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Back Issues
CIRCA 88 In recent photographs by both John Duncan and Gerard Byrne the city is represented as if it were the scene of a crime. Depopulated spaces (in Belfast and New York, respectively) have been carefully scrutinised and recorded. Duncan's Be Prepared presents an ominously serene landscape in which objects and structures acquire the significance of forensic evidence. In this ongoing project the same locations have been photographed again and again. Duncan states, "All the journeys are made by foot. Through walking there is the development of a rhythm and a mental state. It is a slow progression that allows looking, then seeing." [1] These revelatory walks recall the odysseys of Walter Benjamin's flâneur, with one important difference. Duncan is drawn towards the apparently open spaces instead of the city's darker corners. The title of Duncan's series, borrowed from Baden-Powell, cautions us to expect the unexpected. In the context of mass media reportage what we see is unexpected - the absence of conflict or indeed any form of activity. But within the confines of the gallery these images are more familiar, utilising strategies which have been successfully employed by Willie Doherty, Paul Seawright and Paul Graham in response to media coverage of Northern Ireland. What perhaps distinguishes Duncan's work from that of Doherty, Seawright or Graham is its negotiation of the suburban. Duncan documents scout huts and garden ornaments as well as the debris from sectarian marches. In the process activities such as gardening or scouting are acknowledged as class and cultural markers. Gerard Byrne's untitled images of New York at night, produced during his P.S. 1 residency, are also the result of pedestrian activity. Byrne has photographed a variety of commercial properties from the street outside, documenting the transitional moment between tenants. These bland 'units', flooded with artificial light, seem to lack any distinguishing characteristics. A closer inspection reveals bits of office equipment and left-over stationery, but these 'clues' reveal nothing but the generic nature of office work. Byrne's installation is accompanied by a Tarantino-esque audio piece, Treatment In this short drama, co-written by Sarah Pierce, a plan is hatched, a mysterious disk is stolen and one of the characters is tortured. The musical interludes, which include hits from Reservoir Dogs , heighten the element of slapstick. The farcical tone of this work jars with the images, which are permeated by a vague sense of unease. Narratives of urban crime were once located in the underworld of 'hard-boiled' fiction, Film Noir and social-documentary photography. Now however, they are more likely to be set among the skyscrapers of 'big business'. Byrne's street-level spaces, the potential site of numerous shady (though legitimate) deals, occupy a middle ground between skyscraper and underworld. These images of refurbishment and redevelopment clearly link the real estate market within urban crime, albeit in a rather comical manner. The speculative strategies of New York's property developers have been subjected to more focused scrutiny by numerous artists including Martha Rosler and Hans Haacke. Byrne is perhaps referencing this type of critical art practice by choosing to locate this work in Catalyst Arts, at the heart of Laganside's proposed 'Cathedral Quarter'. Faint , an installation by Susan MacWilliam at the Old Museum Arts Centre, incorporates video and slide projections. The decorative architectural features of the exhibition space, ornate mouldings and cornices, have been augmented and exaggerated in order to create a series of three 'frames' for these projections. A further level of framing is provided by the cardboard masks in front of each projector lens. The fragmented melodramatic narrative, which is played out in the video and slide images, is set in a walled garden or park. A red-haired woman swoons on a summery day, falling unconscious to the ground . The action is seen from numerous angles, including multiple close-ups of the woman's body and several aerial shots of the park. Most of the slide images are video stills but the sequence also includes shots of an ornately decorated interior, in which the woman faces a mirror. It is these 'interior' scenes which explain the faint, linking it to the memory or experience of some traumatic event. This restaging of cinematic clichés obviously calls to mind the work of Cindy Sherman. MacWilliam, however, goes beyond Sherman's early reconstructions of film stills, exploiting the tension between the still and the moving image . This complex work also addresses the notion of hysterical 'excess', theorised by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith among others. Melodramatic narratives are characterised by an excess of undischarged emotion which cannot be accommodated by the action and which is traditionally expressed through the music or mise-en-scène. In Faint this narrative excess is displaced, not simply onto the body of the female hysteric, but literally onto the walls of the gallery. [1] from Ormeau Baths Gallery Programme, Spring 1999 John Duncan: Be Prepared , Ormeau Baths Gallery, March/April 1999; Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, from July 12, 1999; previously at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, June-August 1998; Gallerie François Knabe, Frankfurt, September/October 1998 Maeve Connolly is an artist based in Dublin. Review reproduced from CIRCA 88, Summer 1999,pp. 46-47
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