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INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE ARTS MAGAZINEISSUE 1 FEBRUARY 2012
tribe
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PHOTOGRAPHY/STYLE | ROSALIND CHAD
MODEL | GEMMA HENWOODMAKEUP | REBECCA SEARLEHAIR | LYNDY EWING
VISUALPROVOCATEUR.COM
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WELCOME to the first issue of tribe magazine. It’s been a long road to get here but it has been a very enjoyable journey. Along the way we have met some fantasOc people, made great new friends and viewed some truly fantasOc artwork.
Peter, Glyn and I always intended, when we first came together to discuss the idea of a submissions driven creaOve magazine, that the work of arOsts takes centre stage. The ethos of tribe is for crea(vity and we hope that the magazine shows to all our readers that very spirit and passion for the visual arts.
Each month tribe will showcase new and emerging talent alongside more established work, so it is important to bear in mind that some work will not look as ‘polished’ as others. We think it is important to bring together the established and the new in one publicaOon. PotenOal is so oWen dismissed in favour of the finished arOcle, and in doing so, many creaOve outlets end up, admiXedly not intenOonally, disheartening arOsts that lack the confidence and the media contacts to take that first step in showing their
work to the world. tribe will always be a place for new creaOves to show their work to the world.
We also think it’s important to feature established and famous arOsts in the magazine, and I can think of nothing more inspiring for new talent than to see their work sit alongside that of creaOves that are working at the very highest arOsOc levels.
At the Ome of wriOng, we are all experiencing severe pressures on our personal finances. With uncertain economic Omes, many arts funding streams are being cut or pulled completely. We at tribe magazine hope we can play a small part in the development of new and local talent and in turn help to improve the cultural landscape in the South West of England, the UK and eventually the world.
Enjoy the first issue and see you in the next one!
Mark Doyle, Editor
EDITORIAL
TRIBE MAGAZINE
for creaOvity
www.tribemagazine.org
tribe is wriXen and produced in Plymouth, UK
for sponsorship and adverOsing opportuniOes please contact us at [email protected]
to submit work to tribe please see:www.tribemagazine.org/contact.html
next issue: 28th February
editor MARK DOYLE
sub editor GLYN DAVIESeditorial director PETER DAVEYresearch HANNAH DOYLE
art BEX EDWARDS bex-‐edwards.blogspot.comcover EUGENE SOLOVIEV
photography MARK DOYLE(except where noted)
(C) 2012 tribe magazine
arOsts have given permission for their work to be displayed in tribe magazine. no part of this magazine may be reproduced
without the permission of the copyright holder(s).
tribe
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BEN MATHIS | MR-‐CHOMPERS.COM
8BEN MATHIS | MR-‐CHOMPERS.COM
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10BEN MATHIS | MR-‐CHOMPERS.COM
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13JANE WALKER | AXISWEB.ORG/ARTISTS/JANEWALKER
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15JANE WALKER | AXISWEB.ORG/ARTISTS/JANEWALKER
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Can you describe your crea(ve process?
It is quite random, all the Ome. I don't have a formula or a series of steps I take to reach a certain point. The whole process just leads me and I have to let myself go with it, because that is when I am most proud of the outcome -‐ although I am never completely saOsfied. It generally starts with an idea I want to translate into words but can't, and things just start to come together, along with the process itself. It's not always clear what the final result will be, I just trust my insOncts.
Where do you get your ideas from?
From everywhere. Everything is inspiring: quotes or songs or news or anything my mind can hold on to for more than four seconds. Especially movies.
What issues do you like to explore with your work? What does your work say?
