In (Retro) Perspective

The immediate precursors to a body of recent work are centred on two considerations. The first is a simple question of from where to make a photograph if the subject is identical in shape when seen from opposing positions. The second is a desire to give particular emphasis to that shape by opting to use both viewpoints in turn, then superimposing each image so that the similar (and central) configurations fall congruently and repetitiously on top of each other and the differing surrounds merge as a more complex montage. There may also be a third objective, which is to establish a parallel between the plane of the subject and the plane of the ensuing photographic object. To that end, a flatly two-dimensional original is particularly useful.

In Good Dog/Bad Dog (2006) a child’s flat, cut-out toy on wheels (‘Spotty the dog, your pull-along pal’), has the same pattern of spots on each side, and is therefore virtually identical in appearance from two opposing views (except that in one direction the tail is on the right and in the other on the left). The main difference is in the backgrounds, where one shot locates Spotty at ease in front of a Christmas tree and lavishly patterned William Morris wallpaper, surrounded by gift-wrapped boxes, and the other under the probing gaze of a masked and reclining female nude. In the resulting composite, the good dog/bad dog is poised, ‘smiling’ but uncertain, between his ambivalent states. Transfixed (2008) also features a cut-out, this time a black metal cat with large glass eyes, intended to be placed in the garden as a deterrent to its real-life counterparts. In fact, from one perspective, just such a cat is seen stalking in predatory fashion, whereas from the other side a woman in a summer dress lies reading on the grass. The sub-text of these pairings might be understood to indicate the different relationship between cats (as pets) and their owners, and between them and other cats (as potential rivals), with the briefest of passing nods to Manet’s Olympia. But in the image itself (rather than in its reading), it is the doubled and horizontally-flipped black feline emblem, with its unflinching stare directed towards the viewer, which now asserts itself as the unopposed centre of attention.

Despite the mirror-symmetry of the two views combined in each of these works, the individual outlines of the dog and the cat are asymmetrical. If in place of these irregular cut-outs a new flat plane is introduced, not perpendicular to the ground but tilted towards or away from the camera at 45° such that a perspectival foreshortening occurs, identical but inverted when registered from two opposing viewpoints, that plane must now have a simple symmetry (a rectangle or circle, for example); and if, as previously, there is an intent to present both views in a single composite, and also to give emphasis and prominence to a central subject by repeating it on top of itself, then whereas in Good Dog/Bad Dog and Transfixed one of the two photographs was horizontally rotated, in this case the rotation will be vertical. The corollary of this action is that in the combined image one view will be ‘right-way-up’ and the other will be ‘wrong-way-up’ – as in the aptly titled Right And Wrong (2010). Shot in a studio where a retrospective collection of my own photographic works made between 1969 and 2010 is laid out for selection and wrapping in connection with an exhibition, it features a large sheet of white packing material angled at 45° and viewed from slightly to one side. The display of works seen from one position may be characterised as ‘right’ – that is, the picture content of landscapes, portraits, and so on, is uncontentious – whereas, by contrast, from the converse position the selection is deliberately provocative (nudes, a car crash, a masked intruder), and may be construed as ‘wrong’. However, although in the combined image the ‘wrong’ view is upside down, it maintains its positive status by being literally a photographic positive; the ‘right’ view, on the other hand, although the right-way-up, is a photographic negative. While the moral, chromatic and geometric valences are thus thrown into dispute, such uncertainty is countered by a confident assertion of the work’s declaredly photographic status. This is evidenced not just in the parallel between the finished photograph (Right And Wrong) and its similarly framed and finished picture content, but also in two additional respects. The first is that upside-down-ness is fundamental to vision in general and photography in particular, the image conveyed through the lens of the eye or camera always falling onto the retina or film in an inverted state. The second is that the positive (white) and negative (black) views of the rectangular packing board (now foreshortened both laterally and vertically because of the angle of the subject and the angle of the camera), not only serve as a reminder of the positive/negative reversal fundamental to analogue photography, but also combine into a mid-tone reminiscent of the photographer’s grey card used to calculate average light readings.

Although the rationale behind Right And Wrong does indicate a preferred way up, one by-product of this strategy is that either way might be equally ‘correct’. In Two-Faced (2011), a two-sided mirror is tilted within a domestic interior, with the angles of view similar to those in Right And Wrong. From one position, where the mirror is angled downwards and towards the camera, the floor is reflected, while around and beyond the mirror a view down the length of the room is presented, revealing a man opening a door, perhaps in the act of leaving. From the facing position, where the mirror is tilted upwards and recedes away from the camera, it is a view towards the ceiling that is reflected in conjunction with the image of the other side of the room, this time revealing the presence of a woman standing in front of a mantelpiece, hand on hip, lips tightly pursed, but the rest of her face cropped out and unseen. As in Right And Wrong, in order to place one rendering of the mirror on top of the other, one image must be vertically flipped, with the consequence that one view of the room and one of the figures will now be upside-down. Unlike Right And Wrong, however, there is no ‘right-way-up’ for this work, so that, depending on its orientation, the man and woman can switch between dominant and subordinate states within a composite depiction of the space which contains them, allowing us to see up and down, back and forth simultaneously, through a combination of mirror reflections and direct views. The title, Two-Faced, proposes a strained interpersonal relationship between the two protagonists, but also literally describes both the mirror’s construction and the doubling of the camera’s point of view.

