Fianca Choi

Frank in the zone of ideology, the truth of the photograph capture the reality

Study in David Honkey polaroid photograph

Since camera obscura appear in our society in 18-century for tracing the image by the artist, they
try to capture the truth from our reality. Cameras seem to keep surrounding our daily life, from our
mobile lens to the camera, they seem to become a handy tool for humans to record and capture
their stories in their life easier. Apparently, as a medium, photography becomes an objective
presence from its form. From its stable resolution to the ne edge of the reality that we captured
from human nature, everything seems dedicated to its job. Even though does the camera capture
the reality that we feel, or exactly say, what the message of the photograph tries to say to the
spectator? In this article, I'll study artist David Hockney's series of polaroid photograph,try to
investigate the essence of photography.In this article will provide some argument to justify my
point of view.

Illusory and the resolution edge

'Proust was a very visual author.'1If literature is the way of reconstructed the reality from our
memories,then,photography is try to holding the fragile truth from the human nature.All the things
go in to our mind its begin from our sensation, it in uence how we understanding the reality world.
From the Sick Planet,Guy Debord announced that the society is exist as a illusory from by the
ideology[Guy Debord,1971].Its goes with illusory,some uncertainty of the reality.Human always try
to record the things since they learned how to commutated with the world.From the oldest
decade,primitive people painting the massage in the cave of Lascaux to praise the mythological
truth from the universe2.Nowadays,people using the camera to picturesque their life.In fact,the
ideology try to reconstructed itself in a alienate generation by capitalism.

If the code distorted itself as a alienation being ,Can the camera picturesque all of the life being ?
Or it just try to objectify the ideology that we live in?From those question,maybe we can
brainstorm Roland Barthe his ideas3.Barthe's propose that the linguistic massage ,denoted
massage and connoted massages in uence the way of how we interpret the image.He used an
advertisement photograph as a sample,we can clearly to received the massage from the
commodity of it symbolic gesture(the composition of the product),and the languages that place
on the package.All of these placement seems systematically code by ideology from our society.In
this level,the essence of the language of the object itself seems to be absent.The color,
texture,organic shape from the object now is fading out.All of the breathable atmosphere from our
human nature are try to supply for the 'mechanical' civilisation. Backward to the camera,as the
intermediary object to picturesque the life being,camera can e ectively capture the moment with
out sensation,but the chemical production. It's calculated by sunlight and shade accurately. It
exist as a neutral form,manipulated and reconstructed the language by it ideology.

Beyond the neutral

When we try to press the stutter ,in that moment it contain with human emotional state,or some
old memories related to our spiritual. In some way,photograph its more than neutral form,itbeyond
the representation form of itself.David Hockney his series of polaroid photograph maybe can

1p.300, Snapshot and Moving Picture,A History of Pictures(2016),David Hockney and Martin
Gayford
2 p.39-40,Prehistoric and primitive peoples; Ancient America,The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich
3 Rhetoric of the Image,Image Music Text(1977),Roland Barthe
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 David Hockney,Stephen Spender,April,1982

provide some prove from this idea.From his work4 its puzzling the di erent detail from Stephen
Spender(Pic 1) and his place.If we observed the whole work of the piece, maybe its hard to focus
on one singular preceptive.Each of the polaroid are close up to to the things itself,even to Stephen
Spender,it separated into many individual part.The process of taking the polaroid is similar with
how we use our eyes to observing the life being in our life. It never be clearly to capture the
object(human or life being),its constantly changed the breathable atmosphere through time.In this
work each picture have it content,he try to drawing the'Here and Now' emotion by the polaroid.As
we can see,each of the polaroid contain with di erent levels of artist sensation from the world(or
life being), each of the polaroid have it own memories,just like the fossil of sea lily colony5.the
polaroid itself created the tension with another individual. it provide an uncertainty of the 'Here
and Now' moment,questing the 'real' from artist mind.

Cityscape,Unknow artist ,Princess Margaret Hosptial

4 David Hockney,Stephen Spender,April,1982

5'The painting of a sea lily colony is representation of it, a picture of it',p.433,Photograph and
Fossils,Walter Benn Michaels
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 The image that I have captured from Princess Margaret Hospital,It placing on the wall with a larger
scale and handle with a plastic frame. From the rst sight,the photograph portray a delicate
line(the edge of the object) from the city building, and the cars rivering on the road. Everything's
seems static from the images.If we try to understand this photograph,maybe will quickly
inturputated it as a cityscape photograph,and try to memorised the city that we have stay,or the
city that we have been to.In some sense,this photograph will be reborn as some kind of memories
that liven our past.The object from the photograph seems to be blurred,can not to be identify itself

being(fade out).

Frame,or Framed:The photo condition of the picture

Luncheon at the British Embassy,Tokyo, Feb. 16, 1983

Backward to earliest Hockney's polaroid work,every moment of the photograph that he taken like
the foot print trace on the sand,make a mark on the fragile intermediary object.each of the
individual are framed with the white edge of the images,they structured the photograph
systematically,those systematical form are balancing the tension from every individual.
Photograph might by limited by the edge of the photo paper.If the photographer want to express
his idea or emotion it will be rely on composition,color,temperature of the photograph.I'll call it as
a condition of the photograph.Those photo condition will be e ect how we interpret the
photograph(artist intention). In Hockney's lately photo collage,It breakthrough the boundary of the
limitation in photograph.He try to layering the photograph as a continuous motions, its being
di erent with his earlier polaroid work,it with out the limited of the frame,this time its following the
subject( gure) it body gesture, expression of the face to expand the form of the photograph.Its
quite interesting when I try interpret his work Luncheon at the British Embassy.The faces of the
gure keep overlaying with the picture,maybe it taken from some interesting moment of the
conversation,it created a breathable atmosphere from the continuous motion.Some of the place
from the Embassy is missing out from the work,From the collage it shape it striking people to
think forward who dominance in this conversation.from it incomplete shape of the collage, the
color of backing paper is resemble with the wall of embassy. it is covering the absent part of the
collage,engaged us to think forward is it the decoration of interior and the small object try to
leading human conscious.
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