My work explores the relaOonship between man/nature and arOficiality
most of the Ome. Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by the limits of what seems real and what is not; the concept of the fake and the make-‐believe. So, with influences as diverse as Remedios Varo and Chris Cunningham, I have sought the explanaOon for the human obsession with arOficial and surreal scenarios. The dioramas of Louis Daguerre, and the painOngs of Dalí and MagriXe, set me about wondering why it is we are never saOsfied, and why we seek an unnatural perfecOon that aXempts to pass as real. Or simply, why we are not content with what our eyes see and need to invent other realiOes -‐ and whether, ulOmately, those worlds do exist. I love working with colour, allegories and symbols as vehicles to examine the past. However, I also agree with painter John Currin that "the subject of a painOng is always the author, the arOst..." So while I certainly believe we make excuses to talk about other things, in the end it is ourselves we are exploring. <
RAFA TORR
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RAFA TORRE | RAFATORRE.COM
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CORNELIUS VAN RIJCKEVORSEL
ORIGINALLY FROM THE NETHERLANDS, CORNELIUS TRAINED IN FRANCE BEFORE SETTLING IN STONEHOUSE, PLYMOUTH
HE TALKS TO TRIBE MAGAZINE ABOUT HIS CURRENT WORKPhotographed by Mark Doyle
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You men(oned that you drew the same model over a number of years. What is it about drawing the same model every day that is so appealing?
You get a good feel for your model. Also, he was a perfect model, I think, in my mind. He’s from Syria, and has that whole Mediterranean kind of body plan, athleOc, like a Greek sculpture. I never Ored of him. I’d like to draw him for the next thirty years!
So what is it about the human form, par(cularly the male form, that appeals?
It’s an object with expression. It moves and is completely flexible. It’s forever variable.
Take us through your process for drawing.
It took me four years of daily life drawing classes to get the feeling of what it might be like to draw confidently. You get moments of achievement, like landings on a staircase. In the beginning you are all over the place. Just navigaOng on the page is difficult, as you don't know where you are in relaOon to all the bits you have to draw. Geqng everything inside the dimensions of your chosen size of paper is the next challenge, let alone the proporOons of the body you are drawing, and it will sOll be far from any resemblance to the subject. You will get lost in details that are invariably out of size and shape. Also, it is difficult to keep an objecOve overview of what you are doing. You must not wire-‐fence your body with one contour line: some parts are in the light, others in the shade. Over Ome you'll get a feel for a unity of dimension. There are no shortcuts to this process. I have taught people to draw and was reminded Ome and again of
the uXer frustraOon of not being able to master all these skills simultaneously.
You are never working towards a finished product, it’s more like a conOnuous training process, and in that process you are someOmes lucky with the results. The best test for a drawing is when, aWer you are finished, you are conOnually drawn back to look at it.
So you can look at old pain(ngs or drawings and think “I wasn’t in a very good mood that day”?
Yes. You can see with that one [shows drawing]. I was a bit frustrated that day, and it turned out a fantasOc drawing. But somebody like [Alberto] Giacomeq, he used to draw his brother every day, for decades, just his portrait. It doesn’t maXer what you draw, as long as you draw. I find this model an interesOng person to draw.
You photograph too. Do you take a different crea(ve view from when you’re drawing?
I don’t want to be a professional photographer. I don’t want to learn all the tricks. Because I don’t think we need it. It becomes a bit lame, I think, when you fiddle too much with photographs. And with drawings too: aWerwards, if you start rubbing out and adding things, suddenly it lacks power. Also, if you get too technical with photography, you lose a lot of immediacy. So, I don’t know whether I am a professional photographer. I think I’m not, I’m an amateur, but I bring with me my experience of being a painter. I’ve taken thousands and thousands of photographs, but I’m of the opinion that in every thousand photographs, there is one excellent photograph. >
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Do you draw from photographs, or do you only draw from life?
I never draw from photographs, no. You can see that. It lacks life. When people draw or paint from photographs, you can always see it. Maybe it’s because I have a trained eye, but you can always see it, and it’s not interesOng. What you’re drawing, then, is a photograph. Somebody once told me, if you buy an old chair, and want to know whether it’s an original or a copy, you just sit in it. If it’s an original, the chair will sit right. If it’s a copy, then it won’t sit right, because it’s meant to be a copy of something else, and not to sit somebody comfortably. I think it’s the same with drawing from a photograph; you’re drawing something that is flat and lifeless. I will always see it!
