Week 10- Fontcuberta Where Have You Been...

Fig. 1: Fontcuberta Sirens [screenshot by author]

Fontcuberta, where have you been all my life?
As my 4 year old would say, "What in the whole wide world?!"
I'm not sure why up until this point I haven't heard of Fontcuberta's work (although I recognize his images of 'Sirens' from social media).  But I love his audacity already.  Who would do such a thing, and with such skill pull it off!  If this was social media I would insert three super heart emoji's here.  Big fan.  Big fan.

I was not surprised to see his background was in advertising (Schwenderner 2013). So he has skills and experience in deceiving and manipulating the general public (that is the skill of successful advertising right?) but this is so much more fun.

Is photography and or photographs just a convention?

Are we willing to suspend our beliefs and enjoy the journey of Fontcuberta?

Fig. 2: Slade 2019. Pink

Fontcuberta and I are kin in the fact that we ask for people to somewhat suspend their beliefs of reality to enjoy the journey of our images, and we both find it important to use text to complete the concept of our work; to unify the perception and interpretation (Bal 1993:379). Fontcuberta, in the Latin names of the creations in his images, and mine with the backstory of the children involved.

What ideas and theories am I exploring in my practice?  What am I trying to say, and how am I trying to say it? How do I want my reader to respond?

Life is beautiful.
ALL life is beautiful.
I try to express that through photographic art whose main elements encourage light, beauty and hope.

"People relate to photographs by looking through them, at what's in them, not at them, as pictures," (Wall 2015).

"Every photograph is the result of a physical imprint transferred by light reflections onto a sensitive surface. The photograph is thus a type of icon, or visual likeness, which bears an indexical relationship to its object," (Krauss 1977:75).

"In photography I can never deny the thing has been there," (Barthes 1993:76).

It has been there, but I like to ask in my images, "Where is it going?"



Figure 1. FONTCUBERTA, Joan. Stranger Than Fiction: Sirens on Vimeo.  Available at: https://vimeo.com/101076313 [accessed April 1 2019]
Figure 2. SLADE, Bren. 2019. Pink. Available at www.BrenSlade.com
BAL, Mieke. 1993. 'His Masters Eye.' in LEVIN, David (ed). 1993. Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Berkeley: University of California Press.
KRAUSS, Rosalind. 1977. 'Notes on the Index; Seventies Art in America.' October (vol.3).
SCHWENDERNER, M. 2013. Fontcuberta, Joan, Oxford University Press.
WALL, Jeff. 2015. Pictures Like Poems. Museum of Modern Art. V&A [online] available at: https://vimeo.com/123074890 [accessed April 1, 2019].