Like Right And Wrong, two other works that challenge the convention of being ‘right-way-up’ also self-consciously incorporate the trappings of photography itself as part of their narrative. Indeed, Balance Of Power (2010) is entirely set within a photography studio, and centres on a very large, white, circular studio reflector, turned laterally at 45° to the camera, bouncing light onto a trio of models and, in the other direction, onto a photographer. From one viewpoint the models, vulnerable in their nudity and in their objectification by the camera, are nevertheless depicted in a moment of rebellion. From the opposite position the photographer is looking down through the viewfinder, preoccupied with their ‘capture’ on film, assuming a controlling stance. But in giving emphasis to the central element (that circular device which intensifies the illumination of all the subjects), placing one rendition of it on top of the other and in so doing rotating one of them vertically, the tables can be turned. Arguably, when the photographer is ‘right-way-up’, the inverted models are less easily available to a voyeuristic gaze; but when the models are ‘right-way-up’, although that gaze may be more readily satisfied, it is also disrupted by their act of resistance, and the photographer’s power is suppressed by his inversion. This optical flip, along with the prominence of the trappings of the studio (lights; backdrop paper; camera; reflector) serves as a reminder of the inherently photographic character and production of the image. A subsequent work, A Dream Foreshortened (2011), also deploys a circular studio reflector, this time tilted at 45° to the perpendicular, reflecting light both forwards and backwards onto two separate groups of figures. But whereas foreshortening in Right And Wrong, Two-Faced and Balance Of Power occurs only in the central planar elements (rectangles and circles), here it is seen also in these surrounding figures. As in Balance Of Power, the environment is one of overt staging and representation. The male and female figures are replicas, children’s dolls, and their surrounds are equally artificial – the devices of décor (patterned wallpaper and dyed fabrics). The dolls are divided into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’, and, lying in a supine position, are photographed from a low angle with either heads out or feet out towards the camera, the reflector tilted either towards or away from them. In placing the two (now elliptical) reflector images on top of each other, and therefore turning one through 180°, both ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ have feet pointing downwards (or upwards, depending on the hanging), but with the foreshortening within one group being in reverse perspective from the other. Given the origin of perspectival rendering in Renaissance drawing and painting, the central ellipse, doubly brightened through its overlaid repeat, is designed to trigger a generic reminiscence of celestial images from that period, encouraged by the inclusion of foreshortened figures and an array of starry and cloud-like backdrops. But this is also the space of the imaginary, of children’s stories and make-believe, conjured from a few simple props that make no attempt to disguise their origins.

If the original basis of works such as A Dream Foreshortened is in asking the question: ‘from here or from there?’ (when photographing a subject with the same appearance from opposing viewpoints) and answering: ‘from both here and there’, two other properties have now been introduced: foreshortening and vertical rotation.

Returning to the question: ‘from here or from there?’ and by further asking: ‘like this or like that?’, the solution which provides both options does so through the device of comparing and contrasting – a consistent feature of all my photographic work since 1970. Another (intermittently recurrent) strategy since the late-Seventies has been to articulate those comparisons and contrasts (as in these recent works) through a range of simple dual oppositions: negative/positive; black-and-white/colour; abstraction/figuration; male/female; right/left; up/down; and so on. In refusing the absoluteness of the single image and choosing instead to extend it by the addition of its obverse, there is an introduction of both balance and imbalance. If a negative is brought into equilibrium by conjoining with its positive ‘other’, there is also a disorientating uncertainty caused by their difference. By photographing the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ in reverse perspective in A Dream Foreshortened, then presenting them all the same way up, there is a rupture in the spatial perception of their position. In Two-Faced, the disparity in orientation between the man and woman is much more definite, but the sense of vertigo, of one of them always being pitched upside-down, and the prospect of the entire image spinning through 180°, is constantly destabilising (as are the unsettled and simultaneous views around the room - up, down and sideways). Add to these the insistent, doubled and central presence of a (frequently monochrome) geometric abstraction, seemingly at odds with its chromatically and tonally varied figurative and narrative surrounds (and apparently caught in the act of falling, thereby creating an atmosphere of dizziness and imbalance), and there is now a list of wilfully disruptive devices. A picture is established, recognisable in content and style, yet housing the means of its own dismantling. It may be turned on its head, have its lines of perspective reversed and be unsure of its abstract or figurative affiliation. Finally, though, the picture is not this or that, neither one thing nor another, but a perverse and ambivalent hybrid whose unified image stands clear of its constituent parts; and despite the deconstructive agenda of the process by which it arrives, that image also lays claim to being as much a ‘true’ representation of its contents as any reached by a more orthodox and subject-friendly route.

John Hilliard
June 2011