What influences you now?
I mostly look to 20th Century arOsts. I love arOsts like Dufy and MaOsse. That’s where I come from, I went to art school in France. What I found very interesOng in Rome was a stadium, built by Mussolini -‐ so it’s a Fascist construcOon -‐ but all around the stadium there are almost 150 four metre high marble sculptures, all nude male athletes, and they all represent a sport, tennis, football, whatever. And every town in every county in Italy had to submit and pay for one of these sculptures for Mussolini. And the craWsmen went off to Carrara in Northern Italy, where the marble is, and would hack them there. Some of them are fantasOc; just to walk there is incredible. >
PIC: ELIOT SEIGEL
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Do you see art as an escape or as therapy?
I really don’t know. It’s always difficult to be authenOc to yourself. But that’s what I like to do, and that’s what I’m doing. It works in itself.
Have you ever thought about working in sculpture or 3D?
Oh yes, I’d love to. Or help to do restoraOon work of those sculptures in Rome. Because of course, during the years, the Italians knocked off all the genitals and things like that. Well, it is a Fascist stadium. There are similar things in Germany as well, these incredible sculptures which have been completely forgoXen about
because they have Fascist connotaOons, but it’s very powerful art. But if you look at Roman or Greek sculptures, you don’t know who ordered them, and for what purpose, so you have to rid them of their poliOcal background and just see them as sculpture. >
“The best test for a drawing is when, aEer you are finished, you are con(nually drawn back to look at it.”
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What are you working on at the moment?
I just draw. The thing is, I look aWer two children. My wife works all day, so I’m the at-‐home daddy as well. What I tend to do is work for myself in the morning, and in the aWernoon I run the house and the family and all that. So, I must say I’ve taken a step back, because I used to paint and draw full-‐Ome every day. Another 3-‐5 years and I’ll quietly go back to painOng. But I want to remain in contact with my trade by drawing, and by taking photographs. It’s just lovely, it’s what I
do. But yes, there is a sculpture that is wanOng to come out. I was with my daughter in Pompeii two years ago, and I found a liXle sculpture that was actually a tap, a kitchen tap. But it’s a sculpture of a naked man, and from its willy came the water! I just thought that was so funny. And in the garden, we have what I think was a water pump, so that is where I want my liXle sculpture. <
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38MARTIN BEDFORD | MARTINFBEDFORD.COM
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40MARTIN BEDFORD | MARTINFBEDFORD.COM
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Emily Cooper | emsart.com
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“Closed” is a series of twenty images that focuses on derelict shops in the centre of Plymouth. When this series of images is brought together, it oEen only then becomes clear to the viewer how many closed shops there are, and also how they blend into the high street so well that they oEen go unno(ced.
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For this project I documented the current (me and photographed some of the more visually interes(ng closed shops. The project was shot over a period of 3 months, during which (me more closed shops were constantly appearing.
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One of the aims of the project was to capture the architecture of the buildings, the bold lines and symmetry that occurs in many of the shops, as well as the deteriora(on and condi(on of the buildings and the contrast between a shop that had been closed for years, compared to a shop that had recently closed.
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Also captured in the series is how some of the buildings have become works of art themselves, where local ar(sts have been able to create images on the buildings which gives them a new look and may even make them more visually pleasing for the passer by, whereas many are leE to deteriorate over (me.
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A regular thought by many that see the series of images is that the project is very nega(ve. However, the purpose of this series is not to be nega(ve, but to bring aPen(on to the number of closed shops constantly appearing in our ci(es.
