January | February 2004 - Boston Photography Focus

Concerning thein PhotographyJanuary 23-March 14, 2004 | By Leslie K. Brown, PRC CuratorA group exhibition featuring photographically-based work of Bill Armstrong,Carol Golemboski, Jane Marsching & Deb Todd Wheeler, Lauren O’Neal,Daniel Ranalli, Jo Sandman, Chrysanne Stathacos, and Shannon Taggart,along with historical spirit photographs from the Harry Ransom HumanitiesResearch Center, the University of Texas at Austin.The title of this exhibition is a nod to theearly-twentieth century painter WassilyKandinsky’s landmark book, Concerning theSpiritual in Art (1911), in which he heraldedartists as the leaders of a new spiritual age.A selection of vintage photographs of purportedspirits, séances, and otherworldlyphenomena traces and illuminates a specificepisode in cultural history, while the contemporarywork demonstrates that such concernsstill haunt our minds. Broadly interpretingthe idea of the “photographic,” the unitingconcept is how different practitioners, historicaland present-day, utilize, exploit, and referencethe inherent mechanics of light-sensitivemedia to achieve spiritual effects and allusions.Many of the makers are from NewEngland or have ties to Boston, an area thatgave rise to spirit photography itself as well asone of the most famous spirit mediums of alltime. In this essay, I will briefly outline spiritualism’smajor tenets, concentrating mostlyon the modern manifestations. It is my hopethat this staging highlights what has beenunique to photography since its invention: itssimultaneous straddling of science, magic,and art.The Medium is the MessageThe seemingly strange phenomena of spiritualismand spirit photography can actuallyteach us a lot about how photography wasand still is conceived. Interestingly enough,the language of photography’s inventors andits “cultural reception,” as historian TomGunning points out, was distinctly otherworldly.These two ontological roles ofphotography occurred simultaneously, withoutnecessarily contradicting one another.Even today, photography continues to explorethe farthest regions of the universe; our onlyproof of the existence of these objects orphenomena is photographs of things wecould never “see” with our naked eyes.Photography, spiritualism, and spirit photographyall came into being within a meretwenty years (with the canonical birth yearsof 1839, 1848, and 1861 respectively).As many critics have noted, nineteenth andearly-twentieth-century spiritualists clothedthemselves in the language and trappingsof modern advances in technology, such aswireless telegraphy, electricity, medicine,and chemistry. (Even the women’s movementand politics had a voice in Spiritualism, asmost mediums were females of the radical persuasion.)Mediums and spirit photographersfollowed the example of the dark chamberaccordingly, mimicking and recasting variousaspects of the photographic process in theiractions and language. Indeed, there appears tobe a photographic corollary for every clairvoyantcomponent: from performing only in thedark to the psychic acting as a highly sensitizedconduit.Modern audiences and visitors, especially professionalphotographers, to this exhibitionmight ask: How can anyone take the historicalimages (most of which seem obvious productsof double exposures) seriously? Notwithstanding,we could just as easily ask ourselves thesame about our obsession with science fiction(as we go to press, the Disney film HauntedMansion topped the box office). Even in theface of tremendous advances in science andtechnology, the human psyche is stillentranced by the paranormal and its attendantproof. Snopes.com, a website that chroniclesurban legends, devotes a whole section tosupernatural stories and faked photographscirculated on the Internet. In fact, suchswirlings of prophetic photographs as well asan interest in the afterlife seem to proliferateClockwise from top left: Lauren O'Neal, Common Visions,Saint on Door, 2002, projection from slide, Courtesy of theartist; Jane Marsching and Deb Todd Wheeler, Stain, 2003,digital video still, Courtesy of the artists; Shannon Taggart,full caption to come; Bill Armstrong, Untitled, #423 fromthe Infinity Series, 2002, C-print, 20 x 20 inches, Courtesy ofthe artist; Daniel Ranalli, Buddha #3, 2002,tones gelatin silverprint, photogram/cliché verre, 16 x 16 inches, Courtesyof DNA Gallery.4 5Lauren O'Neal, Common Visions, Saint on Door, 2002, projection from slide,Courtesy of the artist.