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text - Evidence from the Religion of Technology - a series of colour photogram works - © Lloyd Godman - 1993-94

Evidence from the Religion of Technology - Text- Lloyd Godman 1994

Vivid colour, abstract patterns, interesting visual texture are alluring and the seducing factor that can conceal the true nature of a subject. These images reveal  colour combinations and textures  for the first time, it is an innocent type of vision that  discloses the world a-new, its appeal is similar to X rays, UV and Infrared vision, it captivates, for there is credulity in discovery. Can the world we know actually look like this through another sense? While the genesis of vision is energized by the seductive formal qualities of the work and the rich pure colour resonance, it belies other more paradoxical references. Shock and revelation prevail when this work exposes not an attractive new vision, but a means of seeing the detrimental effects of technology, or the disposal of the items of that technology a means of inspecting the otherwise invisible colours of discarded toxic chemicals, the concealed heat of nuclear waste dumps and the unapparent effects of heavy metals, perhaps this new vision becomes a means of previewing an apocalypse.

 

Ironically  the colour photographic process reveals the full potential of colour photographic paper, the extraordinary seductive quality and the exquisite revealing detail that only photography can produce, it reveals evidence of technology as a religion. 

Within quite defined limitations life exists. There is a green zone we are confined to and beyond this are the edges of physical survival where life stumbles and fails. With a religious mind set we embrace innovative technology, with an insatiable appetite we consume new devices, processes, chemical concoctions, with devotion we worship technology as if it had become a new universal theology. As the colours of these works mix and mingle in an uncontrolled manner, so the chemical components of our contemporary archaeological sites, the open land fills mix and mingle combining into unknown but potentially lethal concoctions and the edge of the green zone retreats. 

But there is a resilience in nature and toxification can be replaced with detoxification, there can be a cycle., a healing can take place.


I have always found construction holes in the earth enticing. What lies below the earth buried from a previous age, even if that age was but a few years before. From an excavation and the artifacts it reveals, we learn about that attitudes and culture of a past civilization? An aspect of the work questions the enigma of when the insignificant becomes a vital archaeological artifact and when the contemporary becomes historic. When do objects lost and dumped from one civilization become of value to another. When does detritus become artifact? Perhaps it questions if our civilization is creating an archaeological heritage or a toxic legacy. The predicament of not knowing ones location or which direction is forward is an enigma that confronts the technological/ecological equation. Where are the cross-roads, wrong turns, dead ends, endless circles? This work is a grid structure that uses all these devices and points to different directions of time and space. Depending upon how the work is hung, it can epitomize the enigma of navigating this equation.


 

Photograms, which were used to create the surrounding boarder, are made not by enlarging onto the photographic paper via a film negative, in the regular manner, but by using real objects laid in contact with the paper during the exposure to light. In a sense, the objects become the negative with the resulting image bearing a direst relationship to the nature of the object, its form, its shape, texture and transparency. It is the refraction, transmission, reflection, deflection and absorption of light by the object that causes a modulation of light to reach the photographic paper and determines the visual effect of the final image. Because of the instinctive and random placement of the objects on the paper, each print is a unique image.
 
 

Image from Codes of Survival

Through the diversity of objects used for the photograms, the Codes of Survival images reflects the intriguing human activity in these Subantarctic Islands. The objects become visually over-laid and inter-laced, in a manner where often they lose the representational qualities we recognize from traditional photography, referencing a mysterious archaeological site where only fragments appear and one must dig through the items. All manner of objects were used to create the images: bottles, springs, nails, gears, tools, jewelry, plastic wrappings, containers, electronic components, toys, utensils etc. any object from the past to the present that could be associated either directly or symbolically with the islands. With due discussion and approval, some of the older and pertinent objects were sourced for the project from the Settlers Museum in Dunedin, and I thank them for their support and enthusiasm. 

Following the Codes of Survival work, I continued to use the photogram in a series of works titled Adze to Coda where I becanme interested in tools and how we use them to shape and alter environmants. Again the images were combination photographs/photograms.


 


 Image from Adze to Coda 

 
During this series of work I was fortunate to recieve a dontaion of surplus colour paper from Agfa which sparked an interest in using the photogram with colour nagative paper. During the intitial experiments I discovered that by using the extreme ends of the filter controls on the enlarger it was possible to produce extraordinary colour combinations. The work grew into a linated series of 16"x20" prints that refelected a colour spectrum, and from here I introduced the intersecting verticals of the figures.