The Photographic Sequence!

and languages of subjectivity and objectivity"

One question: is a photograph ever alone? Is there ever ONE photograph or is photography always involving the MANY? ! Three examples: ! Tableau, Series, Montage"

What is a Series ! and/or ! a Sequence?! Two examples! Robert Frank! Bernd & Hilla Becher"

What is a Series ! and/or ! a Sequence?! Two examples! Robert Frank! Bernd & Hilla Becher"

The Series:! The use of photography to produce a body of images. A sequence of images that are different yet similar enough to relate as a series. ! Often bound by a shared subject: an idea, a subject, a location, a theme! One idea / subject / location ! Many photographs to delineate it! Photography: a dialectic between narrativity and stasis ! (movement of narrative and frozen image)! see George Baker, Photographys Expanded Field, October, vol. 114, 2005"

The Series:! The use of photography to produce a body of images. A sequence of images that are different yet similar enough to relate as a series. ! Often bound by a shared subject: an idea, a subject, a location, a theme! One idea / subject / location ! Many photographs to delineate it! Photography: a dialectic between narrativity and stasis ! (movement of narrative and frozen image)! see George Baker, Photographys Expanded Field, October, vol. 114, 2005"

Series: a collection of images produced in a way that demonstrates a relation (a series of images of cats, for example)! >a linking theme! Sequence: the way in which a series of images are put together, a way in which images are made to be read together! >a particular articulation"

Series: a collection of images produced in a way that demonstrates a relation (a series of images of cats, for example)! >a linking theme! Sequence: the way in which a series of images are put together, a way in which images are made to be read together! >a particular articulation"

Series: a collection of images produced in a way that demonstrates a relation (a series of images of cats, for example)! >a linking theme! Sequence: the way in which a series of images are put together, a way in which images are made to be read together! >a particular articulation"

A key issue for sequencing MONTAGE

The Kuleshov e!ect" What happens when (in lm) you follow a shot of an impassive mans face by: food, a dead child, a woman

Three models of Soviet cinematic montage:! Esr Shub #to take pre-existing footage and to recontextualise it through image-order and caption: ! The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty! Sergei Eisenstein in the conict between two shot meaning arises: ! Battleship Potemkin! Dziga Vertov meaning comes from the rhythm of shots: ! Man With a Movie Camera!

Esr Shub: emphasis on the fact is an emphasis not only to show the fact, but to enable it to be examined and, having examined it, to be kept in mind.! The long take as a form of contemplative viewing, the caption as a way to re-consider an image ! Esr Shub, Zhizin' moya - kinematograf , ! cited in Josh Malitsky, 'Esr Shub and the Film Factory-Archive: ! Soviet documentary from 1925-1928' !

Sergei Eisenstein: ! montage is a dialectical collision of images! montage is not a linkage of one idea to another not a brick by brick approach used to demonstrate, or expound, a concept - instead it is: ! from the collision of two given factors arises a concept So montage is conict.! Sergei Eisenstein cited in Peter Wollen, Eisensteins Aesthetics in his Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, London: BFI Publishing, 1998, p.30. !

Dziga Vertov: ! montage formed through movement and intervals! Cinema is the art of inventing movements! Drawings in motion. Blueprints in motion. Plans for the future. The theory of relativity on the screen! Our eyes, spinning like propellers, take of into the future on the wings of hypothesis! Dziga Vertov, We: Variant of a Manifesto, 1922!

Two examples of the types of series to address (using the terms of Jean-Francois Chevriers 1989 essay)! *The lyrical abstraction (the associative essay)! *The analytical comparison (the work of minimal difference)! The Adventure of the Picture [Tableau] Form in the History of Photography originally published in Photo-Kunst: Arbeiten aus 150 Jahren (1989), reprinted in The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography: 1960-1982 (2003)"

THE PHOTO ESSAY! W EUGENE SMITH / ROBERT FRANK / THE FAMILY OF MAN"

THE PHOTO ESSAY! W EUGENE SMITH / ROBERT FRANK / THE FAMILY OF MAN"

The Family of Man! 1955! curated by Edward Steichen"

El Lissitzky & Sergei Senkin! Pressa Exhibition! 1928 "

BIZ & Life: The development of the photo-essay"

Larry Burrows! One Ride with Yankee Papa 13! 1965"

Robert Frank! Black White and Things! 1952/1994"

Series (linking themes): ! Black / White / Things! (allegory of photography?)! Black/White: mood? color?! Things: subject of photography, the thing is that which is hard to name! Sequencing (articulation):! Beginning, middle, end? (a story?)! Circularity, association, openings and recurrence"

Series (linking themes): ! Black / White / Things! (allegory of photography?)! Black/White: mood? color?! Things: subject of photography, the thing is that which is hard to name! Sequencing (articulation):! Beginning, middle, end? (a story?)! Circularity, association, openings and recurrence"

