figureheads | 2010-2012 | photography This series is an investigation in visual hot spots, both literally (white light) and figuratively (erotic). The works overlay the mystical history of figureheads with effects inspired by the tradition of spirit photography. Both figureheads and photographs were home to the supernatural in the past, a willful credulity in good luck and superstition. The images are about believing that something is there even when logic or criticality defies that belief - a contradictory belief system very near to the joy of looking at photographs. Suspension of disbelief operates not only in narrative realms but also in the photographic. Shot with Polaroid film to emphasize an outdated, pre-critical stance towards the photographic image, the works are removed from now ubiquitous digital effects in a faux-naive celebration of the analog and of the photograph as object and chemical process. The prints are all framed on 15 x 15 inch fields, emphasizing their objecthood, with the occasional Polaroid blown up to the finished frame size. In 2012, the series was revisited using Lenticular prints. |