Eleanor MacFarlane: Destabilised Imagery

I have been using this term I came up with to describe some intentions in my work. So far people have accepted it well and got the gist of what I mean, and so I am going to explore and define this more, and deepen my own understanding of what I might mean by destabilised imagery. Useful phrases may come from such exercises which help to clarify statements.

I come at this from different angles and express it differently through different media, and so, destabilised imagery is not always the main deliverer of my art message. I recognise it is often a factor in my work.

Destabilised imagery:
Ambiguous
Difficult to see all at once
Changes according to the viewer angle
Difficult to photograph
More liquid form of solid
Film in sculpture
Moving image in solid form
No one correct view
Plays on ideas of perceiving and understanding
Uses individual interpretations
A myriad of views
Low-tech mechanism of variation

The opposing factor in this which always exists in my work is clarity and revealing my images as they actually are. This means that I don't deliberately obfuscate imagery or add extraneous effects. Although it may at times be more difficult to decipher images, on the surface level they are obvious and clear - eg, bricks, lights, shadows, eyes, etc.

Although I may show lights, drawings, people, and the viewer can see that, perhaps I want them to be unsure about what they are seeing, and the ambiguity emerges in the way I edit the excess in the images away, how I merge them, pace them, layer them, and cross them over with other images and with sounds.

3rd April 2014

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Related blog, book, ideas and examples of my work:

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/spalding-j-2010-best-art-youve-never.html

In the current final project Embedded, there are elements which are hard to see, although they are in plain sight - no smoke and mirrors, no moving parts. In the moving image there is merging and fading, seeming to leave residual shadows, waves of remembered and actual images. the images are not destabilised, but perhaps it emphasises how destabilised looking is.

The framed stills are printed on a lustrous, reflective Titanium paper. In earlier trials I had printed the photos on silver card, and took more photographs of those images so that I could incorporate all the reflections I made into the moving image.

The Titanium paper gives a much more subtle sheen to the stills, and is appropriate to their provenance, bringing in references to early, metallic and mineralised photography - metal and glass plates. Not properly documented as yet, but these snaps may portray the reflective element, and is another layer where the viewer has to look. I wanted the viewer to really have to actively look in order to see these images.