Sarah Greenough, Fragments that Make a Whole: Meaning in Photographic Sequences! Black White and Things as a rejection of Life magazine essay format! An effort to make otherwise than beginning-middle-end! A range of emotions (hope/despair) and that which falls-out (things)! Things: ! on one level they are pictures of parades! but on an other they represent courtship/cruelty, attachment/loneliness, devotion/inhumanity! The expectation overturned: children as cruel, doll as suffocating ! A revolt against photography as universal language"

Clear symbols used, but meanings are not made evident! Frank: Something must be left for the onlooker He must have something to see. It is not all said for him. ! Rather than explication there is a sequence that is: ! disjointed, circular, ambiguous and tentative. It demonstrates that there are no decisive moments, no instance when the truth is claried through the perfect combination of form, gesture and expression (Greenough)! No truth just things somewhere between hope and despair"

Expectation?! Symbols?! Potentiality (the child)! The unifying ideal (the ag)! How do these work on each other?"

Robert Frank! The Americans! 1959"

Series: linking places, symbols and themes?! America (place: between ideal and experience)! Car (object, practice: driving, the road [fantasy of freedom?])! Flag (as unier, as symbol of unity, as covering)! Sequence: particular articulation! -Works through emphatic and unemphatic images (the punch and the pause)! -The ramble or wander through a series of places and symbols, not an analytical / didactic exposition! -Single image per spread: no juxtaposition; a procession utilising the viewers active recollection and anticipation !

Series: linking places, symbols and themes?! America (place: between ideal and experience)! Car (object, practice: driving, the road [fantasy of freedom?])! Flag (as unier, as symbol of unity, as covering)! Sequence: particular articulation! -Works through emphatic and unemphatic images (the punch and the pause)! -The ramble or wander through a series of places and symbols, not an analytical / didactic exposition! -Single image per spread: no juxtaposition; a procession utilising the viewers active recollection and anticipation !

Frank:! The attempt to make a visual study of a civilisation! I speak of things that are there, anywhere and everywhere #easily found, not easily selected and interpreted"

A visual style:! free / loose; the associative leap, the impassioned cries ! [ & the cut-up]! link to Beatnik authors: Jack Kerouac / Allen Ginsberg ! [ & William Burroughs]! importance of experience over concept! The concept worked through by sequence! Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous glance accident truth"

Robert Frank! Flamingo! 1996"

Series?! The retrospective! The quiet moment! The reection on the past from the present! Sequence?! The multi-panel (all on a page)! The image-(repetition)-word relation! Cinematic montage / Oblique non-narrative"

Series?! The retrospective! The quiet moment! The reection on the past from the present! Sequence?! The multi-panel (all on a page)! The image-(repetition)-word relation! Cinematic montage / Oblique non-narrative"

Michael Schmidt! U-NI-TY! 1996! (Scalo Press)"

Annelies Strba! Shades of Time! 1997! (Lars Muller Publishers)"

Alec Soth! Niagara! 2006"

Yto Barrada! A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project! 2005!

THE WORK OF ANALYSIS: Bernd & Hilla Becher"

Bernd & Hilla Becher! Typologies! 1990"

Series?! Buildings! Disappearance (the about to be demolished)! Sequence?! Buildings grouped by type! Never a single image, always a cluster! The grid format! Neutrality"

Series?! Buildings! Disappearance (the about to be demolished)! Sequence?! Buildings grouped by type! Never a single image, always a cluster! The grid format! Neutrality Objectivity?"

The other model of series! Analysis and comparison: the lesson of Muybridge! No lyricism but ability to compare one image with another "

TYPOLOGY / TAXONOMY / ARCHIVE"

Donald Judd / Andy Warhol: the logic of repetition and seriality

Donald Judd / Andy Warhol: the logic of repetition and seriality ONE THING AFTER AN OTHER (no beginning-middle-end, but no associative narrative either Infinite Interminable

SCIENCE?" Bechers: " The approach begins with a description of the outer appearance of an animal or plant, everything that can be recognized on the outside, such as size, colour, and the relationship of parts to the whole. Then the inner organs are investigated, the structure or anatomy. Finally the developmental history and questions of function are looked into, including the niche each species lls in its environment and in its own specic biotype." If you transfer this method to other areas, it is possible to investigate any kind of subject. You can say for example, that a blast furnace built in the last century that has been continually updated and pipe systems added on has undergone stages just like an insect. In both cases it is possible to follow the development historically and compare it with similar or dissimilar forms. " The work of objectivity?"

