Notes from the Stuart Hall Library - 2012: No.4. From: Roshini Kempadoo (Animateur for SH Library)

Food Programme in the Rafah refugee camp. Photograph: Said Khatib / Getty Images

In 1967, Debord proposed that social modern life is being replaced with its representation and is the ‘historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.’ 
Debord, Guy (1994) thesis 42.

The Hyper- Image

I have been thinking about Debord’s writings in relation to taking photographs, photographers work, the technology and what I call the hyper-image. Extreme and formulaic compositions, overly dramatic intensities of colour and light, the impetus to take the most spectacular events and scenes. The hyper-image is being sought after, published, commented on and distributed online by those who take them (vanity distribution), those who think they will sell and attract, and those who re-circulate them for being ‘cool’. The intense, dramatic, uncanny, weird, spectacularly beautiful or shocking image is normalised into the everyday visual experience of the world. It is as if photography has become an extreme sport or an extreme game of hunting. Perhaps it is as a result of photographers’ having such overly sophisticated technology in their hands, or simply the response to the hyperrealism of the movies – 3D, 4D, 5D. 

So it is in wonderment and horror that I consume these unrelenting and heightened, fetishised images. Whether the horrifying images of the conflict between Gaza and Israel with dramatic lighting and almost painterly composition, or the quirky imagery of dancers in situ published in our ‘free commuter newspaper’ – reduced somewhat by the banal subtitle A Celebration of Joy In The Everyday.

Speaking of visuals that I consider of a different kind and motivation, over the last few visits to the SH library, I have begun looking through the catalogued material from Iniva audio-visual archive in the three drawers at the back of the room. There are some wonderful historical references to be drawn upon of work that Iniva has instigated, been associated with, been involved in or simply felt that the work needed to be in the archive/library as a resource. Ironically I am distracted by the surface and flickering imagery as I play them. The poor quality VHS tapes is exaggerated on the slick LCD flat screen.

Poor technology aside, the visual works are still stunning and pertinent. Works by Gurinder Chada, Martina Attile, Monika Dutta, Flow Motion amongst others throw up the underlying ongoing concern that motivates my re-visitations to older works and resources of this kind. I can’t help but recall Henry Louis Gates giving the Rivington Place lecture (2010) when he spoke about the importance of institutions, building and legacy. Not only is it the only way to counteract hegemonic tendencies that exclude and marginalise, but also provides no excuse for the next generation not to have sight of such works, efforts, discussions and no excuse for scholars, teachers, educators to be referring to such works in the future.

Reflecting on historical moment and the visual leads me to comment on Obama winning the election. Whatever you might think of what the country stands for, the US folk have been progressive enough to return an African American to the Presidency in this climate and at this moment. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose now. And such an astute speech often championing difference, dignity and compassion over and above the predictable Presidential rhetoric –

How often do politicians remind us that they are thinking beyond their own career to speak of:

‘Arguments we have are a mark of our liberty… open to the dreams of an immigrants daughter… [and] when we accept certain obligations to one another and the future generations… President Obama’s acceptance speech, Chicago – 6th November 2012. 

And so I reflect on the complexity and interrelationship between social and cultural politics and visual art that is embedded in the SH Library. And some of the great works that still continue to be made as continued works to those I view including: The Unfinished Conversation, at the Liverpool biennial (2012) by John Akomfrah, commissioned by Autograph ABP; I reflect on my meeting yesterday with Alanna Lockward at Rivington Place and her Art Labour Archives as curator, cultural activist and commentator on citizenship, race and Caribbean art. 

And Sonia and I finally manage to finalise a date and a pre-xmas event for a discussion of work by artists Martina Attile and Zineb Sedira. The evening will be based on screening extracts from Dreaming Rivers (1998) and the video artwork Silent Sight (2000) and discussed within the context of writings on Attile and Sedira’s works. 


Check the website and hope you note the date. Moving Images: Dreams, Sights and Memory in SH Library @ Rivington Place, Thursday 13th December 2012 from 6:30.

http://www.iniva.org/publications_prints/voices_on_art_amp_culture/veil

Notes from the Stuart Hall Library Fall - 2012:

Roshini Kempadoo - Iniva's First Animateur for SHL 

Two quotes that I really struck me:

The first is the catalogue entry I read from the Pan-Afrikan Connection: An exhibition of work by young black artists (1983):
'In developing our sense of "some bodyness", we are trying to avoid blind mimicry. We are trying to recreate and develop our humanity.'

The second is from Denise Ferreira da Silva's article 'No-bodies: Law, Raciality and Violence' (2009), quoting Foucault: "'the essential role of the theory of right is to establish the legitimacy of power'". (2009: 220)

This by way of an introduction on my part and to those who may be interested in a regular contribution of thoughts, notes, quotes, ideas, responses to my exploring the publications in the SHL, Iniva at Rivington Place, London. As you would have seen on the Iniva website (see: http://www.iniva.org/library/news/stuart_hall_library_animateur), the idea of this is to give more exposure to some of the wonderful material from the library and the (audio/visual/written) Iniva archive. As someone who creates - making artworks using photography, and who writes about art and visual culture, I hope to share with you how I make use of such a library full of beautifully rich material on the visual arts, cultural politics and institutional histories.

I had intended to re-familiarise myself with any work that was associated with the artists and writers involved with the forthcoming conference being organised by the Blk Art Group Research Project 2012 on 27th October 2012. Sonia (the SHL librarian) kindly dug out material for me including a couple of booklets of exhibition documentation and Kobena Mercer's edited series Annotating Art Histories of four publications published by inIVA and MIT press between 2005 and 2008.
But this was not to be...
Instead I read through and prepared myself for a discussion with two writers and scholars about issues of ethics, multiculturalism and cultural politics - equally interesting and so relevant to what I am sure will be part of future discussions, presentations and conversations. The articles I perused are:

Ferreira de Silva, Denise (2009), 'No-bodies: Law, Raciality and Violence', Griffith Law Review, 18: 2, 212 - 236.
Sharma, Ashwani (2009), 'Postcolonial racism: white paranoia and the terrors of multiculturalism', in Huggan, Graham & Law, Ian, (eds.) Racism Postcolonialism Europe, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 119 - 130.

They make for great reading - and inspiration for considering the ethics of violence (as it is enacted onto black Brazilian bodies) and the melancholic space of Europe.
My first contribution to the blog - less wordy, more visuals and hope to have some people commenting. More later.
Roshini