A CONTEMPLATIVE ANALYSIS OF OUR MODERN TECHNOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP THROUGH BFA PROJECT: "IMAGES THAT TAKE, IMAGES THAT GIVE"

Living and being a part of a time in history that we might define as the “digital era”, puts us all in a unique position relative to images, media, and the internet. As time goes on and technology use and development becomes more widespread and expansive, the ways in which we can understand and interpret images continues to be heavily affected. We are placed in a situation where we are confronted directly every day with a multitude of information that comes from a variety of sources - some are valid, while others are not. But where does the distinction lie? What is the determining factor in establishing truth? How are we meant to perceive the world around us? When it comes to contemplating these questions through things like social media, surveillance, and modern technological influences, it can leave us feeling unsure of what we’re truly seeing, which is what the exhibition Images that Take, Images that Give, 2021, yearns at exploring on a broad scale.  

Image taken from exhibition Instagram: @ca361_exhibition (https://www.instagram.com/p/CMHTRxThalC/)

        As the media is a vessel for varying forms of mass communication, naturally it expands into a number of broad areas - such as publishing, and broadcasting, among others. But a newer addition to the category of widespread communication outlet tools is social media, which especially throughout the timespan of the pandemic has become a perhaps too heavily relied on news source. Shinaaz Johal’s piece in the exhibition titled As of Today, 2021, explores these ideas through its analysis of the contributing role and influence of social media on the Kisan (farmers’) protests in India, specifically bringing attention to the government’s hand in repressing the political climate and reality in India in the present time. Johal’s piece is presented at the beginning of the exhibition, and it immediately grabs your attention due to its scale and intricacy. The work is comprised of a series of 113 individual photos that fill the entire gallery wall, which represent 113 days of protests. The photos are organized in clumps of varying sizes, and each photo contains Johal’s extended family and friends holding signs that say “I stand with farmers”, which is meant to signify the unity of people, independent from political and authoritative influences. This piece facilitates an important conversation around how the media and news sources can be used as political tools that condemn and

Shinaaz Johal, As of Today, 2021.
Close-up view image taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5hlwrDMlF/

silence certain groups, in this case the Indian farmers, by cutting off the circulation of information, which ultimately makes relevant knowledge and information inaccessible to the public - as a form of control. The (still limited) awareness of the Kisan protests in India only really became known in a more widespread manner due to social media. So what does it imply if we must derive knowledge and be made aware of certain events/news through a reliance on social media? 

Ravneet Kaur Sidhu, The Reasons We Do It, 2021.
Taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5hIYxjtwW/

        As of Today, 2021, brings attention to how social media acts as an echo chamber that reinforces the views we already have. In considering this, how are we to interpret and connect with information, and how can we contextualize the protests through what we already know? Ravneet Kaur Sidhu’s installation piece, The Reasons We Do It, 2021, offers an immersive solution by exploring the polarized political climate in India through putting the viewer directly in the “action” of the protests, and into the shoes of the farmers that are being affected, repressed, and having their rights taken away. The installation consists of a traditional Sikh temple eating setting (an intricately patterned rug, with metal trays and cups) that is meant to represent the farmers and Sikh culture, as a majority of the farmers reside in Northern India, which has a large Sikh population. While viewers circle the installation, they are meant to watch an audiovisual component that is accessed via QR code. The video contains footage of the protests and their chants, which is successful in allowing viewers to critically explore the nature of the protests from the farmers’ perspective, as opposed to what mass media depicts and shows - since this is usually a skewed representation in favour of the government. Another piece in the exhibition that explores the government's political influence on mass media is Yunze Xie (David)’s piece Independent Publisher, 2021. It uses a fake/self-made newspaper comprised of deconstructed images and fragmented text, presented in the form of a large scale collage that covers an entire wall, to analyse how governments and other politicians seem to use polarization as a tool to achieve their biased motives and divide public conceptions. Xie’s work “investigates and challenges the mass media and other communication systems, which continuously transmit and disseminate information without disclosing their lack of neutrality” (Cleave 17). This accentuates a central point of contemplation within mass media, which is the extent of its neutrality and the nature of its intentions, while adding content to the importance of critical thinking relative to media interpretations, whether it be through social media, videos on the internet, or print.  

Daniel Lin, Smile! You're on Camera, 2021. Taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5gzkfDJH5/

        If mass media is a contributing factor in creating fabricated images of reality, what other technologies might also be doing this? Daniel Lin’s sculptural installation Smile! You’re On Camera, 2021, explores how surveillance, recordings, and live streams may also be responsible for distorting our perception. Lin pairs antiquated technologies, a CRT TV and camcorder, with warped visual displays on the screen to express their interpretation of “the transcoded image”, which is described as “a translation from reality, to camera, to binary code…[the] data trancodes [itself] and re-presents itself as a set of pixels” (Cleave 11). This explains the process of how encoded images and data are formed, which suggests everything done digitally is traceable, with the potential to be monitored and exploited by whoever gains access to it. Lin’s installation is displayed in the entrance of the exhibition, live recording gallery goers as they pass and enter the show. The footage is layered with various distorting effects that mimics the aesthetic of a glitching screen, which pulls viewers in for a closer look. While viewers investigate what exactly they’re seeing on the screen, they quickly realize it is themself under surveillance, which brings attention to the nature of modern technology’s ability to monitor and keep track of everyone and everything through devices like cameras, microphones, computers, and cellphones, among others. This is an unsettling fact because it exposes how easily outside influences can not only reach us and extract our information, but also encode this information and use it in any way they wish, which for some could be to manipulate, control, and sway our opinions towards their beliefs.

