A practice-based enquiry into the hauntology
of nostalgic memory & broken narrative
via the digital print

_key words

Digital Print Making; Hauntology; Disembodiment; Re-Storying

_Abstract

At its core, my project is about aesthetics, or at least the experiential aesthetic dissatisfaction of the digital print. Notions of disembodiment and re-storying are employed and developed to address the amputation that occurs when working with the digital medium as a creative tool from both a physical and aesthetically perspective. Via a hauntological deconstruction and reconstruction of discarded glass plate negatives from the early 1900’s, I aim to create multi-layered digital prints that retain the spectre of their creative process.

_Introduction

Whilst I find digital technology a thing of wonderment and limitless possibilities in the onscreen (virtual) environment, the overall sterility, flatness and homoginised effect of the digital print, is prompting a misleading utopia. Coupled with the nature of the digital creative process, where the mind is engaged while the body is left gesture-less, notions of disembodiment and re-storying are employed and developed to address the amputation that occurs when working with the digital medium as a creative tool.

The nucleus of the project stems around ‘found’ glass plate negatives from the Angus McNeil Collection (1887-1945), which where discovered on route to the local tip of my childhood town. Working as a restorer for the collection I was concerned with the amputation of the patina of the negatives life, thus, counter to the process of ‘restoring’, I have developed and employed the notion of ‘re-storying’ my digital prints. By developing multi-layered digital prints, the projects overall aim is to re-embody the (non-existent) ‘virtual’ image by reinstating it as an object that evokes the patina of the creative process.

Employing a Derridian ‘hauntological’ analysis for the reconstruction of the glass plate negatives via the digital print, this post-structural framework has provided the lens for an initial selection of approx. 300 unidentified children (‘foundlings’) from the collection, utilised as a metaphor for the infancy of digital technology particularly within artistic practice, and of ‘childhoodism’…a time of limitless possibilities, wonderness, hope, bewilderment and enchantment.

_The past
Angus McNeil glass plate collection

The catalyst of my project is my experience with the Angus McNeil Glass Plate Negative Collection, located at the Macleay Valley Historical Society (MVHS) & Museum in Kempsey on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Being introduced to the collection by my father, and assisting him at various times around the turn of the millennium (1998-2005; scanning, restoring, and cataloguing the collection) under the ‘direction’ of the MVHS members, I became increasingly perplexed at the accepted value and supposed quality that occurred in the translation of the glass plate negatives into digital images. The restoration process added to the additional loss of patina and the engrained character the negatives developed by time and the ageing process was thus an amputation of the life of the object.

_Re-storying

An objects patina emerges through the interaction of its material to its world, its self-expression. Through ageing the object comes to be itself, or comes to settle into itself. We might think of patina as a kind of truth, or integrity, or honesty of an object…its surface reflects its depths; it expresses its real nature and history; and thus it introduces a yearning that is part nostalgia, part pure visual pleasure.

In this light, Walter Benjamin’s discussion pertaining to the loss of ‘aura’ in mechanical reproduction has been useful in my analysis of the process of translating the analog to the digital…Benjamin highlights that “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership” (Benjamin 1935, p3). A sentiment that is echoed also by Bernadette Flynn stating that “The original photograph can be scanned, digitally simulated, and in so doing, it becomes a less fragile memory trace of its analogue image, becoming a dilution of and a less precious link to the past by losing some of its original symbolic or mythological power” (Flynn 2002).

Jacques Derrida in establishing the role of the archive to society, and most importantly to people, states that the archive is ‘an irrepressible desire to return to the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement’ (Derrida 1995, p. 57), and that ultimately it is ‘a pledge, and like every pledge, a token of the future…’ (Derrida 1995, p. 18). In becoming a token of the future, the archive moves beyond itself as an object (eg glass plates) and it’s content (eg foundlings) as the primary source of communication to the viewer, to the additional information of the ‘graphic mark’ (e.g. the objects patina).

Thus, counter to the process of ‘restoring’ a photograph, I have developed and employed the notion of ‘re-storying’ my digital prints. By promoting the imperfections via the translation process of analog to digital and by the gestural application of digital grounds &/or use of substrate, these various ‘graphic marks’ will tempt us to re-think and question the temporality of not only photography but also of the digital. Via the initial selection of approx. 300 children (unidentified ‘foundlings’) from my collection of images from the McNeil archive, the foundlings used are seen through the digital medium and I have aimed to utilise them as a metaphor for the infancy of digital technology, particularly within artistic practice, and of ‘childhoodism’…a time of limitless possibilities, wonderness, hope, bewilderment and enchantment.

