Liminality and the Presence of Absence.
'A self-initiated, open brief exploring the idea of liminality across narrative and the ambiguity of the absence and presence of human beings.'
My obsession with liminality seeded during an experimental period of my final year of university where I almost undertook a brief to experiment a new idea or a concept through the medium of photography.
The winter had been drawing in closer and I seemed to constantly be catching the dusk and dawn on my walks to and from the studio. I seemed to experience on most days this profound feeling of disorientation mixed with nostalgia as I would be walking.
It gave me an idea for the photographic brief to document and manipulate the surreal condition of twilight.
At the time I chose a brief in print instead so that I could experiment but the idea never left me.
I had always been drawn to the works of Edward Hopper, Gregory Crewdson, Phillip Lorca diCorcia, David Lynch, Laura Stevens and Steven King. There was something in common that I could never quite grasp.
In all forms of their work, there always seem to be a sense of ambiguous anticipation and nostalgia within. An atmosphere that is left etched in the mind. A similar feeling I get during the twilight zone. It wasn't until I finally made this connection that this brief began to grow.
I first began with my original plan just to get it out of my system.
Quite early on I came across the word 'liminality', by wikipedias definition:
In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.
After a couple of weeks of taking photos under the condition of twilight, I began to see some interesting results and I started taking photographs at the strangest of times not only at twilight but in the middle of the night in the most profound places. It became something that I couldn't seem to let go and began to dictate what would become my final major project.
The word liminality established a connection between the works of artists I enjoy and the condition of twilight that I had been capturing. It was this quality of ambiguity and disorientation that I had been that had lingered in my mind when I would experience these works of art and the twilight.
But for the works of art it wasn't just this quality that had such a strong impact on the narrative, it had been the sense of nostalgia. I had felt when experiencing these
From here I set out to somehow employ liminality and nostalgia by making trips to places and looking to capture spaces and lighting that would help me to construct a world of anticipation through the medium of photography.
The images were intended to be for a book on liminality and crossing the threshold but soon stayed as a set of prints as I began to branch out with techniques and platforms.
This is the first series of prints:
'Absence & Presence'
My project took a slight turn as I began to realise that the absence and presence of people had a profound effect on the images. Although devoid of people in most the images, the subject of what was being captured always left some form of human presence. Whether that be the lights, signs, objects or simple human structures we would never look to appreciate. In absence people were still able to hold their presence through the structures built to help or protect them
On the other hand, the few images that had captured human beings actually seemed to feel lonelier. Almost as if there was this absence of consciousness from the people captured and the people themselves were lost in humanity's structures.
This absence and presence of people seemed to also have effect on how liminality could be perceived in still image. After all, by definition it closely relates to people and ritual.
I decided to work more in the style of Gregory Crewdson and Laura Stevens, and start shooting staged material using people for subjects. Trying to capture the consciousness in humans experiencing liminality brought me to stage these two images:
'Portraits'
I had some difficulty finding people to be the subject of my work. The small timeframe I had with them led to a few mistakes in composition. For example the extractor fan disrupting the head of the model in the second image.
These images were received with mixed reviews. Many people viewed them as aesthetically pleasing, with the notions that they were just portraits and less interesting than some of my other images.
I still really liked the outcome of these two images and still carry on looking for people to experiment with whenever I get the chance.
I wanted to push the boundaries further than simply creating similar images to the works of the artists I loved, and searching for models took the time of meeting new people.
So in the mean time I began experimenting with Creative writing and an installation piece for my degree show.
I originally wanted to explore creative writing because I had wanted to merge text with image to make a book about liminality and 'crossing the threshold'.
However, creative writing for images based on the quality of ambiguity affecting narrative seemed almost counter-intuitive. I decided to split the project, and create an experimental book that would induce the idea of liminality and ambiguity through reading it.
