Tag Archives: ANU

Text in photography

This post contains some thoughts on the incorporation of text in still photography, and was written as notes for my Private Thoughts in Public Places project.

Text and images have been combined in art since writing was first used. Written text was routinely combined with visual imagery in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece, and by artists from traditional Chinese calligraphers , to the creators of illuminated manuscripts in Middle Ages and Renaissance times. The text generally served to provide descriptive information or labels of the image content, or to impart messages of religious or political significance. The text generally formed an integral part of the artwork.

The incorporation of text in western art became less common in the succeeding centuries, but by the early 20th century (most notably amongst Cubist, Dadaist and Surrealist artists), text began to be employed to deliver conceptual messages, to amuse or to comment on the nature of art and the functions of language itself .

As well-known examples, René Magritte highlighted the difference between objects and their referents in The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images) (1928-29), and Marcel Duchamp played with language and visual puns in many of his works. His aim was to move from creation of art designed simply to provide visual enjoyment (which he termed ‘retinal art’) to art intended to engage and challenge the mind of the viewer, art in which the expression of ideas was paramount. Language formed a key part of that approach.

The Treachery of Images (1928-29). Rene Magritte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the 1960s and early 1970s, some conceptual artists were producing work in which the use of text to deliver artistic content had entirely supplanted the visual elements of their work. This was no longer text in art, but text as art. For example John Baldessari, in his work of the late 1960s, famously sent his work out to be created by a local signwriter.

Everything is purged from this painting but art (1966-1968). John Baldessari

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pop art of the 1960s addressed the place of mass media in defining contemporary cultural identity, and postmodernist artists challenged the notion of the artist as author-creator. Both of these movements have made extensive use of text as a vehicle for expressing ideas about art and within artworks.

Pay nothing until April (2003). Ed Ruscha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce Nauman has directly used text in his photographic and sculptural work, and based many of his images on visual puns (e.g. in “Bound to fail”). Ed Ruscha created series of ‘word paintings’ containing words (and later, phrases) for ironic or satirical effect.

I can’t believe I’m in Paris (1995). Ken Lum

The View from K (1997-98). Imant Tillers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contemporary culture is now saturated with images and text, often – or perhaps usually – in combination. The urban landscape, advertising, mass media, web content (even t-shirts!) all deliver information primarily in the form of text-plus-image packages. The incorporation of textual elements in visual art including fine art photography is now widely practiced to the point of being unremarkable. Artists as diverse as the Australian painter Imants Tillers and the Canadian photographer Ken Lum employ text as a key element within their practice – though in different ways and for quite different purposes.

In ‘theatrical’ films however the inclusion of text is (generally, and currently) less evident – apart from the standard inclusion of titles and credits to top-and-tail the work. One notable exception is the use of subtitles to provide simultaneous translation of foreign language films.

On occasion subtitles have been employed to provide an alternate text to the spoken words of the film. For example in Annie Hall (1979), Woody Allen used ‘discordant’ subtitles during a conversation between the Woody Allen character and Diane Keaton when they’re both trying to impress each other, while subtitles appear showing their true thoughts.

Annie Hall [still] (1979). Woody Allen. Spoken dialogue: “Photography’s interesting, ‘cause, you know, it’s a new art form, and a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet.”

Annie Hall (1979). Woody Allen. Spoken dialogue: ‘Photography’s interesting, ‘cause, you know, it’s a new art form, and a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet.’

 

 

 

 

 

In my Private Thoughts in Public Places project I have also sought to apply subtitle text for this purpose. The projection of this text out into the landscape (onto signs, buildings and the sky) is an extension of this approach, and an attempt to show that inner thoughts actually transform the thinker’s perception and mental construction of the landscape that they occupy. Unlike subtitles, the words are not merely a layer on top of the scene; they come to form a physical part of the environment itself.

Narrative in photography

This post contains some thoughts on the depiction of ‘narrative’ in still photography, and was written as notes for my Private Thoughts in Public Places project.

Photographers have sought to portray narrative in their work since the inception of the art. It is obviously inherently more difficult to depict narrative in the still image than in a motion picture, as “a film unfolds in time and a painting [or photograph] does not”.