_The present
the digital {print}

Having a strong background in both painting & printmaking disciplines, where I have relished the creative intersection of both conceptual (mind) and intuitive gestural (body) modes of creation, I have sought to bring something of my own ‘nostalgic’ aesthetics from both disciplines to digital printing…that is the layered depth & tactility of painting and the subtlety of surface quality from printmaking (both being akin to the wonders of ‘mark making’ a child encounters).

Whilst I find digital technology a thing of wonderment and limitless possibilities (akin to the playfulness & imagination of childhood) in the onscreen (virtual) environment, the disembodied nature of the creative process, where the mind is engaged while the body is left gesture-less; coupled with the overall experiential aesthetic dissatisfaction of digital output (lack of surface quality) is prompting a misleading utopia…this dissatisfaction is a shared concern by many digital practitioners.

From research thus far, this dissatisfaction is being addressed in two main methodological strategies. The first by incorporating the digital print with ‘traditional media’ (eg printmaking), a method Kathryn Reeves develops as an ‘infinite palimpsest’…Reeves establishes that as printmakers ‘we identify our work by media process…(in utilising the digital) material meaning has therefore been located in the invisible’ (Reeves 2001, p. 2-3). She proposes that ‘the current issue is to protect and maintain analog/traditional printmaking whilst also incorporating the digital (Reeves, 2001, p. 9)…and thus creating ‘the infinite palimpsest’.

Milan Milojevic, an Australian forerunner in digital printmaking, describes the digital print as having an ‘homogenised effect’ (Milojevic 1999, p. 113), with an overall flatness and lack of surface quality due to the digital printer (inkjet) being unable to create multi-layered print effects. He thus employs the notion of a ‘hybrid’ (Milojevic 1999, p. 115) to describe his experience of immigration, and also of applying and layering traditional printmaking methods to new digital technologies.

The second main methodological strategy is more of a paradigm shift, where the computer screen itself has been reconsidered as part of the final surface structure. Paul Caldwell states, “the surface can also be seen as the focus for issues of authorship and authenticity and questioning the role of the computer screen as matrix, intermediary or as the site for the final artwork” (Caldwell, 2008). Marylin Kushner adds, “what comes below the apparent surface of a digital work, that is what may be still in the computer, can be essential to our consideration of the importance of that surface. If we keep breaking down the surface of the digital image we will eventually reach the pixels that comprise the image. Perhaps one might say ‘that’ surface is the only digital reality” (Kushner 2009, p 28).

While this research has been valuable in informing my own project, namely the consideration of the computer screen as ‘surface’ and assertion of the pixel as substructure to the digital image, the resulting amputation of the object and disembodying nature of process are factors that I have aimed to address in my body of work.

_Methodological design
hauntology & post-stuctural analysis

Through an emergent ‘practice-based’ enquiry (Candy 2006, p. 3. Sullivan 2005, p. 84-85), and utilising qualitative textual analysis via the ‘performative interpretation’ methodology which Brad Haseman qualifies as ‘symbolic data collection’ (Haseman 2006, p. 6), my project was undertaken within the Interpretive paradigm. A specific and foundational tool within this methodological framework is Jacques Derrida’s notion of Hauntology.

Hauntology acknowledges the presence of a spectre, from the past or future, which influences the present. This influence or ‘element itself, is neither living nor dead, present nor absent’ (Derrida 1994, p. 63) and resides in the recesses of Being (existence) as a spectre. In utilising a hauntological framework, which through the process of creation becomes a “performative interpretation, that is, of an interpretation that transforms the very thing it interprets” (Derrida 1994, p. 63), hauntology has provided me with a metaphoric lens in the analysis of the past (ie McNeil foundlings) for the transformative multi-layered reconstruction of them in the present via the digital image & digital printmaking.

Using this methodological framework, I have aimed to evoke two stages, or layers, within my digital prints. The first stage presents something which is in some way idealised, in this case the past as seen via the McNeil foundlings, which symbolise the infancy of digital technology &/or ‘childhoodism’. The second ‘hauntological’ stage/layer, is the present substructure of the digital, which deconstructs, contextualises and obscures the first stage by evoking the apparatus of it’s medium. As a result of this merging and multi-layering of spectres of the past and present, whereby the past can only be seen through the medium of the present, possible future social specters have been indirectly alluded to. Social concerns pertaining to, for example, digital data collection; identity corruption/loss; or the disembodying nature of using the digital medium; float in and around the resulting body of work without having been the specific catalyst of a particular piece.

