Latent images as conceptual art

[Terry Christian]

Vivian Maier also, like Winogrand, left behind a vast amount of unprocessed (and nearly destroyed) film. It is now being developed and scanned after her death.

This also brings to mind another interesting point. Usually photographers themselves decide what their best or most desirable work is, and print and exhibit it accordingly. If your film is processed after your death, then someone else's view of your best latent work is being showcased to the public. Imagine walking through an exhibition of your photographs, but never having seen most of them before! ... Especially years hence, when most of your memories of taking those particular shots have faded from your mind.

 

[lxdude]

What about all the bits of His Foreskin? Boggles the mind.....

:confused:.......


I started to say something about 'well hung' but decided it would be in terribly poor taste.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Vivian Maier also, like Winogrand, left behind a vast amount of unprocessed (and nearly destroyed) film. It is now being developed and scanned after her death.

This also brings to mind another interesting point. Usually photographers themselves decide what their best or most desirable work is, and print and exhibit it accordingly. If your film is processed after your death, then someone else's view of your best latent work is being showcased to the public. Imagine walking through an exhibition of your photographs, but never having seen most of them before! ... Especially years hence, when most of your memories of taking those particular shots have faded from your mind.

That's a very good point. While I seriously doubt my work will ever get known as something important enough to salvage after my death, it is a little disturbing to think that somebody could exercise some sort of artistic skills on work I haven't done anything to other than expose the film. Provenance is another issue that is not clear; how can the work be clearly identified as made by a certain artist, without a signature or some other evidence that it was touched by them?

 

[cliveh]

Vivian Maier also, like Winogrand, left behind a vast amount of unprocessed (and nearly destroyed) film. It is now being developed and scanned after her death.

This also brings to mind another interesting point. Usually photographers themselves decide what their best or most desirable work is, and print and exhibit it accordingly. If your film is processed after your death, then someone else's view of your best latent work is being showcased to the public. Imagine walking through an exhibition of your photographs, but never having seen most of them before! ... Especially years hence, when most of your memories of taking those particular shots have faded from your mind.

A very good point and this is a different twist to its use. I suppose I was thinking in my OP as using undeveloped but exposed film as in the same way a musician may use silence within their music, or perhaps a film maker may run a sequence of black within the story of a film. I think to use this concept effectively in exhibition, it would perhaps need to be placed at the end of a series of displayed (printed images) on a very specific theme with the undeveloped roles/cassettes identified as a continuation of this theme. In that way it would leave the viewer of the displayed prints asking questions about the content of these in relation to any artistic development shown in the final image on display, as I believe someone mentioned an unfinished symphony.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

:confused:.......


I started to say something about 'well hung' but decided it would be in terribly poor taste.

You could always PM me. I'm nearly impossible to offend.

 

[lxdude]

You could always PM me. I'm nearly impossible to offend.

Funny thing is... I started to.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Schroedinger's cat.

Actually it's a combination of the cat and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We won't know how the film was exposed, what development the photographer envisioned, how it was stored...... the act of developing the images could make them into something they were never intended to be.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Funny thing is... I started to.

Offend me or PM me?

 

[lxdude]

PM you, but maybe both.

 

[Steve Smith]

could mean that one day it maintains a special value in its latent image state? To process it may destroy the wonder of what it may behold.

That sounds as ridiculous as people spending huge amounts on vintage wine which will never be tasted (and is probably undrinkable anyway).


Steve.

 

[removed account4]

That sounds as ridiculous as people spending huge amounts on vintage wine which will never be tasted (and is probably undrinkable anyway).


Steve.

the same thing was done with tulip bulbs hundreds of years ago.
people spent giant sums of $$ on bulbs ... some planted them
and were happy, others just put them in a case and stared at them and were very happy ..
still others planted their bulbs and nothing grew ...

there is a lot of potential energy stored in tulip bulbs, wine and exposed film ...

 

[cliveh]

A very good point and this is a different twist to its use. I suppose I was thinking in my OP as using undeveloped but exposed film as in the same way a musician may use silence within their music, or perhaps a film maker may run a sequence of black within the story of a film. I think to use this concept effectively in exhibition, it would perhaps need to be placed at the end of a series of displayed (printed images) on a very specific theme with the undeveloped roles/cassettes identified as a continuation of this theme. In that way it would leave the viewer of the displayed prints asking questions about the content of these in relation to any artistic development shown in the final image on display, as I believe someone mentioned an unfinished symphony.

With regard to my last post, I also think this would have more relevance done with slide film with the images viewed by transmitted light in display. This then negates any printing techniques and has more relevance to an unprossed roll of slide film.