OCA Level 3: Body of Work/Contextual Studies

Category: Sketchbook (Page 2 of 3)

Empty Shops: Metro Centre

I came across the term “cathedrals of consumption”, coined by George Ritzer in reference to shopping malls, as I researched for CS. It is a phrase that immediately resonated with me – the suggestion that it is shopping that has replaced religion in our secular times, giving us meaning, purpose and something to believe in is a powerful image:

“Consumption sites such as theme parks, cruise ships, casinos, tourist resorts, hotels, restaurants and, above all, shopping malls, are referred to as ‘cathedrals of consumption’ by George Ritzer to indicate their quasi-religious, enchanted qualities. Ritzer (1999) views them as the core institutions of late modernity, which have redefined the nature of society. The great sociologists of modernity, including Weber and Durkheim, emphasized its rationalizing qualities that dissolve traditional elements, such as superstition, myth and folklore. Ritzer argues that where modernity led to a Weberian ‘disenchantment of the world’, a stripping away of myth, folklore and fantasy, late modernity reintroduced these into social life through ‘hyper-consumption’, mass festivals of consumption taking place in its spiritual homes, the modern cathedrals. Ritzer’s central thesis is that contemporary management sets its eyes firmly not on the toiling worker, but on the fantasizing consumer. What management does is to furnish, in a highly rationalized manner, an endless stream of consumable fantasies inviting consumers to pick and choose, thus creating the possibility of re-enchanting a disenchanted world through mass festivals in the new cathedrals of consumption.” (Gabriel and Lang, 2015: 76-7)”

The Metro Centre in Gateshead, formerly the largest shopping mall in Europe, fits this description as a ‘cathedral of consumption’ perfectly. Visiting the centre however, I was struck by the number of shops that were closed and wondered of Ritzer’s analysis was still true. I photographed some of the empty spaces and was quickly challenged by one of the centre’s security team who advised me to contact the centre management to seek permission to photograph. I duly did this and my request was declined, as the centre was in a “period of transition” they felt the current state was not an accurate representation. I was not surprised by this and the lack of permission reinforced my view that the centre is in serious decline and the last thing the management would to allow is anything that could damage perception. (Interestingly since I took the images here, many of the spaces have been covered with graphics to draw attention away from them being empty.)

Seph Lawless: Abandoned Malls:

Researching artists who have explored consumerism, I came across the work of Seph Lawless, particularly his ‘Abandoned Malls’ project. Lawless documents derelict sites of commerce and leisure across the US, mainly situated in “poor, broken parts of the country” with the goal of showing the “vulnerable side of the country and raise awareness” through his work. He recalls with nostalgic fondness going to the mall as a youth: “These grand places that served as pinnacles of the community were not only institutions or places of commerce. They were communal spaces where a lot of people went and shared good memories.” (Morona, 2016) 

Uberti (2014) notes that death of the American shopping mall is linked to socioeconomic shifts in the areas they are located, a shift back to urban centres and the impact of online shopping. Rather than being the  “self-contained ecosystem” of the past, malls now seem dated and conformist. Many of the large department stores that used to ‘anchor’ malls have either moved out or gone out of business, and most importantly, customers no longer have enough disposable income to shop there.

Geography is a significant difference between the decline of the American mall and the changing nature of UK shopping centres. Whether places like the Metro Centre go the same way of the malls documented by Lawless remains to be seen. Undeniably the landscape of retail is changing rapidly, and this links to how we spend our leisure time and even our sense of identity. In terms of how, or if, I pursue this as an area of exploration for my BoW I am left with the choice of either trying again to seek permission to photograph from the Metro Centre management or making images ‘undercover’. At this point I am still unsure if this is the direction I want to take.

Bibliography:

Gabriel, Y. and Lang, T. (2015) The Unmanageable Consumer (3rd Edition). London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Morona, J. (2016) Seph Lawless: Q&A with photographer behind those viral images of abandoned places. Cleveland.com. At: https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2016/05/seph_lawless_abandoned_building.html (accessed 1st February 2022)

Uberti, D. (2014) The Death of the American Mall. The Guardian, 19th June 2014. At: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/19/-sp-death-of-the-american-shopping-mall (accessed 1st February 2022)

Experiment with video stills (2)

This is an idea I keep coming back to, although I remain sceptical that it will lead me anywhere. The methodology of capturing a sequence of video and selecting screen grabs to make something else appeals – there is also something that resonates with some of the reading I have been doing for CS concerning consumerism and how retailers try to gain our attention in an environment that is saturated with visual information. (Debord’s Society of the Spectacle for instance.)

This second experiment is again something quickly made. I took 2 minutes of video using my iPhone (this time set to the highest quality), imported into Premiere Pro and used the image capture function at various points which had potentially interesting visual information in them – I am particularly interested in window displays, store signage and imagery and brand logos. I then quickly cropped in Lightroom and put together as a collage. Again I am not sure if this is something worth pursuing or worth the time that would be needed to make something. In order to really work a lot of images would be required – perhaps I need to have a go at this in order to really understand if this is an idea that could go somewhere.

