Irene Naudé

Phantom Limb

4 - 24 August 2007                                      

Read the Exhibition review

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

A phantom limb is an amputated limb which is experienced as still being attached to the body. This same ambiguity can also be said to exist in photography. The image captured is often experienced as a memory of a situation, and fills a space that no longer exists. This ‘absent presence’ is what Plato referred to as a pharmakon in his description of writing as a representation of knowledge. According to Plato a pharmakon is a medicament to an ailment, but one which could act either as a ‘remedy’ or a ‘poison’. It should also be noted, however, that within this discussion writing can also be seen as prosthesis for enhancing memory.

In this exhibition the artist takes part in a discussion about bodies and experience through photography, while appealing to an ambiguous understanding of writing that has its ancestry in Plato’s dialogue, The Phaedrus (370 BCE). Likewise, photography as a pharmakon for memory is not a medicament to cure nor is a poison, and as the artworks on this exhibition aims to show, fills a gap that will remain ambiguous.

By approaching the camera as a prosthesis, as something which aims to capture and create substitutes for direct experience, Naudé poses questions about how bodies are linked to memory. Photography’s more tangible evidence becomes a strange thing if one considers that seeing is simply a fleeting but delayed recollection of what the eye catches a glimpse of. Is this captured reality a pharmakon? Is it a cure for memory or does it warp or poison?

The same concern with extending the language and the uses of photography can be identified in this exhibition with its analogies between photographic technologies and human prostheses. One of the key ideas is that photographs are not snapshots that match up to human vision, but enable a way of seeing – maybe even a kind of “prosthetic vision” – that is as strange as it might seem familiar. To emphasize this concern Naudé uses pinhole photography, an archaic precursor to modern photography, to allude to the ancient origins of Plato’s text, but with an emphasis on contemporary subject matter, a conflation of old and new knowledge is suggested. With pinhole photography, different times of day and weather fluctuation also create unique exposure requirements and because of these variables, producing a successful image is accompanied by a tremendous sense of achievement. The process of printing on sensitized emulsion on glass adds another element of unpredictability. Each batch of emulsion has a unique sensitivity and consistency, which could affect the clarity of the pinhole images printed onto the glass panes. Because of these contingencies each image is irreproducible and one of a kind. The pinhole camera relates specifically to the concept of it being a prosthetic in that the fluctuation of exposure requirements refers to the fluctuations of emotions that influence how we perceive ‘reality’. The artist constructs cameras out of prostheses that have been used by individuals who have either died or have moved on to using a more advanced form of prosthesis. These synthetic limbs have been mounted onto camera tripods and are linked via closed circuit surveillance cameras to a monitor where the viewer can see themselves from the perspective of the phantom limb cameras. The embodiment of a reality captured by a subjective photographer is what is at stake here, as well as other readings concerning the social role of photography today. How we “read” each other from within the confines and safety of our own bodies could come to mind. Another question that may be prompted is: are these internalized readings always true to reality or is the subjectivity of the photographer or viewer ever-present, warping and poisoning? The same application is found in translation. 

Phantom limb is the subject matter of the “pinhole animation” component of the exhibition where digitized photographs have been lined up as frames in a timeline to create a stuttering movement that reminds of the work of Eadweard Muybridge. This work reflects on the paradox of photography as a form of translating a real moment in time to a graphic image in the absence of the captured reality. Translation between two languages often creates a bridging of content but pinning down and capturing the original verbatim is doomed to failure. The ambiguity of the photographic image often creates a similar and partial correspondence with a moment in the past but ultimate comprehension is obviously not attainable. The image can only stand in as a reminder of a void that remains.

In these examples the artist attempts to show how photographic imaging can supplement yet distort human seeing in unexpected and provocative ways. The same kind of unexpected translation happens in the Cross Section series of layered prints on glass where the movement of light through the photographic mechanism is simulated. By reproducing the mechanics of the apparatus in this way, the reality of photography is shown as a form of interference where staggered images become nodes in time. However, the combined effect does not provide clarity and instead produces an intangible superimposition of imprints desperately grabbing at forms.

As an exhibition Phantom Limb engages with its subject matter on many levels. The ambiguous and partial embodiment that happens in the translation between the “that has been” and a captured image – reproduced by a prosthetic eye – becomes an anxious yet poignant attempt to capture and control time. Plato warned against mimesis, to pin down ultimate meaning, is doomed to failure. A photograph can be referred to as an “absent presence’” embodiment of a moment passed but the ambiguity of this translation is not a medicine nor is it a poison, and as the artworks on this exhibition aim to show, fills a gap that will remain ambiguous.