Phantoms of the Aperture: a reflection on autobiographical photography and live performance.
Phantoms of the Aperture is a practice-led research performance interrogating the role of superimpoisition of live video and photographic images in performance. It was staged in High Wycombe and Manchester Metropolitan university in April 2015.
Current debates contend that the digitisation of the photographic image and its manipulation through software have brought about a post-photographic paradigm.[1] Claims that the photograph offers an indexical trace to reality are attenuated by notions that the digital image ‘privileges fragmentation, indeterminacy and heterogeneity’.[2] The aggressive nature of the photograph as index to a specific reality at a certain moment in time, a view examined by Sontag in On Photography as early as 1979, gives way to a more fluid approach that ‘emphasises process or performance’ as opposed to ‘objective truth’.[3]
Current debates contend that the digitisation of the photographic image and its manipulation through software have brought about a post-photographic paradigm.[1] Claims that the photograph offers an indexical trace to reality are attenuated by notions that the digital image ‘privileges fragmentation, indeterminacy and heterogeneity’.[2] The aggressive nature of the photograph as index to a specific reality at a certain moment in time, a view examined by Sontag in On Photography as early as 1979, gives way to a more fluid approach that ‘emphasises process or performance’ as opposed to ‘objective truth’.[3]
Phantoms of the Aperture,
interrogates these issues through a meditation on photographs of my father,
Edward Kelly, and interpretations of what they might mean. In performance, I
intervene with the projected photographs in an attempt to become consubstantial
with the father through a technique of visual overlay, or dissolve. The
compound image is a palimpsest in which the father and the son combine in a
montage of past and present. Sound is used as a channel to evoke the tone and
tenor of the virtual encounters, as well as a mnemonic key by which to elicit
specific times.
Phantoms of the Aperture will be evaluated in a paper presentation at the T@PRA conference as part of the Performance and New technologies Working Group, Winchester, 8th September, 2015.