CHRISTOPHER APPERLEY-‐BENNETT | CABPHOTOGRAPHY.CO.UK
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LISA BIRCH | LISABIRCH.CO.UK
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ANTONIO | VILLAGE9991.IT
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EUGENE SOLOVIEV | APECHENNOV.DAPORTFOLIO.COM
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Glyn Davies takes a look at the art of Oliver Frey, whose dis(nc(ve illustra(ons helped spearhead a small but significant publishing revolu(on in the 1980s.
It’s June 1984. Fluorescent is the colour of now, Quatro is the sugar-‐and-‐addiOve-‐filled soW drink to be seen quaffing, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood have triumphantly deposed Wham! from the top of the charts with the era-‐defining “Two Tribes”. I have just had my 12th birthday, for which I have gratefully received a spanking new Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. I tootle off to the local newsagent, keen to spend a small porOon of my birthday money on a computer magazine to advise me on the best new games to buy.
Scanning the shelves, I find the Spectrum secOon and glance at the covers. Sinclair User, inexplicably, features a grinning woman holding a boXle of fizzy wine, and offers such inviOng aXracOons as add-‐on keyboards, chess and the new, soon-‐to-‐be-‐obsolete Sinclair QL. Your Spectrum is even less promising: a large photo of a black-‐and-‐white printout, with some waffle about screen-‐dumps and sOll more about this QL contrapOon, about which I care
liXle. I flick through both magazines briefly. Lots of text, a preponderance of computer code, the occasional picture of a computer peripheral, but not much about games, bar a few grudging pages of terse reviews. Barely an aWerthought. I put them back despondently.
Then I spot it. A bold white-‐on-‐blue logo with a few sparks thrown in for good measure. The cover features a very cool painOng of a sleek spaceship, which is hurtling through a canyon comprised of computer game cases, pursued by equally sleek enemies. This looks promising. A corner flash informs me that this mag is also for the Spectrum. I pick it up and thumb through it. Games reviews. Tons of them, many geqng a whole page to themselves. Some even get two pages and are in full colour. Most are illustrated with at least one in-‐game screen shot. This, I tell myself, is the one. Exactly what I was looking for. The magazine is called Crash. >
GAME
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It was through Crash that I – along with a whole generaOon of ardent gamers – first became aware of the work of Oliver Frey, the Swiss-‐born illustrator responsible for both the cover and internal artwork of not only that issue of Crash but, over the next eight years, dozens of others, as well as that for Crash’s equally ground-‐breaking sister magazines Zzap!64 and Am(x – essenOally Crash for Commodore 64 and Amstrad gamers – and various other computer and non-‐computer Otles subsequently published by Newsfield, a small, independent publishing company based in the unlikely locaOon of Ludlow, Shropshire, which Frey co-‐founded in 1983 with his partner and younger brother.
While it might have been his work for Newsfield which earned Frey the cult following he sOll enjoys to this day, by the early 1980s he was already a commercial illustrator of some repute. Born in Zurich in 1948, Frey had been earning a living in Britain drawing comic strips and illustraOng numerous books and magazines since the late 1960s, including IPC’s War Picture Libraries series and Fleetway’s Look and Learn, as well as a considerable amount of gay eroOc art for publicaOons such as HIM magazine. Frey’s artwork was also featured in Richard Donner’s 1977 film Superman – Frey illustrated the comic book which is seen being flipped through at the very beginning of the film. So, by the Ome he was working on
the Newsfield Otles, Frey already had nearly fiWeen years’ worth of illustraOon work behind him.
With such a varied wealth of experience, it was perhaps liXle wonder that Frey’s cover art for Crash immediately set it apart from its compeOtors and gave the magazine a unique visual trademark that would serve it throughout its eight-‐year life. Whether by accident or design, Crash and its sister publicaOons played a significant role in changing the way computer magazines were styled and presented.