Several techniques are commonly employed to create or imply a sense of unfolding narrative in still images:

  • Inclusion of objects in an image which indicate some antecedent or imminent event;
  • Depiction of two or more human subjects in a way that indicates relationship between them (or evidence of a 2nd person who may be outside of the frame);
  • Multiple related images presented as a chronologically ordered sequence;
  • For a longer sequence of storytelling images, the conventional structural ‘rules’ of short story or video may be applied.

In recent years many photographers have explicitly refrained from presenting a complete or detailed narrative, instead implying narrative or presenting an ambiguous narrative for the viewer to interpret as they choose. Gregory Crewdson sees photography as related to the narrative forms of writing and video, but he is drawn to “the idea of creating a moment that’s frozen and mute, that perhaps ultimately asks more questions than it answers, proposes an open-ended and ambiguous narrative that allows the viewer to, in a sense, complete it”.

Untitled. Gregory Crewdson.




 

 

 

 

As Philip-Lorca diCorcia puts it: “the more specific the interpretation suggested by a picture, the less happy I am with it”. The subjects in his images do not engage directly with the camera, which enhances both the feeling of narrative and cinematic style of his images.

Untitled film still #96. Cindy Sherman

Similarly, in the work of Cindy Sherman (particularly in the Untitled film stills series) it is clear that one is viewing a scene from within a story, but without enough information to be certain of the story’s origin or outcome. The viewer is encouraged to develop their own narrative to explain the image.

 

This ‘less-is-more’ approach to exposition of narrative can engage the viewer more interactively with the image than if the story was fully resolved.

Self-portrait in a double-breasted suit with hare (2001). Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood goes further, constructing images (including large scale panoramas and videos) that take ambiguity to a level of possible incoherence. This is deliberate strategy: “you try to make associations between people and what they’re doing but you can’t necessarily find any narrative”. For the viewer, this can be unsettling… or unsatisfactory.

Mimic (1982). Jeff Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff Wall has expressed doubt that still pictures can be narrative at all. “All they do is suggest what it might be like to experience the narrative. They don’t create one because they don’t have the ability. A narrative has to go in time and pictures can never do that.”

One approach to expression of narrative through still images is presenting a series of images in chronological sequence, as for example in many of the photographic series produced by Duane Michals.

Bogeyman (1973). Duane Michals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Marker’s science fiction short film La Jetée (1962) tells a detailed story through still images. The film (and it was made as a film in those pre-digital days) consists almost entirely of several hundred photographs displayed in sequence, with an overlaid audio narration of the story. Despite being made up of photos, it imparts a quite detailed plot, shows the passage of time, has character development, and shows physical movement at key moments – such as in the final scene where the central character runs across the viewing platform at Orly Airport.

The experience of viewing La Jetée closely resembles the experience of narrative delivered through a motion picture. The story is thoroughly articulated (by way of the audio narration as much as the images), and the viewer is largely passive, and given little role in constructing the narrative.

Three decades later, La Jetée was released in a photo-book form, with all the same content (same set of images and text), but delivering a quite different experience to that of the film version. This is because the images are displayed at different sizes within varying page layouts, the reader can determine the pace of progression though the story, and is not limited to a strictly linear progression through the plot.

In my Private Thoughts in Public Places project, I have not sought to elaborate an entire story (although my initial intention had been to do so). The ‘plot’ is intended to be fairly clear at the beginning, with activities of the two protagonists presented as a logical sequence of simple events.

By the middle of the ‘story’, however, this thread dissolves and any semblance of explicit plot has gone. The pace slows, as their private thoughts take over and the urban environment becomes a dreamscape canvas onto which these thoughts are written. The intention is to progress from a narrative to contemplative mode.


[1] John Berger, Ways of seeing  (London: BBC Books, 1972), 26.

[2] Gregory Crewdson, Dream of Life, 2nd ed. (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2000), 17.

[3] Peter Galassi, Philip-Lorca diCorcia  (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1995), 6.

[4] Bruce Ferguson, “Sam Taylor-Wood,” BOMB Magazine, no. Fall (1998).

[5] “Jeff Wall at Ruediger Schoettle Gallery [interview],”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJUp_wxXfg.

[6] Chris Marker, La Jetée (Paris: Argos Films, 1963).

[7] ———, La Jetée: ciné-roman  (New York: Zone Books, 1992).