Grey Lynn Primary School Swimming Pool, Auckland, 07.01.2000, 6.45

Western Springs Stadium, Auckland, 30.12.1999, 6.55

Victoria Park, Auckland, 10.06.2000, 7.43

West End Road Tennis Club, Auckland, 29.06.2000, 7.49

Higashi Hiroshima Primary School Field, Higashi Hiroshima, 02.08.2000, 6.35

Peace Park, Hiroshima, 26.07.2000, 6.11

Pedestrian
2000

Every photograph is a construction that shows the formal imprint of an aesthetic will (Holger 1998:103)¹.

Pedestrian illustrates how methodology is reflective of an aesthetic centered around uniformity and banality- not necessarily the pictured site. The photographs of parks, fields, swimming pools and other recreational sites are executed using a strict methodology. Each image presents a simulated reality through the inclusion of selected peripheral information resulting in environments that become both arbitrary and generic.

Pedestrian functions through how the photographs are executed rather than what they physically represent. The focus on form, instead of content, is motivated by aesthetics establishing a conscious, yet slightly paradoxical, 'objective' documentation of sites. The method, involving the same camera, lens, composition, light, time, exposure, etc., creates parallels between each site. Nothing is left to chance, each photograph is deliberately executed in this fashion: both repetition and seriality are magnified. To test this methodology different geographical locations (Auckland, Japan and Singapore) have been photographed.

The employed methodology addresses the physical spaces depicted: ones that are dormant in their appearance. Familiar representations of space (i.e. environment) are dismantled through the photograph's mocking of reality. Each site is carefully surveyed and chosen for its generic nature, which is enhanced through adhering to a strict methodology. Framing is fundamental as the photographs rely not on the field or open space represented, but on the included fringes. No longer can the image be read from what is assumed to be known, but from what is and is not allowed to enter the surface of the photograph. Or, meaning is derived not from what the photograph portrays, but from the relationship between what is and is not visible, and from what is understood to be there.

The discussed method has established uniformity; chance has little to no bearing on the final result. If chance has no influence, then the photographs inclusion of peripheral information must be deliberate. The periphery allows the photograph to be real: a scene that is set or made. An inevitable subjective translation is acknowledged while suggesting this is based on what is recognisable as the periphery. With Pedestrian, the recognition is arbitrary; photographs become known because they jolt familiarity (i.e.: a school swimming pool). Discomfort occurs when the photographs do compliment the memory. They become "the most banal of spaces, spaces that are violet in their very banality"(Wigley 1993:121)².

The periphery, acting as the referent, dismantles notions of neutral truth and 'objectivity' through an obvious calculation and play on formalist views. Pedestrian hints at objectivity only to dismantle it. The photographs no longer rely on a narrative that testifies truth. Instead, it is the space surrounding the site (the frame) that allows the image to be read. Pedestrian plays with understandings of reality, and in doing so meaning and representation are shifted away from what is deemed to be purely objective. These photographs do not claim any more than the aesthetic they represent. Nor do they shed identity and history from the sites depicted. The photographed scene becomes personalised through subjective memory, and meaning is ascribed through what the periphery includes, authenticating the image. Pedestrian illustrates how space becomes generic. Value is ascribed not through what spaces/environments physically represent, but rather from what is known and assumed to be there.

By Fiona Amundsen, 2001

Notes

Liebs, Holger: 'The Same Returns- The Tradition of Documentary Photography' in Veronica's Revenge; Contemporary Perspectives on Photography, Janus, Elizabeth (ed), Scalo, 1998.
Wigley, Mark: The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1993, pg.121.