SCIENCE?" Bechers: " The approach begins with a description of the outer appearance of an animal or plant, everything that can be recognized on the outside, such as size, colour, and the relationship of parts to the whole. Then the inner organs are investigated, the structure or anatomy. Finally the developmental history and questions of function are looked into, including the niche each species lls in its environment and in its own specic biotype." If you transfer this method to other areas, it is possible to investigate any kind of subject. You can say for example, that a blast furnace built in the last century that has been continually updated and pipe systems added on has undergone stages just like an insect. In both cases it is possible to follow the development historically and compare it with similar or dissimilar forms. " The work of objectivity?"

The different works of comparison:! IN the frame: Robert Frank! BETWEEN the frames: Bechers

The different works of comparison:! IN the frame: Robert Frank! BETWEEN the frames: Bechers

The different works of comparison:! IN the frame: Robert Frank! BETWEEN the frames: Bechers

The images are so particular to their project they seem to resist semiotic analysis [in terms of coding, they seem able to reject all readings a kind of non-stick / wipe-clean photography]! Their relation to realism / documentary could be seen to be problematic as the images deny motivation, affect or event, seemingly rejecting the capturing of the moment replacing that with the play of innite and minute variation. [The multipart nature of the works denies the singularity of the photographic image]! Theodor Adorno: out of nothing, something happens! Are the Bechers photographs in-signicant - do they refuse to signify? If so, why?! Blake Stimson: the Bechers work = an anatomy of relations between constituent parts a non-heroic engagement with industry / machine-age technology, against decisive moment or human interest via affect / sentiment! from The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher in his The Pivot of the World: Photography and its Nation, MIT Press, 2006"

The images are so particular to their project they seem to resist semiotic analysis [in terms of coding, they seem able to reject all readings a kind of non-stick / wipe-clean photography]! Their relation to realism / documentary could be seen to be problematic as the images deny motivation, affect or event, seemingly rejecting the capturing of the moment replacing that with the play of innite and minute variation. [The multipart nature of the works denies the singularity of the photographic image]! Theodor Adorno: out of nothing, something happens! Are the Bechers photographs in-signicant - do they refuse to signify? If so, why?! Blake Stimson: the Bechers work = an anatomy of relations between constituent parts a non-heroic engagement with industry / machine-age technology, against decisive moment or human interest via affect / sentiment! from The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher in his The Pivot of the World: Photography and its Nation, MIT Press, 2006"

The images are so particular to their project they seem to resist semiotic analysis [in terms of coding, they seem able to reject all readings a kind of non-stick / wipe-clean photography]! Their relation to realism / documentary could be seen to be problematic as the images deny motivation, affect or event, seemingly rejecting the capturing of the moment replacing that with the play of innite and minute variation. [The multipart nature of the works denies the singularity of the photographic image]! Theodor Adorno: out of nothing, something happens! Are the Bechers photographs in-signicant - do they refuse to signify? If so, why?! Blake Stimson: the Bechers work = an anatomy of relations between constituent parts a non-heroic engagement with industry / machine-age technology, against decisive moment or human interest via affect / sentiment! from The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher in his The Pivot of the World: Photography and its Nation, MIT Press, 2006"

The images are so particular to their project they seem to resist semiotic analysis [in terms of coding, they seem able to reject all readings a kind of non-stick / wipe-clean photography]! Their relation to realism / documentary could be seen to be problematic as the images deny motivation, affect or event, seemingly rejecting the capturing of the moment replacing that with the play of innite and minute variation. [The multipart nature of the works denies the singularity of the photographic image]! Theodor Adorno: out of nothing, something happens! Are the Bechers photographs in-signicant - do they refuse to signify? If so, why?! Blake Stimson: the Bechers work = an anatomy of relations between constituent parts a non-heroic engagement with industry / machine-age technology, against decisive moment or human interest via affect / sentiment! from The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher in his The Pivot of the World: Photography and its Nation, MIT Press, 2006"

Another serial series - August Sander:! the basic thought of my photographic work Citizens of the Twentieth Century, which began in 1910 is nothing but an attempt to make a physiognomical time exposure of German man"

August Sander: a two pronged method! Traditional form: the portrait! (transmissibility of the likeness of the sitter a celebration of their identity)! Radical form: the series, the sequence! (a form that requires a suppression of style and a focus on relationality comparing one image to the next a giving away of originality of each image [they become boring] to allow a whole system to emerge the piece becomes a composite portrait of a nation)"

Rineke Dijkstra"

Thomas Ruff"

Candida Hofer"

Andreas Gursky"

The serial structure: the informational display! Information not experience!

Hans Haacke! Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System, as of May 1 1971! 1971

"

William Wegman, Ray-O-Vac, 1973

"

Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1972

"

Ed Ruscha, Twenty Six Gasoline Stations, 1962

"

Ed Ruscha, Thirty Four Parking Lots, 1967

"

Ed Ruscha!
Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966!

Repetition of point of view: de-privileging the photographic moment "

Douglas Huebler! Variable Piece no.101! 1973"