Launched in January 1984, by mid-‐1986 it was the best-‐selling computer Otle in the UK, and its compeOtors, many of which had long derided it as liXle more than a glossy rural fanzine, were desperately imitaOng its style, its liberal use of colour and, most of all, its unapologeOc emphasis on games. Compared to other computer magazines of the Ome, Crash was exciOng and disOncOve. It wasn’t the first computer magazine to focus mainly on games – the perennial Computer & Video Games, sOll going strong in 2012, had been around since 1981 – but it was arguably the first to take a genuinely enthusiasOc and criOcal approach to them. What really set Crash apart, however, was the way it looked. >
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Crash’s closest rivals in the Spectrum market were very tradiOonal in their layout and content, with page aWer page of news stories which pracOcally collided with one another. There were photos and colour features, but anything interesOng was oWen lost in a monochrome sea of mediocrity, parOcularly in Sinclair User, which in its early days was more geared towards technical and educaOonal coverage of the Sinclair machines, with the rest of the magazine filled up with seemingly endless printouts of type-‐in programs. Your Spectrum had more of a tradiOonal magazine-‐style layout, but was similarly targeted at technical hobbyists and amateur programmers. Both magazines also had dreadful covers, although this was fairly typical of the mainstream specialist press at this Ome, which seemed to
favour photographs of bearded men holding bits of hardware. Literal and informaOve, perhaps, but not parOcularly interesOng.
Crash broke important new ground in terms of the design, layout and content of computer magazines. The magazine was designed not only to be readable, but to be re-‐readable and even collecOble. Elements which now seem blindingly obvious in any games magazine – a full colour, clearly laid-‐out contents page, in-‐depth playing
Ops on the latest Otles, interviews with the top games programmers and developers of the day (as opposed to anonymous industry bigwigs in suits) and a very close and symbioOc relaOonship with its readers -‐ were all key features of Crash from the very beginning. >
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There was even a four-‐page, full colour comic-‐strip throughout its first year, “The Terminal Man”, wriXen by 2000AD’s Kelvin Gosnell and exquisitely illustrated by Frey, which proved hugely popular with the mid-‐to-‐late-‐teen readership Crash was targeOng. The rest of the magazine was also eye-‐catchingly illustrated by Frey. As well as the headings for the regular features, Frey also illustrated any arOcles or compeOOon pages that required visual embellishment, while any other conspicuous gaps would be filled by a quick Frey doodle.
Alongside its very convenOonal rivals on the news-‐stands, everything about Crash was designed to leap out and grab the eye: the unusual logo, with the leXers C-‐R-‐A-‐S-‐H rendered in straight lines and sharp angles, was immediately striking. It looked jagged and crude, and even a liXle comic-‐like, but it worked. Likewise, Frey’s dynamic covers provided a stark contrast to the unimaginaOve and oWen cheesy fare of its rivals. Crash’s cover design not only emphasised its difference from its compeOtors, but also its determinaOon to convey the more fun aspects of compuOng.
The emphasis on games was clear. Literally dozens of games were reviewed each month, the reviews being lengthy, detailed and brutally fair. Significantly, while other magazines employed experienced professional journalists to review games, Crash used
a pool of reviewers mainly in the 15-‐19 age group the magazine was aimed at. Most were enthusiasts, rather than journalists, but were knowledgeable enough about games to know a crock when they saw one, and were not shy about poinOng it out, much to the collecOve horror of the soWware industry, which wasn’t accustomed to magazines being overly criOcal of its products. But as the games market grew, and magazines like Crash began to wield more influence, the soWware industry quietly acknowledged that it would be less able to churn out sub-‐standard products without aXracOng criOcism. Crash was firmly on the side of the consumer.