To establish a visual reconstructive version of hauntolgical analysis, I have utilised the identified structures that comprise the hauntological aesthetics of a text. Assisting greatly in this endeavor is the recent contemporary culture analysis by Steen Christiansen (aka ‘Dissemination’< http://www.dissemination.dk >), where he provides specific attributes that constitute a hauntological text, with these being: “textural, apparatus poetics, displacement, spatialization (uncanny spaces), liminalisation’, and ultimately, ‘spectralizing.’ (Christiansen, 2011).

This hauntological reconstructive strategy and emphasis on the symbolic/semiotic use of the medium can also been found in numerous other philosophical &/or theoretical derivatives, from, for example, Marshall McLuhan’s famous notion of the ‘medium is the message’ (1964, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man), to Hal Fosters notions of the ‘anti-aesthetic and of a postmodernism of resistance’ (1983, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture), to Paul Carters more recent developments pertaining to ‘material thinking’.

Carter asks the question “What is the material of thought?” (Carter 2004, p xi) which he then addresses and expands upon in what he describes under the banner of ‘collaboration’. Under this notion he places great emphasis on the development of “a recognition of the creative intelligence of the materials” (Carter 2004, p xiii) and following from that, “the process of making the work becomes inseparable from what is produced” (Carter 2004, p 11). Here then one can see a direct linage to Christiansen’s hauntological strategies of liminality and apparatus poetics.

Of particular interest also within Carter’s methodological strategies is his discussions relating to ‘dismemberment’ and ‘re-membered’. Carter describes the act of dismemberment, the first stage of his methodology for creative research, as a deconstruction of the “the stories ideas, locations and materials” of the project…as well as “the resistance to intellectual manipulate the materials used”. The second stage, the ‘re-membered’ reconstructive process, are where they are “put back together, re-membered, in a way that is new”…and where “the ideological fictional character of those natural places and their associated ideas are recognised. The collaboration process of re-placing them constitutes the work of art itself”. (Carter 2004, p. 11).

In describing the impossible and yet necessary task of translating one medium to another, Rosemary Hawker refers to Derrida’s concept of the idiom, where she argues that we only ever know things through translation, and, by implication, that there is nothing that we can know in some original form. Derrida tells us that “the original is always modified through translation but, importantly, survives as well…but what does not survive of the original in its translation is idiom, and therefore it is idiom that distinguishes the original and the new form” (Derrida 1985, p192). Thus, the translation will always fail to communicate all that is engrained in the other medium. Yet, it is this failure which enables translation to produce meaning when the original medium is seen through the new medium. This failure of translation, reinforces for my practice, that I am not trying to recreate the aesthetics of the glass plate negatives, it’s idiom, nor am I trying to recreate the traditional aesthetics of printmaking or painting…I am trying to discover and create a (uniquely) digital idiom.

A version of this translation process can be see in Christian Boltanski’s methodology of perceiving subjects (photos) as objects and is thus of great relevance to my project. Boltanski states in an interview with Didier Semin ”One of the subjects that interest me is the transformation of subject into the object…in my use of photographs of children, there are people I know nothing about, who were subjects, and who have become objects, corpses. They are no longer anything, I can manipulate them, tear them, pierce them” (Semin et al 1997, p.86). It is this transformation in perception of subject to object, and acknowledgment of presence through the absence (death) of the subject, that is aimed to resonate and ‘re-story’ the digital medium.

_{practice-based} outcomes

Having previously undertaken projects/work under the supervisory advice of Milan Milojevic (UTAS), where I have researched and experimented with his ‘hybrid’ methodological approach, one parameter for this project was that I restricted myself to only using imagery (and text) that could be printed from an inkjet printer. Thus I could not combine ‘traditional’ methods (eg. printmaking and/or painting) of achieving layering and surface tactility/quality. Thus, the only other mediums at my disposal where differing substrates, digital grounds and a sealing agent, which were either an archival spray varnish or shellac. The ultimate goal of producing multi-layered digital prints is not only the ‘holy grail’ for countering the experiential aesthetic dissatisfaction as mentioned previously, but is also seen as a key metaphoric strategy in uniting the past to the present, or at least seeing the present through the spectre of the past. It is for these reasons that I enforced the ‘digital printing’ parameter, believing a more authentic digital (print) aesthetic could be obtained. Specifically, my project has employed the following technical strategies and materials…

• Epson 3880 A2 inkjet printer
• Hahnemuehle Photo Rag – 500gsm
• Non-traditional substrates: aluminium, mirrored stainless steel, wood veneer (hoop pine), and (transparent) polycarbonate (Unfortunately in referencing the glass plates, the thinnest glass I could source was 2mm thick, which is 0.5mm thicker than could fit through the front feed path of the printer).
• Porous and Nonporous digital grounds (‘Golden Mediums’ & ‘InkAid’)

A wide selection of paper based substrates where experimented with in the early stages of my project, the Hahnemuehle Photo Rag and the Museo Portfolio Rag where found to offer the best tonal ranges and support for additional paper sizing (ie digital grounds). The Hahnemuehle Photo Rag had advantage over the Museo Portfolio Rag for the one reason that a 500gsm option was available, which when printing and sizing up to 8 times on a single sheet with additional water erasure and sanding, provided much needed weight and support.

