Jasmine Smith
PHOTOGRAPHY
Beyond These Hidden Walls
2017-2018
Beyond These Hidden Walls is a personal body of work which responds to the post-digital through physically exploring remote areas around Coventry, which have either lost their status through the elements of time, ageing or social change, encouraging the audience to adapt the body of work to their own city, giving each reader a personal experience. These locations are celebrated through the use of fashion, textures and colours which create visual links between the clothing and the locations. Beyond These Hidden Walls is a personal body of work which physically explores remote areas around Coventry, which have either lost their status through the elements of time, ageing or social change, encouraging the audience to the locations characteristics and uniqueness as well as highlighting the relationship fashion and architecture share technically. The use of colour within the publication is reinforced by the use of the Riso-graph aesthetic; an old form of printing in limited block colours. Physically engaging with the area of Coventry when creating this body of work allowed Smith to share the same experiences with her audience when, completing the aims of the work herself. When first exploring Coventry, after moving to the city two years ago to study, Smith found herself staying within certain boundaries of the University and its buildings. Creating this body of work allowed her to break these barriers created by the University, and her lack of knowledge about the city, by finding remote and forgotten spaces in Coventry which resulted in her knowledge and experience of the city to be personalised, taking and creating my own path through the city, rather than a digitally programed one through the internet. The work aims to encourage the audience to embolden the diversity within different cities and villages by exploring unusual places, which would have otherwise gone un overlooked or omitted. By exploring locations which aren’t distinct when first visiting a new place, allows the audience to gain an enquiry into Coventry by presenting a study into the different historical facts associated with the location. Including the buildings use in the past and its current purpose, allowing the audience to compare and visualise the development of the city, finding out information they wouldn’t have otherwise known.
Video Flick Through of Zine
The post digital has many different interpretations depending on its context within the media, it often refers to a deliberate choice made by an individual when using technology, as a response to the digital. Listening to music via ‘new’ media, such as phones or computers is easier and more efficient than listening to vinyl’s on record players, a post-digital device. (Cramer, F n.d:9) However, people still make this deliberate choice which is “no longer a sign of being old-fashioned” (Cramer, F n.d: 9). Contradicting the statement above; Dave White states how “We appear to have moved from evangelising the new and shiny to using it without question” (White, D. 2016) suggesting how we have evolved from the fascination of new technology, to it becoming a part of our lives, using technology without difficulty, to the extent that it has become natural instinct.
Contextualising the post digital in relation to zines, which is associated with the post-punk movement of the 20th century, an alternative to the mainstream culture today; “zines are in fact the exact opposite of the ‘golden age’ zine cultures of the post punk 1980s and1990s.” (Cramer, F n.d.:16). The associations of zines have altered from the handcrafted publications, which acquire little technology, to becoming disoriented within its new advancements of the 21st century. Thus, resulting in them losing their validity and aura, being sold and published digitally, in mass quantities to make money. Compared to their initial purpose of being idiosyncratic, they are made to be shared in subcultures; zine conventions and communities. “along the way something has happened to web-medicated production that seems to have run counter to the self-published and community-driven aspect of zines” (Ludovico, A. 2012:326)
My publication contradicts the rejection of the digital by creating a post digital zine, digitally. Using the aesthetics of the post digital, by binding the book, alludes to the zines original authenticity; “the printed page has become more valuable, less expendable” (Ludovico, A. 2012:29) reinforcing how having a handmade object contributes to the amount of respect the audience has when engaging. Expanding on this, Kevin Kelly explores embodiment of the post digital, which is relevant when discussing authenticity “PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good.” (Kelly, K. 2008). Baudrillard investigates themes of honesty, being and atmosphere through materials used in the post digital, underlining the different paper textures in my publication, adding layers of depth and tactility within, encouraging the audience to have a personal and interactive experience; “Wood draws its substance from the earth, it lives and breathes and ‘labours’. (Baudrillard, 2005:38)
The conscious post-digital choice of using riso graph and analogue font aesthetic, resembling a typewriter, fortifies the statement above, not physically using the techniques, just its aesthetics as a reactive response to the post- digital, as a way to intensify profundity and the context of my publication and concepts of the faux-authenticity. This is a reactive response to the post-digital, being a natural instinct to create the zine using modern technology rather than the analogue machines, as we have been conditioned to do so by mass media; “using technology most suitable for the job rather than defaulting to the latest new media device.” (Cramer, F n.d.:19)
Although ‘new’ digital is extremely accessible and more convenient to use during the 21st century, people are still referring back to analogue, tactile ways of working “Instead of throwing ourselves into the network, more and more of us seem to be digging our heals into the solid earth beneath our feet.” (Opensahw, J. 2005).