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text - Evidence
from the Religion of Technology - a series of colour photogram works - © Lloyd Godman - 1993-94
Evidence
from the Religion of Technology - Text- Lloyd Godman 1994
Vivid
colour, abstract patterns, interesting visual texture are alluring
and the seducing factor that can conceal the true nature of a subject.
These images reveal colour combinations and textures for
the first time, it is an innocent type of vision that discloses
the world a-new, its appeal is similar to X rays, UV and Infrared
vision, it captivates, for there is credulity in discovery. Can the
world we know actually look like this through another sense? While
the genesis of vision is energized by the seductive formal qualities
of the work and the rich pure colour resonance, it belies other more
paradoxical references. Shock and revelation prevail when this work
exposes not an attractive new vision, but a means of seeing the detrimental
effects of technology, or the disposal of the items of that technology
a means of inspecting the otherwise invisible colours of discarded
toxic chemicals, the concealed heat of nuclear waste dumps and the
unapparent effects of heavy metals, perhaps this new vision becomes
a means of previewing an apocalypse.
Ironically
the colour photographic process reveals the full potential of colour
photographic paper, the extraordinary seductive quality and the exquisite
revealing detail that only photography can produce, it reveals evidence
of technology as a religion.
Within
quite defined limitations life exists. There is a green zone we are
confined to and beyond this are the edges of physical survival where
life stumbles and fails. With a religious mind set we embrace innovative
technology, with an insatiable appetite we consume new devices, processes,
chemical concoctions, with devotion we worship technology as if it
had become a new universal theology. As the colours of these works
mix and mingle in an uncontrolled manner, so the chemical components
of our contemporary archaeological sites, the open land fills mix
and mingle combining into unknown but potentially lethal concoctions
and the edge of the green zone retreats.
But
there is a resilience in nature and toxification can be replaced with
detoxification, there can be a cycle., a healing can take place.
I
have always found construction holes in the earth enticing. What lies
below the earth buried from a previous age, even if that age was but
a few years before. From an excavation and the artifacts it reveals,
we learn about that attitudes and culture of a past civilization?
An aspect of the work questions the enigma of when the insignificant
becomes a vital archaeological artifact and when the contemporary
becomes historic. When do objects lost and dumped from one civilization
become of value to another. When does detritus become artifact? Perhaps
it questions if our civilization is creating an archaeological heritage
or a toxic legacy. The predicament of not knowing ones location or
which direction is forward is an enigma that confronts the technological/ecological
equation. Where are the cross-roads, wrong turns, dead ends, endless
circles? This work is a grid structure that uses all these devices
and points to different directions of time and space. Depending upon
how the work is hung, it can epitomize the enigma of navigating this
equation.
Photograms,
which were used to create the surrounding boarder, are made not by enlarging
onto the photographic paper via a film negative, in the regular manner,
but by using real objects laid in contact with the paper during the exposure
to light. In a sense, the objects become the negative with the resulting
image bearing a direst relationship to the nature of the object, its form,
its shape, texture and transparency. It is the refraction, transmission,
reflection, deflection and absorption of light by the object that causes
a modulation of light to reach the photographic paper and determines the
visual effect of the final image. Because of the instinctive and random
placement of the objects on the paper, each print is a unique image.
Image from Codes of Survival
Through
the diversity of objects used for the photograms, the Codes of Survival images reflects the intriguing human activity in these Subantarctic Islands.
The objects become visually over-laid and inter-laced, in a manner where
often they lose the representational qualities we recognize from traditional
photography, referencing a mysterious archaeological site where only fragments
appear and one must dig through the items. All manner of objects were used
to create the images: bottles, springs, nails, gears, tools, jewelry, plastic
wrappings, containers, electronic components, toys, utensils etc. any object
from the past to the present that could be associated either directly or
symbolically with the islands. With due discussion and approval, some of
the older and pertinent objects were sourced for the project from the Settlers
Museum in Dunedin, and I thank them for their support and enthusiasm.
Following
the Codes of Survival work, I continued to use the photogram in
a series of works titled Adze to Coda where I becanme interested
in tools and how we use them to shape and alter environmants. Again the
images were combination photographs/photograms.
During
this series of work I was fortunate to recieve a dontaion of surplus colour
paper from Agfa which sparked an interest in using the photogram with colour
nagative paper. During the intitial experiments I discovered that by using
the extreme ends of the filter controls on the enlarger it was possible
to produce extraordinary colour combinations. The work grew into a linated
series of 16"x20" prints that refelected a colour spectrum, and from here
I introduced the intersecting verticals of the figures.
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