Page 74 - Studio International - July August 1975

moment. The best Camera Art is not dealing whether Camera Art is good or not.
What a serious artist should be doing with what painting and sculpture have It is important to say that you make a
with Camera Art is producing a kind of dealt with before, but with how the decision about how a person thinks,
self-induced media psycho-drama in particular contemporary mind responds whether they are thinking well or whether
which he shows the way he feels and to certain kinds of visual imagery that are they are thinking badly. It's not as easy
experiences things, although 'psycho- around. Experiences that can be related to define as a paint surface that has been
drama' is too complicated a word for it. to the medium of photography. painted well or painted badly. The point
It's like the artist is in a state of sensing On the whole, the most important I'm making is that to some degree
and he makes records of that state of Camera Art is completely post-conscious. qualitative judgments don't work.
sensing. The feeling becomes exaggerated It does not involve itself in perceiving Because the qualitative judgments are
in a way so that it may be transmitted to the idea of consciousness. But in actual based on notions of qualities that we've
others. fact it's not mindless. A lot of Camera established from previous object art. If
Advanced art can now be defined as Art is just involved in what I assume you want to use those values, there are no
social software, knowledge and to be some form of non-intellectual, qualities. Perhaps 'quality' is not a good
perceptions that understand and refer to post-conscious role-playing. That is to word. I like to use the word 'activate' as a
realities in the environment that make us say, the point of the art is mainly in better word.
behave the way we do. It is the artist's job expressing how you perceive things. All artworks, whether they be
to show us the shape of what we've got Identifying the way you perceive physical or subliminal, have to go through
and how it works. The point is to take art and feel things. Fortunately or some kind of authentication process. It
out of the realm of special or particular unfortunately, depending on how you relies in the long run on the ability of the
exotic interest and put it within the range look at it, most of the things that camera viewer to authenticate what is happening
of believable experience. Experience that artists are dealing with are very ordinary, in front of him as a real, a genuine
at least gels with the nature and type of things that you've seen before, that you experience. The way one would
culture that we live in, that at least gels haven't seen in art, that you don't think authenticate a physical object is that it is
with the way we are, think, feel and see as are art, that you think are part of your well-made according to standards of how
as a people. everyday life. And you wonder why things are made. You know that is a
Good taste at this time in a they should be art now merely because beautifully shined piece of metal or well-
technological democracy ends up to be somebody has taken a photograph of formed, or indeed that is a perfect
nothing more than taste prejudice. If all them. Well, in reality they aren't art. likeness of something. The difficulty in
that art does is create good or bad taste, They don't become art merely because Camera Art is that the authentication
then it has failed completely. In the somebody has photographed them. process is different in that we're relying
question of taste analysis, it is just as easy That hasn't changed their position, on two conceptual elements meeting in
to express good or bad taste in the kind of but what happens by the artist the centre. The conceptual process of the
refrigerator, carpet or armchair that you photographing them is that he relates to artist and the conceptual process of the
have in your home. What good camera you his own particular experience of an viewer have got to overlap in such a way
artists are trying to do now is to raise art object of which you've had an experience. that they 'lock in,' like a rangefinder on a
beyond the level of mere taste. Camera So there's that common ground between camera. But it's always clear when it has
Art must be completely devoid of logic. the viewer and the artist in that the viewer happened. Sometimes you can't say why
The logic vacuum must be there so that knows the object or the experience it's happened. But you can tell that 'this'
the viewer applies his own logic to it and very well. He's seen it or had it a number is offering you a deeper level of experience
the work, in fact, makes itself before the of times, and so has the artist. Except that than that is. Or that the one over there is
the viewer's eyes. So that it becomes a in this case, it is the artist who is merely reinforcing a set of experiences
direct reflection of the viewer's presenting the way he feels and sees that which you've had before from some other
consciousness, logic, morals, ethics and experience. There is, to a degree, medium. Quality in Camera Art comes
taste. The work should act as a feedback something unique about his particular down to the abstract ability of the art
mechanism to the viewer's own working conceptual construction around that itself to create genuine authentication.
model of himself. experience. But added to that there is So that the thing in itself is not a
Camera artworks that heavily rely on always the possibility that because the question of I like it because it's good or
aesthetic presence of one sort or another, artist is an ordinary person like you or I, bad. It activates because it is authentic,
generally fail because the value of the conceptual experience he creates which is a different way of approaching
Camera Art does not lie within the around it or the perceptual construction quality. It relies on throwing out the idea
area of aesthetics. Its value has something that he creates around the particular of physical quality. If you're dealing with
to do with the instantaneous capabilities ordinary thing that we both know, may a conceptual structure, you'll have to find
of the medium. The capability to almost shed some light on our lives. Because we a conceptual mechanism to define the
make your mind and your eye work may have the same kind of ordinary difference.
simultaneously and to catch a moment of feelings about it that he does. So as an In Camera Art all the artists are
real experience, of real perception, in such audience we seem to feel that nothing has photographers. But the differences one
a way that it eliminates the difficulty in happened, that we're not witnessing has to see are essentially mind-set
having a thought and having to spend a anything, that no experience is occurring differences in the way a person thinks.
lot of time to create something from that before us, that what is happening here There are no physical differences. And
thought. It's a more immediate form of already has happened in some way, that that becomes a serious thing because the
expression. And because of that, any it doesn't take us sufficiently out of our public is not used to making judgments
serious concern with the aesthetic nature normal life-style or mind-set, in order to on the quality of a conceptualization. The
of the final product would tend to detract create an exaggerated sense of public does not know the difference
from the immediacy of the conceptual experience. A kind of an exaggerated between a good idea and a bad idea.
experience. That you are not really just sense of experience that would say: 'This
presenting the experience as it occurred, is art; life is not going on right now, but
as you felt it, but you are arbitrating the art is going on.' That always happens
experience once again, wanting to add when you use things within the common
to the experience, to add aesthetics, environment which tend to have no
prettiness and frills to it. Once again importance within the hierarchy of
putting it back within the realm of subject-matter.
previous art. The audience generally assumes that
So an important distinction has to be there is no route to understanding the
made between the kind of art which is nature of quality within Camera Art,
primarily concerned with only presenting that it's all the same, all photographs.
the photographs as a form of There's no way of saying : that is a well-
documentation of either a perception or a bent surface, that is nicely shaped, or
conception, and the kind of art that seems there are a good pair of colours put
to take the actual photograph seriously. together. But there is a way of judging
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