Please refer to the ‘dear memo-ry {work description}‘ tab under the ‘artwork’ menu for the full list of works produced during my honours project…

_Conclusion

The potentials of the re-storying process have only begun, with numerous threads of conceptual and technical possibilities emerging from the conclusion of this project, especially within the translation, reinstatement and inscription of the digital as a handmade object. Intended to provide a foundation for future project/s under a (hopeful) masters or PhD candidature, whilst this aim has been driven by subjective concerns, the resulting body of work and exegesis, is also seen to provide an objective reference for other creative practitioners working with digital printmaking and digital imagery, who have also felt the disembodiment nature of working with the medium and the aesthetic dissatisfaction of the digital print. While in it’s infancy, my practice-based research thus far has proven to myself, that it is possible to re-embody the creative process by only using the digital print. It’s time now to embody possible future spectre’s from there past…

You can download my full exegesis here…kurtis adamson_exegesis

 _Bibliography

Benjamin, W 1935, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Ed. Hannah Arendt, Trans. Harry Zohn, Schocken Books, New York. Viewed 3 August 2013, < http://design.wishiewashie.com/HT5/WalterBenjaminTheWorkofArt.pdf >

Candy, L 2006, Practice based Research: A Guide, Creativity & Cognition Studios, University of Technology: Sydney, pp. 1-19. Viewed 13 March 2011,
< http://www.creativityandcognition.com/content/category/10/56/131/ >

Carter, P 2004, Material Thinking: The Theory and Practice of Creative Research, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Christiansen, S 2011, Hauntological Effects, Dissemination, Aalborg, Denmark. Viewed 16 April, 2012, <http://www.dissemination.dk/research/hauntologies/hauntological-effects/&gt;.

Coldwell, P 2008, The Personalised Surface within Fine Art Digital Printmaking, paper presented to Towards a Digital Aesthetic, The College Art Association 96th Annual Conference, Dallas USA, February 21, 2008. Viewed 11 March 2012, < http://www.faderesearch.com/digitalsurface/talks-papers/towards-a-digital-aesthetic/ >

Derrida, J 1994, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, Routledge, New York, London.

Derrida, J 1985, Des Tours De Babel: Difference In Translation, ed. Joseph F. Graham, Cornell University Press, London.

Derrida, J & Prenowitz, E 1995, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, Diacritics, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 9-63. Viewed 7 May 2011, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/465144&gt;.

Flynn, B 2002, Memory Fragments As Scene Makers, Screening the Past, no. 13, Screening The Past Publications Group, Latrobe University, Melbourne. Viewed 25 March 2011, < http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1201/bffr13a.htm >

Foster, H 1983, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Bay Press, Port Townsend, Washington. Viewed 30 March 2013,<http://www.courses.arch.ntua.gr/fsr/134731/Foster,%20ed,%20The%20Anti%20Aesthetic-1.pdf>

Haseman, B 2006, A manifesto for performative research, Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy: quarterly journal of media research and resources, pp. 98-106 (PDF pp. 1-11). Viewed 13 March 2011, < http://eprints.qut.edu.au/3999 >

Kushner, MS 2009, Surfacing the Image – Digital Art and its antecedents in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Paper presented at the Symposium: The Personalised Surface: New Approaches to Digital Printmaking, London, 3^rd April 2009.

Milojevic, M 1999, The application of traditional printmaking layering techniques to digital printing technologies, paper presented to Impact ’99: International Multi-disciplinary Printmaking Conference, Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, 22 -25 September 1999. Viewed 27 March, 2011, <www.uwe.ac.uk/sca/research/…/IMPACT%20PROCEEDINGS%20copy.pdf>

McLuhan, M 1964, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Mcgraw-Hill, London and New York. Viewed 6 August, 2013,
< http://beforebefore.net/80f/s11/media/mcluhan.pdf >

Reeves, K 2001, Infinate Palimpsest, 2^nd Impact COnfrence, London, 2001. Viewed 3 March 2012, < http://www.uiah.fi/conferences/impact/reeves/Reeves.pdf >

Semin D, Garb T, Kuspit D 1997, Christian Boltanski, Phaidon Press Limited, Regents Warf, London.

Sullivan, G 2005, Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts, Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi.