Public Visions and Private Universes

Philip Steer: Public Visions and Private Universes: Parallel Worlds and the Place of Artistic Vision

Parallel Worlds and the Place of Artistic Vision

If there is no vision, the people perish
- Proverbs 29:18

It feels like nothing matters in our private universe
- Neil Finn, ‘Private Universe’

Art has a prophetic nature because it allows a society to see itself afresh. This is particularly the case with photography and associated media, in their associations with realism. This prophetic voice, however, can be passive or active: merely reflecting that society, or challenging its values and assumptions. Indeed, the act of public exhibition assumes an artistic responsibility for providing such an active voice, with the corollary that art will be of greatest significance when it incorporates this role. The photo and video-based exhibition, Parallel Worlds, provides an interesting cross-section of the social concern of six contemporary New Zealand artists. The exhibition title is resonant with meaning for an investigation of artistic vision, for on one level it reflects the individuality of each artistic voice, with little in common beyond shared media and gallery space. More than this, parallelism, with the notion that boundaries might never intersect, is a very useful concept for the exploration of the relationships with the wider society that they present.

Many of the works in Parallel Worlds are based on representation of the individual: Sean Kerr’s self portrait, blowxblow, sees him boxing across opposing television screens; Ella Bella Moonshine Reed’s portraits are of a solitary figure; Maddie Leach’s images are of solo ice skaters. In each case, the artist explores the relationship between that individual and a wider world, in a way that has significance for the viewer’s own relationship with society.

Kerr’s work is a clever example of this: the artist as boxer, squaring off against himself before an invisible but vocal audience, in an indefinitely repetitive cycle. As well as suggesting the artistic struggle, this externalisation of violent internal dialogue suggests the fragmented nature of individual personality when faced with the competing demands of modern society. Yet there is always the suspicion that blowxblow is a one-joke gag and Kerr’s cleverness masks a lack of commitment. The animation and sound effects are rudimentary and repetitive, and these deficiencies of craftsmanship prevent the imaginative potential of the work from being fully realised. Beyond ‘getting’ the visual joke, the viewer is given little scope to question the scenario and values that the work hints at.

The series of portraits, Untitled (four pictures of Steven), raises similar concerns. Reed’s photographs are defiantly ordinary, depicting an inexpressive subject without any remarkable elements of compositional or aesthetic detail. The work hinges upon the inaccessibility of the subject that this ordinariness generates, something which is enhanced by the minimal evidence of other people in the world of Steven: his badminton racquet, a car and road, the star of a nearby synagogue. In this, Steven is a symbol for Everyman and Reed portrays him as self-contained and inscrutable. Alone in the urban environment and in nature, Steven (and the viewer) create meaning independently from society. But, the impact of this is diminished because of the portraits’ resistance to interpretation. While theoretically interesting, nevertheless they deter the viewer from engaging with them. Like Teflon, the lack of artistic re-visioning prevents the accretion of significance or meaning upon the photographs for the viewer. And, like mirrors, the viewer’s expectations are reflected back without any heightened self-awareness.

Also involving reflective surfaces is Leach’s work, which consists of small prints of swimming pools in juxtaposition with blown-up pictures of ice skaters. These larger images are digital in origin, and the mottled bodies of the skaters offer a comment on life in a digitised, media-driven world. Each body is visibly quantised and non-continuous, so that the viewer becomes aware of the representational nature of the exhibited image. More than that, it suggests the commodification of the individual in an environment where knowledge and skill are primarily economic assets. By contrast, the photographs of pools, empty of people, are of much higher resolution, possibly suggesting that human structures can become more real than the people who inhabit them. However, their juxtaposition is tenuous and the work stumbles over it. This is because the combination lacks a strong intellectual or visual connection, preventing any dialogue of consequence between them.

The second video-based exhibit in Parallel Worlds is very different from the first: Megan Dunn’s series of movies, mixed to the counterpoint of particular songs. The first two works re-present Disney fairytales, with songs by The Cure, as dark fables of life and death. The effect is to heighten their fantastic nature, reconnecting them with the origins and needs behind the storytelling tradition, while observing how modern society tries to hide and sanitise this. The second two videos are based upon irony: reflections upon intoxication to the theme from Cheers, and the pairing of Showgirls with the theme from The Muppet Show. This last work especially demands attention for the contrast between a movie glorifying sexual transactions with a puppet-based comedy. It explores the ways in which all involved can simultaneously be powerful and victims, while depicting the sex industry as a tawdry form of entertainment. Cheapening any eroticism and blackening the comedy, Dunn offers a savage commentary upon a society that accepts and even endorses such commodification of human relationships. The work is powerful because it challenges both the viewer’s own position and their understanding of the society they participate in. Yet, for all its emotive power, Dunn’s videos are pervaded with a sense of hopelessness, so that they do not provide any direction for that power.

Two artists in Parallel Worlds avoid the representation of people altogether: Lisa Crowley in her series Passengers and photographs by Jono Rotman of New Zealand incarceration facilities. Nevertheless, the two are markedly different in their intensity of vision and the ways in which they engage the viewer.

Passengers consists of natural rock formations, so photographed that they cannot be placed in the context of a wider landscape or geology. The viewer, faced with the happenstance of neutral, natural colour, must ‘board’ the image - hence the title - for the location triggered by the mind. The images are aesthetically interesting and their composition ensures that any meaning found within the image is derived entirely from the viewer’s own worldview. The flip side to this is the implication that the world the images represent becomes merely a place to satisfy and justify individual desires. Crowley legitimises the viewer’s self-absorption rather than challenging the viewer to consider a new view of the environment or their relationship with it.

In contrast, Rotman deliberately dismantles the boundaries of the individual’s parallel world, and his work is the most provocative and memorable of the exhibition. The exhibit consists of enormous photographs of interiors at Mount Eden maximum-security prison and Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, without any inmates being visible. This absence parallels the silencing of those who - consciously or involuntarily - push the equilibrium of society too far. It suggests they become invisible, rendered non-persons, behind the institution walls: the hidden picture of a Dorian Gray society. The work also speaks to the individual of the tension between self and imposed social norms: what it means to be an insider or an outsider, the precise boundaries of a social grouping. But each interior is also notable for a small window, letting in daylight: the possibility for restoration, it suggests, might be small but still remains. The quality of hope seen here is absent from all other exhibits in Parallel Worlds and Rotman’s work is all the more powerful because of this.

Parallel Worlds is a useful vehicle, illustrating many social and artistic trends and the points at which they intersect. In particular, it conveys the increasing individualism of society, the associated increase in relativism of belief and attitude and the consequent sense of dislocation for the individual. This is reflected in many of the works on display, yet few of them convey much impact or even leave a lasting impression. This is for two reasons, which are closely allied, in the area of artistic vision. Firstly, many sideline the importance of craftsmanship for the sake of an idea, with the result that the power of their ideas is diminished by deficiencies in artistic technique or imagination. And, secondly, many of the works are weak because the artist merely reflects the world they live in, producing work solely for self-amusement. The act of exhibiting assumes a responsibility for presenting a broader vision than the merely individual. Art without such vision lacks conviction and ultimately lacks relevance. While the parallel world is a valid starting point, the strongest work in Parallel Worlds actually transgresses the boundaries of individual viewpoint. The majority, however, remain located in private universes where their voices are so relativised and esoteric that they can safely be ignored.