner is
of interest to me and will determine the way that the images are streamed together as well as the
method of presentation.
These projects continue to explore and build on the themes I have investigated over the last few
years; visceral visual engagement, triggering the “third space” mindset of the observer, exploring
the potential meaning of a technological mark, discovering degrees of metaphoric and
anthropomorphic opportunities within natural objects, and finally creating images that leave
meaning open enough for individual interpretation. The new work will build on my earlier
discoveries by exploring and revealing how three dimensional form and time-based work affect
the experience of images made by a scanner. I hope to incorporate parts of this creative process
and methodology into my work as a communication designer as well. The open technological
metaphor is far richer territory for an audience to experience than the usual closed system of
communication design.
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