Module 1 Lecture Content: Time, the Still Image + Photography

Introduction

This module explores the relationship between time and the photographic image. While film, video and animation are all compiled of “still” images that are played fast enough in succession (usually) to produce the illusion of motion and the passage of time, completely still photographic images also convey ideas of time. This lecture content will focus on how artists, designers and other creative practitioners use photographic images, techniques and processes to communicate a sense of time, and also how photographs communicate a sense of time via their formal aesthetics (how they look), their format / production technology, and their subject matter. We will also discuss how some writers draw connections between time, space and photography, and how photographers work with time in their approach to taking photographs.

As you navigate the videos, artworks and information below, be sure to consider this idea of TIME. As the viewer, how do these visuals communicate a sense of time, either in terms of a specific time (minute, year, decade, century, eon, etc) and/or the passage of time (from seconds to minutes to hours to days to years).

Still Images, Subjects, Technologies + Time

Look at the paintings below. If you have never seen these images before, what types of assumptions do you make about the ages of these paintings based on the style and the condition of the paint? What about the subject matter? How are these spatial understandings influenced by your pre-existing knowledge of history, painting movements or styles, and/or the specific artworks or artists themselves?

If you were not familiar with these paintings, you were probably able to infer some spatial information based on the physical attributes, including style, technique and also color / paint condition. This was probably paired with your interpretation of the subject matter depicted, such as the people, settings and/or events depicted or the other recognizable visual components (or lack there of).

The condition of the paint, as well as the coloring and even surface in some cases is part of the “technology” each painting utilizes. While we are used to thinking about technology in terms of “advancement” or “progression”, painting is also a visual technology, just older. When some of these paintings were created, the colors and another materials like gold leaf able to be applied, the level of detail able to be produced and even their longevity and preservation were all part of technological advancement. In many cases evidence of these materials and process, as well as some of the visual characteristics produced by these materials and processes link directly to a specific time period.

These attributes, combined with the subject matter itself, can help indicate a painting’s age. This type of visual interpretation cannot, however, always be trusted, as many artists across time periods, including contemporary artists, will utilize these two characteristics in order to directly play with the idea of time. Examples of this concept can be seen in the painting and other visuals below - consider how each visual plays with subject matter or visuals aesthetics to relay a sense of time to viewers that is not accurate to its actual creation date. Why do you think they did this in each instance?

Photographic technologies and time

Similar to paintings, photographic technologies and processes CAN indicate when a photo was originally taken. Things like camera construction, type and model, film / process and chemicals used, printing processes and overall level of detail and motion blur can all impact a photo’s visual aspects and give the viewer a sense of time. As with painting, a photograph’s subject matter can especially influence this spatial understanding, due to both overall resolution and the concept of photographic objectivity - that the viewer understands that images captured in a photograph are tied to a specific moment in time and specific location. This can be especially noted with photographic images of subjects that are significantly changed or no longer exist - such as destroyed landmarks and altered environments - or with well known living subjects.

Anyone who has used a photo app in the past 10 years knows that with the invention of digital processes and filters, it can be very difficult to use visual attributes alone to guess when a photo was taken. This is especially true with photos posted to a website or social media. Below are a few specific examples of apps and filters that produce these type of temporal effects. For folks born after 2000, its possible that you might not remember seeing analog versions of photographs and video that exhibit these visual characteristics as a result of their actual technical materials and processes. It is probably more likely that you recognize older digital photos with lower image resolution, color and quality.

The photographs in the galleries below use digital processes to artificially produce visual characteristics that play with the viewers sense of time. The artists also make specific choices regarding subject matter to further explore where the viewer might place or locate each image.

Irina Werning - Back to the Future

Irina Werning’s photographs play with a theme that has trended over social media for the last few years. She re-creates a photo taken of an individual or subject at an earlier point in time, and then displays the two together. The concept behind this series conveys the passage of time, and is emphasized by the accuracy of the staged photos - in most cases, the composition, positioning of subject matter, physical color and lighting, and location, are nearly identical matches. Werning also goes one step further by producing similar tones and material characteristics to match older photographs - I think these choices are incredibly effective, because they are visually captivating and also encourage me to focus on the changes that have occurred to the person and settings over time. This effect was especially powerful in the set that contained the Berlin Wall in its original photographic image.

Plaid + Flannel

These images are from a show I put on about 10 years ago entitled Plaid and Flannel. I was interested in constructing queer mythologies and historical narratives based on relatively superficial similarities of dress, style and other self-described attitudes and presentations among my queer community and the imagined patrons of a 20th century hunting lodge. I constructed a life-size canoe out of cardboard, and photographed my friends and I paddling around San Francisco and trying to emulate the visual language put forth by commercial “outdoorsman” imagery from the 1940’s and 1950’s.

For the last phase of the project, I digitally adjusted these photographs to match film and processing types from the general time period, printed them, and displayed them in a queer bar alongside the canoe and other cardboard “hunting trophies” and equipment, including snowshoes and a Bear Rug woven from six-pack boxes. With these photographs and other elements hanging in the bar, the space transformed in a way that “bent” time and played with imagined histories. Even though it was easy to recognized that the photos were taken in the present, their visual attributes, subject matter and visual language create the space for an alternative, imagined history of the bar and its patrons.

Coming Soon - Timelapse, Stop-Motion + Kinetic Images

Next week, we will be looking at Animation, Kinetics and Time - for this week, review the time-lapse videos below and consider how these are essentially still images taken at even - or uneven - intervals, and then played back at a frame rate that is fast enough that it produces the illusion of movement. I’ve always viewed time-lapse videos as the middle ground between still images and videos. As digital time-lapse technologies and time-lapse capture apps advance, these formats can be pushed in ways that explore narrative, time + space even though they work primarily with still images as building blocks. Consider how each communicates a sense of time, through both its format and its subject matter and narrative direction. How would you use this format to tell a story or present a narrative?

WRAP/WARP UP

To wrap things up - and to bring things full circle - I have included a few stills from time-travel related films from the past 30 years. How do these photographs function within these narratives? How do they make sense of the time-travel or time-changing events that are part of each film’s narratives? Can you think of other films or media from popular culture that work with this concept of using photographs to signify changes in the space-time continuum? These are all explorations that can help you start to think about how time is represented in various formats and narratives. In doing so, it can help guide you as an artist as you play with time and develop projects for this course.