from "Aesthetic / Politic"
by Molly Corey
In Signature, Event, Context, Jacques Derrida engages J. L. Austin’s notion of the performative utterance, in order to open up its meaning. He defines the performative, whether found in a written text or a visual one, as a force that is put into operation through the text, rather than one that is purely illustrative. A performative must not just say something it must do something.
The photographic installation Over 80 Photographs is comprised of a collection of appropriated photographs which at first glance appear familiar in nature. The images are enigmatically connected: each contains the accidental stamp of the photographer, his/her shadow.
| A young girl stands with her hip cocked wearing just a bikini top and a hula skirt. Her bangs are pulled to the side and tied with soft yarn. She smiles. Looming largely over her hula skirt is the dark outline of a man’s head… | In the singular image the shadow is easily overlooked, becoming the invisible stand-in for the one who looks. Yet amassed as they are in the installation, the viewer is not allowed to bypass them. The subject of the images shifts from the family photograph to the indexical evidence of the photographer’s presence. The work is meant to performatively jar the viewer into contemplating the presence of the mediator as well as the present viewer’s meditative role. I assembled these images in an attempt to rupture the certainty of objectivity and to make the invisible visible — |
uncovering the obscure detail, the moment that goes unnoticed, to arouse a curiosity about what lies on the surface —that which has always been present, yet never recognized. These images are located in the space of memory and history, each a captured moment in time, yet their resonance resides in the stain of the captor.