'Crossing the Threshold'
Using my own creative writing, the internal dialogue from the film 'Fear and loathing in Las Vegas' and dialogue from the realisation scene of 'Fight club' I wrote a very clouded and non-linear piece of writing that attempted to induce the confusion and realisations felt during a liminal period.
The narrative uses narcotics, confusion, and an unpredictable perception of time. On top of an experimental composition and fading text attempting to further induce narrative confusion. Even as the narrative begins to come together towards the end, the movement of time keeps the book difficult to follow.
Due to the retrospective first-person nature of the narrative, I chose a typewriter font, and bound the book spineless with brown paper printed with black text. I did this because I wanted the book to be a haptic experience. The brown paper and the font allowed the book to have a letter or parcel quality when presented. The absence of the spine gave symmetry to the to the book allowing it to feel more like a wrapped gift, yet the nakedness of it make it much more inviting to open without feeling like you're prying into another persons mail.
Where the ribbon is, I would've liked to use white string. The problem was that it disrupted the pages of the book and cause an even higher tilt than already comes with the folded side of the pages.
A few of my own criticisms on this book is:
1. Although the book is purposefully designed to induce confusion, I feel that without an explanation the narrative might be a little difficult to interpret. I have found in past projects that audiences tend to reject things that are mindfully confusing and complicated because they like to be able to make their own connections and not be left confused.
2. The book was in fact counter intuitive to my set of photographic prints. The works of Hopper or Crewdson and what I attempted in my prints looked at channeling ambiguity to create anticipation and allow the audience to attach their own ideals and their own senses of nostalgia to images that purposefully didn't give a clear narrative.That kept them on an exciting threshold of no knowing
Because I used my own images as a way of mapping out my story, if the viewer understood the relationship between the images and this book, it would defeat the object of how the images are intended to work..
I was however vey pleased with the spineless binding. It is something I have seen more and more of recently from independent books. And theres something about how having no spine, that feels like lifting the bonnet of a car to get a good look at how it works. Something about this notion I really like. Perhaps living in a digital world that teaches so many people how to do things at home seems to lift the covers off everything so we can see how things are done. And as a final plus; The book opens better.
'Collage Portraiture'
Still interested in making portraiture of people in spaces I was inspired to try and make a new experimental style of portraiture that I thought I’d try as a side project. After previously shooting some portraiture I became interested in the liminality of dwellers in habitable spaces. In the dying embers of the course I took the final opportunity to get experimental and created this light-box installation piece for the end of year degree show.
The voyeuristic notion behind photography and many of Hopper's work brought me to an interest in the relationship between the forms of spaces and the occupants that inhabit the space. It allowed me to deviate from my original practice in a new attempt to exhibit the notions of the consciousness of transition.
In my original portraits the subject's eyes were cast in the direction the changing light outside of the space (the window) to represent the notion of the twilight zone.
In these collages, the occupants eyes are cast toward a window in the same way, but instead with the window clearly visible and looking into another space. Where each subject peers into another space and becomes the voyeur themselves, these collages attempt to break an inner 4th wall and create a relationship between inhabitants experiencing the liminality of the twilight zone.
The simplicity of the images refers to what a space meant to me at the time. To me only a few things were necessary to create a space:
The dimensions (the walls and ceiling)
The inhabitants
And a Light source (be that the natural light from the window or the artificial light we used when it is dark).
In light of my interest in the transition of the twilight zone, I included both as the window was also serving another purpose.
The concept of liminality seems a very untouched philosophical idea that has a vast amount of untapped potential that would allow different ways of looking at art and design as well as helping deal with many people's day to day lives.
Being such an open idea, this has been one of the most difficult projects I have tried to channel and manifest in to a complete brief. Tackling it was very difficult creatively, intellectually and also emotionally. Although not the best brief idea for my portfolio, this project taught me how to think critically and create links and relationships like no other project could have taught me. And in a strange sense, made me much better at informing design and how to understand form better to materialise future design.
There is also a full critical study that accompanies this project that goes a lot further in depth for about 12000+ words. PDF download available in below link.