UlOmately, Crash wanted to celebrate games, and Frey’s artwork was central to this. Frey made Crash’s mission statement very clear in the now-‐iconic cover of its first issue, which featured a fearsome chrome alien being glaring out of the cover whilst playing Space Invaders, the screen reflected in its eyes. This sort of wry visual gag would become a feature of Frey’s cover art across all Newsfield’s Otles, as would his surreal use of computers as players in the image’s drama. The Spectrum, or recognisable elements of it, such as its infamous rubber keyboard or rainbow-‐coloured logo, were regularly incorporated by Frey into Crash covers. >
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SoWware publishers oWen employed a similar technique for their cover art, of course, but at their best, Frey’s Crash and Zzap!64 covers depicted computer games not only more dramaOcally, but also more honestly, conveying a real understanding of the nature of the gameplay and the whole spirit of the game. Crash’s credo was that computer games, at their very best, could be akin to works of art, and Frey’s artwork helped the games live up to this. Twenty years later, as technology advanced, there would no longer be any such disparity between the artwork and the games they depicted. Frey, who always found the dynamism of computer games to be the perfect subject maXer for his work, understood this perhaps like no other arOst of the
Ome; he was just filling in the gaps unOl technology caught up.
The art of Oliver Frey was, for me, a significant factor in the allure of being a Crash reader. The magazine always stood out on the news-‐stands; first you scanned the shelves, you spoXed the logo, then you took in the artwork. Most other magazine covers barely registered with me, and although I could never honestly say I had any real interest in art at that Ome, I could – and did -‐ look at Crash covers again and again, always finding some new detail I’d previously missed, and almost wishing I could climb into the surreal, exciOng, intricately painted worlds that Frey created. What’s more, I sOll do. <
www.oliverfreyart.com
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69JILL ADAIR | [email protected]
70NITSA | BLOG.NONPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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NITSA | BLOG.NONPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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NITSA | BLOG.NONPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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NITSA | BLOG.NONPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
78DEREK DODSON | DEREK@CYBER-‐CENTRAL.CO.UK
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JASON GRACE | JASONSCAMERA.CO.UKMODEL: SKY VALENTINE
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JASON GRACE | JASONSCAMERA.CO.UKMODEL: SKY VALENTINE
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These images are fragments of previous narraOves, glimpses of our current way of life, of forgoXen things that manage to transcend their ordinariness through uncanny juxtaposiOons and vivid colour. It is a visual record of my acOons as a voyeurisOc observer, trying to capture a moment that reflects my own reality and answers my psychological need for meaning.
We all leave some kind of trace that gives an insight into our society and culture. Objects are like a memory of past selves, and like all material will be leW to gather dust and eventually decay.
I spent a lot of Ome in courtyards, alleyways, empty buildings and abandoned spaces shooOng these images in a deadpan style. My only rule was to photograph things exactly as I found them. Wandering the streets of the towns and ciOes I visited for this series meant leaving behind the noise and distracOons of everyday life.
The state of contemplaOon produced by just “looking” made me gradually understand that the images of discarded objects I searched for throughout this project were as much about my own childhood feelings of abandonment and isolaOon as they were a commentary on our materialisOc society.
PETE DAVEY | PETERDAVEYPHOTOGRAPHER.CO.UK
FOUND OBJECTS
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YVONNE TURNER Plymouth-based artist and photographer talks to tribe magazine about her past and present work
IN A SPACE
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Your travel images are interes(ng, and there seems to be a link between these, in terms of technique and imagery, and your more recent work shoo(ng local urban scenes – Union Street, for example. Would you agree?
Well, back in the 80s, it was much easier to travel, so I had more scope available, and I was travelling to some quite exoOc places – Africa, Thailand and such. And I felt an empathy with the people because I think they move in a different space, if that makes sense.
As far as technique goes, in those days I was using Nikon and Mamiya cameras, which obviously weren’t digital, so they have a completely different feel. The acOon between me, the camera and the object was much closer, and that enabled me to take – I think, personally -‐ much beXer photographs. Whereas now, with digital, I’m a liXle bit unsure of operaOng a computer to take photographs – because that’s basically what a digital camera is – because it takes far too long, there are too many opOons and by the
Ome you get around to actually taking a photograph, you’re lucky if you have a decent image.
