Thursday, 16 January 2014

Adam Chodzko: Room For Laarni, Image Moderator, Marlborough Contemporary

Digital images cost next to nothing to take - only a bit of battery life and some memory. People, for better or worse, are now much less selective about what is worth taking a photograph of. An argument against this is that young people these days take too many photos at events like gigs and birthdays in order to preserve the memory as an image, rather than focusing on the moment. Perhaps we don't trust our memories enough. Perhaps the idea that we'll forget a moment is a self-fulfilling prophecy; we'll forget the moment because we were too busy viewing it through a lens, attempting to ensure that the memory was preserved forever.

Analogue photography, like the found images in this exhibition, is more likely to be viewed in a different light on the assumption that the photos were taken with more care. We assume that each moment was something that someone really cared about capturing, and we look for why that is. We project more meaning and feeling onto these photos. There is also more mystery and curiosity involved as a photo can get permanently separated from its context.

The images of people sleeping are voyeuristic in a different way from if they were digital. In a culture where youths sometimes tease each other by making candid and slightly awkward or embarrassing photos public, and in which the media screams stories of "cyber-bullying," a collection of digital images of people in a vulnerable state, unaware that they are being photographed, would seem... probably very far off being malicious, but maybe a bit cheeky. The fact that these images are analogue lends them a nostalgic feel. They are less throwaway; they were created with purpose and intention but as analogue images, are fading. It's easier to assume that although in some circumstances it may have been a bit intrusive, people preserved these moments because they cared. The images are lovingly creepy.