Sena Cleave, Not Only a Vision of Loveliness, 2021.
Taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5js1dj6uS/

Sena Cleave, Not Only a Vision of Loveliness, 2021.
Taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5js1dj6uS/

      

          When we consider the tactic power of images through things like social/mass media, surveillance, and devices, we are left wondering what effects technologies can have on our interpretation of truth. In other words, how do we know if what we’re looking at is real? Truth and perceptions of reality in images can be severely affected and tampered with through a number of modern technological abilities, especially by processes like digital editing (i.e. photoshop), which enables any imaginable kind of alteration. We are able to reformulate images, and distort and reform the pixels to create something completely different and new, which is a procedure Sena Cleave’s work Not Only a Vision of Loveliness, 2021, dives into. The disintegrated collage piece brings attention to the methods in which we receive and understand subliminal/implied messages through images and media, and how things like editing can affect this in its creation of captivating and alluring qualities. Through a dimensional process of layering and merging laser printed images, photo-transfers, and editing, the work raises critical questions around the idea of truth in images. In strategically using a combination of both digital and analogous imaging processes to create their collage, Cleave seems to be emphasizing the importance of analysing technology’s varying influences, and explains how “images sink through the surfaces of papers and transparencies only to re-emerge and disturb the messages inscribed on the reverse” (Cleave 7), which expresses how meaning can be distorted through images and the ways in which we can alter and change them. 

        As we move through the exhibition and ponder these questions relative to technology, we are left with fragmented answers from which we can only really objectively summarize through the understanding that we all must define our own subjective meaning and values in the world. Although there are no objective right or wrong answers, there are certain elements that we must continue to critically examine. In considering that nothing is obsolete and that objective meaning does not exist, we may feel lost and confused at times, which is the contemplative nature of Quinn Lumsden’s sculpture (Un)making Meaning, 2021. The piece asks viewers to judiciously reflect on how in particular we are meant to form meaning and exist in the modern world, given everything that surrounds and influences us. The sculpture resembles a human-like figure, and is made from a carefully selected ensemble of papers, including academic essays, class notes, journal entries, lists, and more, all written and composed by Lumsden. This has a confronting effect in urging viewers to examine the fundamental building blocks that have contributed to the formation of their identity and perception of the world. The work also brings up the stigmatized reality of dealing with these larger questions and existential prospects, which is the anxiety and dread it causes for most individuals. Lumsden’s expressive and thought-provoking sculpture is placed near the end of the exhibition, which encourages viewers to pause and think about the influence of media, modern technology, and images in regard to themselves, before leaving the critical atmosphere of the exhibition.  

Quinn Lumsden, (Un)making Meaning, 2021.
Taken from https://www.instagram.com/p/CMpSdOnjQ4w/

From beginning the show with a confrontational positioning of Lin’s surveillance inducing installation, to ending with Lumsden’s existential and identity questioning sculpture, as we exit the exhibition, our minds are beaming with a vast and expansive array of thoughts. We leave questioning the authoritative role of social and mass media in terms of political filtration, regulation, and the polarizing nature of certain systems. As well as how the media can be used as a suppressive tool to gear the public towards thinking in a biased manner. We consider the nature of the fast growing technological culture we live in, some of us born into, and the effects this has on our perceptions of reality, how information is used and encoded, and its distorting qualities. Furthermore, how modern technology and images can alter the manner in which our ability to perceive, understand, and interpret truth develops over time. These concepts put us a liminal and strange spot psychologically, but we are reassured at the end of the show by (Un)making Meaning, which sheds light on the fact that we, as unique individuals, have the definitive power to create and live in any sort of reality that we choose, regardless of the intrusive and dark looming forces that attempt at breaking through to us at all times.    

For more information and photos of Images that Take, Images that Give be sure to check out
https://www.sfu.ca/~sbitter/image_glossary/index.html & https://www.instagram.com/ca361_exhibition/.

A special thanks to the artists and Audain Gallery for providing the exhibition.

Works cited: 

Cleave, Sena. Not Only a Vision of Loveliness. 2021. Laser printing on paper, photo-transfers on polyester

            film, tape. Vancouver, BC.

Cleave, Sena, et al. Images that Take, Images that Give. Audain Gallery (SFU Galleries). Mar

2021. Vancouver, BC. 

Images that Take, Images that Give. 18 Mar.-27 Mar. 2021. Audain Gallery (SFU Galleries). 

Vancouver, BC. 

Johal, Shinnaz. As of Today. 2021. Paper, ink, adhesive. Vancouver, BC. 

Lin, Daniel. Smile! You’re on Camera. 2021. Live video feed installation, CRT TV, camcorder, 

video mixer. Vancouver, BC. 

Lumsden, Quinn. (Un)making Meaning. 2021. Paper sculpture. Vancouver, BC. 

Sidhu, Ravneet Kaur. The Reasons Why We Do It. 2021. Found object installation, rug, metal 

trays and cups, cutlery, raw beans. Vancouver, BC.

Xie, Yunze (David). Independent Publisher. 2021. Paper collage, wallpaper. Vancouver, BC.