Language

Language

Throughout the recent lockdown I commenced an experiment into the importance of language and how exposure to language can effects peoples view of life. Within a group of other OCA students we looked into working in a way that you would not normally be accustomed to. I found the experiment to be quite a moment as I was moving away from the objective ‘here and now’ to a more abstract view. By taking some of the media language around the early stages of lockdown, I made visual assumptions as to what this would look like and found myself using much more introspection into my own experiences.

Martha Roseler

Having read Steve Edwards ‘The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems I became intrigued with the use of language as a method to add another layer of context, all be it in Rosler’s case to provide tensions that both aids and complicates meaning

The language itself was not that from a vocabulary of Rosler’s own, but I found that the use draws you in to the visual world represented by deliberately undescriptive photography.

For some time I have been thinking about the effects of language from the media and how this poorly guides our understanding of the world, especially withing sections of society already hampered by marginalisation and uneven chances to overcome inequality.

It was interesting to read Allan Sekula’s points regarding the use of someone else’s language and how this is taking away or somehow falsely being plagiarized. Sekula provides some quite dynamic and salient understanding in terms of socio- political representations and helps to counterbalance many observations on class and a photographers own position when undertaking a view of a life outside your own. However, I find his protectiveness around language a little out of sorts, especially when viewing Rosler’s conceptual style of documenting a damaged life outside her own.

The Development of a Concept

The concept I am working through views a section of society and environment struggling to maintain a voice and being both ignored and used by political rhetoric. The language is both demeaning and patronising whilst the reality can be observed relatively easily. By observing the work of the Bowery, I can see aspects of a route I do not wish to go down by splitting the words and the prescriptive vision into two parts.

I will re-read section of Bathes theory on signs and symbols as I work on a contextual plan to take shape. Currently I am aware of ways to represent that feel more abstract than anything I have worked on before involving the phrases from newspapers that conflict with reality. How I connect the two under one visual contextual meaning is part of the experiment I am working towards The current learning through research and observations is proving valuable and I feel far more able to dismiss a theory or to provide an argument against photographing in a certain way if it doesn’t suit my objective