What I’d like to see is a modern copy of an SLR, say, with a digital filing system, so you’re using the camera in exactly the same way without having to manipulate the prinOng side at the same Ome as you’re shooOng. And of course, you can’t use film, whereas in those days I could select which film I wanted for a parOcular bias, depending on what I was shooOng.
Do you think, from an ar(s(c perspec(ve, that modern cameras remove the ability of photographers to shoot well?
That’s a difficult one to answer, because there are a lot of great photographers out there shooOng great things, but half of them are accidents. Whereas I felt that, when I was using film, I was in complete control of my camera. >
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For me, it’s all about Ome, the amount of Ome you spend seqng up your camera to shoot a parOcular image. If another image comes by, you don’t have enough Ome to change the seqngs to shoot the second image, so you’re constantly only having to concentrate on one area of photography in that one session, and you’re missing out on everything else.
So, what took you to Africa?
Africa for me was a bit of a phenomenon. I was only there for ten days, and during that Ome I decided to travel, take the camera with me and see what I could find. I think a lot of photographers like to explore the unexplored, and I’m no different, I’m an adventurer. So seqng out there iniOally, you’re puqng yourself in a posiOon where you’re going to have an adventure anyway. And nothing was manipulated. It’s not as if I went out there and said I’m going to take photographs of people, or of birds, or whatever, I just wanted to see what was there. For instance, the picture of the line-‐up of kids in the village,
they lined themselves up, I didn’t ask them to line up! They really just grouped together. They were all together, you could see they were all together, and it was kind of reflecOng their culture, in a way.
So, completely different to the UK, say?
Yeah. Well, look at the problems photographers have here. I mean, you have to have a cerOficate signed by the person you’re photographing! How does that make it interesOng? You can’t even document children anymore. I find the modern era in photography ridiculous. I think it’s gone backwards. I think the press have done that to photography, to be honest. They’ve killed it, in a way, and they’ve turned it into a commodity, whereas in my mind it’s a documentary tool. >
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Would you argue that every picture is a documentary in itself? Is there a difference between art and documentary, or does documentary in itself become art?
No, I think the two are separate. Either you want to document something, or you want to create a piece of art. I don’t think the two are the same. There’s a disOncOon between the two. For instance, the 3D stuff that I’m working on, I wouldn’t class that as a photograph, I’d class it as a piece of art.
Could you explain your 3D images a bit more? What inspires you to take a photograph and turn it into something else?
Well, the concept originally began when I wanted to use light in a way that nobody else had been using it, where the light was actually shining through the image, creaOng depth. And I don’t mean on a flat surface. So, the only way to do that was to add images together -‐ and this is pre-‐Photoshop. We’re talking 1982, the concept of Photoshop hadn’t even been thought of. I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I was never going to achieve it simply by montaging pictures together. And I think even today, it’s sOll hard to create the idea that I had in my mind about how light shines through transparency to create a three-‐dimensional image. Maybe I’m thinking about holography, it’s a kind of holography: moving the image away from the medium and into space. That’s where I want to go with it. But the idea started in 1982, and I’ve been trying to work towards it ever since, but have always been set back by lack of money, probably not meeOng the right people, or not even discussing it with people because I didn’t really have anyone to discuss it with.
With that kind of project, do you feel that it’s good to have other people to cri(que your work, to help you get on the right path?
Yeah. I stopped taking photographs for about ten years, because I got fed up with the fact that I couldn’t go any further with the photographic image, and I certainly couldn’t make it into a 3D object. With Photoshop,
what we’ve at least managed to do is split the image up and be able to transfer the light into a transparent image. It’s sOll on a 2D plane, we can’t get away from that. I want to go further, and see holographs in 3D space.
Will that change how people perceive photographs?
I think it will expand their mind, so they can explore more ways to interpret a language, their own language, what comes from their own mind. Images are a language; they’re a communicaOng force between people.
