https://vimeo.com/140037251
WORD COUNT: 782
H A N N A H C O U R T I N W I L S O N // A Short Documentary
HANNAH COURTIN WILSON is a short talking heads documentary interview exploring the intersection where bodies of humans meet bodies of lands.
As a photographer in residence, Courtin Wilson is primarily concerned with capturing. The capturing of images, of interactions, of landscapes, of moments in time. With her lens pointed at and sometimes with an audience, her presence on site by default of its curatorial properties suggests an event, a happening, something to look out for which is worth preserving. The gravity of the act of photography is something keenly noted by media philosopher Vilém Flusser, who likens the photographer’s performance to a predator hunting a prey, camera poised to leap upon a slew of cultural objects, a hunter, a gatherer, a preserver of social and material artefacts (Flusser, 2013, pp.33). From Flussers’ view, the product of photography can hence be described as one of deliberate meditation, its very gesture rooted in the tension between what was, what is, and what might be (Flusser, 2013, pp.34).
This philosophy of holding onto the ephemeral is perhaps most prominently demonstrated by Courtin Wilson’s live projection art piece, titled Homeshow, in which she responded to the cityscape using a projector bike to exhibit real estate archive images on buildings around the Melbourne CBD.
Translocating a series of found images into the public sphere, Courtin Wilson arguably furthers Flusser’s photographic gesture, reanimating both the content and form of previously captured photographs and dated interiors through her deracinated, live curation and exhibition process. The result can be described as a simultaneous uprooting as much as it is of a tethering- the lounge room ripped from its homebound structures and screened onto the wet pavement. The bedroom hurled onto an inhospitable brick wall. Kitchens mounted onto the sludge and grunge of a city bin. Places once designated and designed for comfort are displaced onto the public sphere, a contrast which highlights the spatial properties of each, while suggesting a new dimension of unity. The juxtaposition is playful as it is provoking: perhaps the bin can be a place of food preparation, in some perverse way, no?
Such a sentiment aligns closely with Flusser’s philosophy, in which he concedes photography as a signifier of ‘[the] state of things that have been reflected onto surfaces’. The world translated through the lens becomes as abstracted from its material counterparts as daguerreotype portraits are from their evidently non-sepia toned humans (Flusser, 2013, pp.41-42). Examining Homeshow with these views in mind thus entangles the notion of curation. For example, the real estate images clearly betray a sense of aesthetic control with their wide angled shots and bright lighting. Additionally, the interiors themselves have been decorated and decided upon keen homeowners with the purpose of selling their home. And finally, we have Courtin Wilson’s selection of specific images to project onto specific buildings, a spontaneous response to the aesthetics and philosophical implications resulting from domesticity’s intersection with the public.
This brings us to two central concerns: Where is the act of photography occurring? What is the delineation between exhibition of photography and the gesture of photography?
It is with these lingering questions in mind that our film – through its deliberate segmentation – attempts to unpack Courtin Wilson’s involvement through snapshots, flashes of insight, and pondering. Collating short snippets from a 17 minute conversation, HANNAH COURTIN WILSON presents vignettes selected from a particular time and place (Saturday, Testing Grounds in Melbourne, Australia) in order to reconfigure the role of the artist in activating, if not, reimagining the utilities of the public sphere.
Held in the office space at Testing Grounds with additional footage of Courtin Wilson guiding us around the site, our film attempts to embody the multidisciplinary qualities of Courtin Wilson’s own practice. Such efforts are demonstrated by the pastiche of camera properties utilised, including still frames, handheld footage, and various intertitles, none of which can be individually called a documentary, let alone a photograph, but collated together form a whole which aligns closer to Flusser’s concept of the photographer as a hunter of culture.
Furthermore, in relegating the conversation from its organically sprawling linguistics to heavily edited fragments, our film attempts to extend the very definition of the photographic gesture. For example, film (perhaps not digital but certainly analog) is essentially a compilation of still images stitched together to create an illusion of movement and time passing, and can therefore be considered one of the more visceral examples of humankind’s attempt to preserve its cultural productions. Recognising the onscreen collision and entanglements of social landscapes (conversation) with temporal ones (time, space, and further yet- place/s), HANNAH COURTIN WILSON suggests a further dimension to the hunter: what does it mean to hunt the hunter?
References:
Flusser, V (2013), Towards a Philosophy of Photography, e-book, Reaktion Books, London, pp.33-49, viewed 12 September 2015, http://rmit.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1582288