Week 10: Photography's Expanded Field

In this essay, George Baker presents us with an idea that photography has expanded beyond its modernist idea of the photographic object. Baker is claiming that photography is becoming a much more expanded medium similar to the idea of sculpture as an expanded medium, primarily written about in Rosalind Krauss' "Sculpture in the Expanded Field".  Baker starts his claim by addressing that while modernist photography strived to be an art of pure visual stasis, it failed to ever do so. While the modernist photograph attempted to provide a narrative it would never be able to do that based on the stasis nature of the object. Baker goes on to claim that if modernist photography is not stasis and not narrative, then there must be not only an inverted form, which would connect narrative and stasis, but there also must be forms that connect both narrative and not narrative, stasis and not stasis.

Baker uses Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills as an example of an art being stasis and not stasis simultaneously. This is found through Sherman using the photograph to display a stasis moment taken from a narrative, more specifically: a film. It is stasis in that it is addressing a stopped moment, while not stasis in that the stopped moment is from a film which is an art of almost pure narrativity.

We are then to look at the other side of the graph which would be an art that is both narrative and not narrative. The work of James Coleman, which are projections of stills taken from films, are seen as fitting to this claim. Narrative in that these are images taken from a film, but not narrative in that we are not watching a film but are watching a single image taken from it.

At the top of the graph, being an art of both narrative and stasis is the work of Jeff Wall. His work is stasis in that through the use of the lightbox, Wall is drawing attention to the photograph as being a physical art object, similar to that of a painting. While Wall is drawing attention to the physicality of the art object, the content within the image are mostly narratives. We can find the content as being narrative in that there is, most often, some sort of situation that seems to be paused. It is usually very easy to see that there is a story or an event that has the illusion of taking place as the photograph is being taken.

While Bakers ideas of the expanded fields of contemporary photography seem to be accurate, I start to question where Paul Graham's A Shimmer of Possibility falls into.

Pittsburgh (Man Cutting Grass), 2004, from A Shimmer of Possibility

Graham's first edition (published 2007) is comprised of 12 individually bound chapters. In each of these chapters we see a sequencing of images which, because of the similarities in visual aesthetic, are viewed as the passing of time of one event. In an interview with Aperture magazine, Graham addresses that he often examines the very nature of photography, "End of an Age alternates between sharp and blurry photos, so that considers focus; American Night has very light and dark pictures, so that deals with light intensity-aperture; and shimmer uses stuttering single frames, so that reflects upon time frozen or flowing through the camera shutter."

Page Spreads from "Texas" chapter of A Shimmer of Possibility

One can see the idea of the photograph as multiple images as opposed to only one image of a certain scenario, but there is something else going on here. From viewing the "Texas" chapter of the book, it appears as though Graham is following two people, one of which carrying two cases of Pepsi. It appears as though Graham followed them home, photographing them along the way, while also becoming distracted by other surroundings along the way. Between the 2nd and 3rd spreads, this idea of becoming distracted seems to be the case. In the 2nd spread the two appear to be walking uphill on a old sidewalk, the 3rd appears to be a view looking downhill on what appears to be the same sidewalk. The two continue to walk past a graveyard. Apparently there was not too many distractions here except for the graveyard, which appears to be in focus in one of the images. Then finally the two continue into a neighborhood, where at one point Graham seems to position the camera facing away from the road but into someone's yard where we see two children playing. The two carrying the groceries continue on until Graham stops and the two continue off into the distance. 

How can we interpret this body of work according to the claims of George Baker? I do not think that this work would fall into the category of in between narrative and not narrative, just as I do not believe it would fall into the category of in between stasis and not stasis. This work is both stasis and narrative, but may even be more than that. Is it possible that this body of work can be found in the center of Bakers graph?

Using the "Texas" chapter as an example, here are reasons why I believe this work may be able to fit in between all four categories-

Narrative - There is a sequence of images displaying what appears to be an progression of time over an event (the two people with groceries walking) through visual motifs, i.e., lighting, surroundings, subjects. 

Not Narrative - While we are seeing an event take place over time, we are not certain of the event. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of narrative begins with "An account of a series of events, facts, ect.". This is not a narrative because we do not have all of the facts. We assume these people have just gone grocery shopping and are now walking home, but we never see them leave the grocery store and we never see them go into a home.

Stasis - These are still, photographic images. If Graham was solely interested in the event happening over the period of time, he would have used a video camera. There is a reason that these are still images in sequential order as opposed to a seamless succession of the event. 

Not Stasis - There is a sequence of images we are watching, similar to that of a film. One can flip through the book and watch these images in a forward or backward sequence, so the element of motion is present. 

George Baker's theories about the expanded fields of contemporary photography and his Klein group graph were published in October in Fall 2005 and Paul Graham's A Shimmer of Possibility was not published until October 2007. I would be very interested to see if this work has modified or verified Baker's theories.