Has the internet and social media has made photography more accessible, or do you think it has saturated the market?
My concern is that, because there are so many images being produced on a daily basis – every second of the day, a new image is being taken – it weakens our understanding of the photographic image, and the reasons for taking photographs, in some ways. For other people, it’s just a memory, and in that respect, we’re now photographing our memories every second of the day. But we would never be able to see them all in twenty lifeOmes! Does it make us all editors? We start ediOng photographs in our heads before we take them. We already know what we want to look at. Here’s another thing about the digital age: we’re beginning to learn how to become printers as well as photographers, and I think somehow that’s wrong. The process of creaOng the final image is becoming singular, rather than involving other people, or even working with other people. It’s a bit lonely. You can’t know everything, and you can’t be everything to everybody, and I think the digital age is trying to do that.
You’ve done some surrealist work in recent years. Could you explain the inspira(on behind that?
Well, as far as I’m concerned, that is just part of an experiment that’s ongoing. >
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It was never something that I wanted to dwell on too long. It was a phase I was going through, that parOcular period, 2006, and I felt I was moving on from there and maybe just looking into different avenues of what could be done, colour-‐wise, to reflect more emoOon into the image. It’s definitely taken out of the reality concept, there’s no reality involved in it, except that fact that those people were there, but not necessarily in the places where I put them! So I kind of get a kick out of the montage stuff, puqng people in places where they have never been, and will never go. It’s an unreality.
You could say that I should get back to basics and shoot standard images of somebody standing in front of the Palace Theatre, but to me, that doesn’t say enough. I might be wrong, in some respects, but I felt that what I was saying about that image was more about ghosts, really, the influence of ghosts, and unseen elements in the image. I wanted them to come together in the final image, so what I did was mentally create an architectural framework for the final image, then I went out and shot all the single images and put them together to discover the unknown in the photograph, the unseen, which does show up. A ghost in the house.
Does it change your percep(on of the world around you and in your own personal life?
Yeah, it does, because I’m taking into account more than what’s actually there. I see it in my way, which is different to how other people see things, of course. But photography shows that up in people. It reflects what’s inside you, because it’s through your eye that you see it.
Because you’re seeing thing differently to other people when you’re out there taking photographs, does it shape your understanding of your craZ?
I think what helps me shape my understanding of my craW is to experiment more, and then reach a conclusion about the experiment, and either keep it or discard it. And hopefully, that will shape even how I take
a simplisOc picture. One of my favourite film-‐makers is Tarkovsky, and the way that he will film a scene, for instance, is not the other way other people will film the scene, in fact he’s preXy unique in his approach to filming. Because what he does is pull you into a posiOon, and make you see things you would normally never look at. So in my mind, he expands the scene considerably by doing that.
An example of that is wind blowing in a scene in Mirror, in which his principal actor is walking through a field towards a woman in a dream-‐like, wide-‐angle image, and everything’s sOll in the picture, so it appears like he’s just walking towards her, but in actual fact there’s a lot happening within that scene, because all of a sudden, from nowhere, there’s a wind, and the wind just blows through the image. And it says much more than the image that is being depicted. He adds another element, another layer to the text. Which is what I try to do. It might be something to do with the amount of Ome that people have leW in their lives – you might want to show a lot, but you might think, “Well, there’s not enough Ome in my lifeOme to show exactly what I want to show.”
So, would you say your work has an element of “(me” to it?
Well, I think that element runs throughout. I mean, that’s all pictures are: elements of Ome, memories. You’re actually creaOng a movement, even though the image doesn’t move itself, the story moves. So, you’re not just using the image as a recollecOve memory, you’re using the image to actually portray something which is acOve and moving in your own brain. I quite like the idea that Einstein, aWer all his theoreOcal ponderings, came to the conclusion that past, present and future are all the same, that there is no past, present or future; it’s just now. <
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(C) trib
e magazine 2012 w
ww.tribem
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