Thoughts:

  • I have searched for different ways to take screen shots from video and there are many different approaches of varying complexity. Using Premiere Pro as I have here is a very quick and easy technique – I may be able to get better quality using another method but I am not sure if it would be worth the extra effort.
  • The different aspect ratios, sizes and positioning of the images work well I think, although there are potentially other ways I could overlap them. The same things, but from different angles could also be something to work on, such as the apple logo in this example.
  • How to present these is something to think about. Physically they could work as large, poster sized prints or as introductory pieces at the beginning/end of a book or zine. Digitally they could lend themselves to being animated somehow – perhaps as a continuous loop of changing/overlapping images.
  • Although I have shot this video on the highest (4k) setting my phone allows, once the individual frames have been captured and cropped, they take on a more lo-fi aesthetic which appeals to me. This could be something that could be pushed further to bring this to the fore, for example, increased saturation (or destauration), contrast and emphasis on grain and movement/blur.

Experiment with video stills

I have a longing to make something for my BoW that is different to what could be termed ‘traditional’ photography, although I am not even sure what this means or how to articulate it. It is probably easiest to describe this as a desire to make a body of work that is not just a series of single images on a wall or in a book. I have no idea what this will look or be like, and the risks are many, however, I feel a real need to try and express myself in a way that recognises that the language of photography is in a sate of flux as we move from analogue to digital.

A phrase used by recent OCA graduate Sarah-Jane Field keeps circulating in my mind – “post Cartesian”, that is “the journey away from a Cartesian understanding of reality towards one that is networked, non-linear and lively.” (Field, 2020) Sarah-Jane’s work, particularly her L3 submission, is inspiring and original and I need to study it closer and understand better what is meant by terms such as ‘Cartesian’. This paragraph eloquently encapsulates her intentions and provides pointers on a potential way forward:

“my work eschews a monistic and linear view while embracing one that is entangled, multi-directional and polymorphic. It asks what image-making is, was, and is becoming, and although the photograph is definitely a protagonist, it must share the stage with other forms of exteriorisation. In doing so, the collection of expressions and traces on pages and screens are an investigation into the decoding and recoding of reality – and perhaps prompts us to believe we have the wherewithal to make critical and much needed revisions as we (re)discover more about our place within the universe.” (Field, 2020)

Researching CS, a section in Consumption and Everyday Life by Mark Paterson resonated with thoughts I have been having about how I can try to capture the experience of being a consumer. Paterson (2006: 226-7) references Featherstone’s (1991) notion of “the aestheticisation of everyday life” which refers to the rapid flow of signs and images which saturate the fabric of the everyday in contemporary society. In reference to consumption this is important because the selling of commodities relies on an immediate reaction to visual stimuli such as advertising and branding. Lash and Urry (1994) advance this by using the term ‘aesthetic attitude’, which is cultivated by involvement, participation and fragmented looks and characterised by immersion in dreamlike states and immediate pleasure: “Desiring, wishing, or daydreaming often characterises our drifting mode of window-shopping, of mall-going, the fantasies of ownership and of playing with our subjectivity.” (Paterson, 2006: 227)

I had been thinking about how to capture the experience of shopping and these ideas of “fragmented looks” and “dreamlike states” resonated with me and I could immediately imagine this as a coping mechanism against the flood of stimuli we are bombarded with as we shop and explanation about why marketeers need to try so hard to grab our attention. I have experimented in the past with taking images from the hip with my camera set to automatically trip the shutter at set intervals and wondered if capturing video and taking screen shots from this could be a way to advance this idea. (See here) I have also been struck by a practical problem where I was stopped from photographing using my smart phone in the Metro Centre. A letter to the centre management asking for permission to photograph for my body of work was refused with the explanation that the centre is in a period of change – the subtext for this is that there are a lot of empty units which I suspect the owners are sensitive about being portrayed negatively. Perhaps taking some video ‘undercover’ could be a way around this and could also lend an interesting visual twist.

I decided to capture a short sequence of video using my iPhone in my local Tesco to see if this was possible. I am encouraged that this is something that could have potential and is worth pursuing further. Below are a couple of quick examples of collages made, and I can envisage this working well with a large amount of images – something that will also support my exploration of visual overload. I will advance this idea walking and recording a full survey of a shop/shopping centre. This initial video was made at 30fps and I will see what difference capturing at 60fps and 4k will make, I will also make some video with my main camera see what that looks like.

The jaunty angles of the individual images contrasts with the formality of the grid structure. I also like the way the images are blurred in places.
Putting the images together as one long strip gives a feeling of progression/emphasises the experience of shopping but is by its very nature linear.
Here, I have loosely straightened the images and randomly overlayed them. This could have potential – especially if a large amount of images is used. I will explore this more and experiment with alternative/arbitrary aspect ratios/crops and look at ways to blend the images together/overlay in different ways.

Bibliography:

Field, S-J. (2020) End of Module Reflection: CS. At: https://sjflevel3.photo.blog/2020/08/28/contextual-studies-end-of-module-reflection-part-3/ (accessed 24th November 2021)

Paterson, M. (2006) Consumption and Everyday Life. Oxon: Routledge.

Hidden Stanley: Image and Text – Further Experiments

Here are some experiments overlaying text directly onto the photograph:

Red text, Helvetica font, multiply blend mode, 12pt

Red text, Helvetica font, multiply blend mode, 30pt

Red text, Mono 45 Headline font, multiply blend mode, 120pt

White text, Helvetica font, screen blend mode, 12pt

Grey text, Mono 45 Headline, difference blend mode, 120pt

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