Project 2: Small World (Models and Miniatures)
Photographer and educator Gary Kolb has said of the terms "construction" and "control", as they relate to studio photography: "...these words are not exclusive to photographic techniques but also refer to meaning. Both image and meaning are crafted. One unique aspect of most studio photography is that in the studio the photographer builds an image from a knowledge of potentials rather than edit from a reality of continuous space and time; photographers contrive both space and time." Many of the artists whose work we will examine for this project opt to create the world in which their images exist entirely in the studio. This often means fabricating simulations or models of reality that may appear more "real" than the real world might, when photographed. According to Baudrillard, "...simulation is . . . the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal" (Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184.) Hyperreality refers to the phenomenon in which the real and reproductions of the real are indistinguishable. Surely this describes much of the work we will view for this project. For Baudrillard, the reality in which we think we live each day is actually a construction--based on models whose precession is increasingly difficult to trace.
Your aim need not be overly ambitous in the technical execution of your model to be photographed, however. Let us say that you will strive merely to produce a single "plausible fiction". Working in groups of three or more (taking turns as photographer and assistants), you will help each other sketch, plan, acquire materials, and build the small models to be brought in to the studio and photographed. You'll need to study the work of the photographers seen in class very carefully in order to get ideas for how to design backgrounds and lighting scenarios.
We will critique your finished prints (at least 8) on Thursday, Nov. 15.