Scratching at a Solid Surface 1

Happy Birthday, 2011





















Curiously, photographers always remain alien to the site of the shot. Even if they happen to be familiar with the place… the act of taking the photograph turns them into visitors, or even tourists on their own premises. No matter how close a photograph comes to the space it records, the interaction between the photographer and the space always resembles the act of scratching on a solid surface. 

Jan Verwoert, ‘Research and Display: of Transformations of Documentary Practice in Recent Art.’ in Neuerer, G. (ed). Untitled (Experience of Place). (London: Koenig Books, 2003). p. 18. 

One never quite encounters the world, and photography inevitably establishes a peculiar remoteness from it, only ever documenting or transcribing a certain distance. On the rare occasion one comes in close proximity to a place, the experience is inevitably a traumatic one; exposure, claustrophobic or vertiginous spatial disorders aside, contesting histories repeatedly encircle place and twist it into territory. Locality is always something for others; always negotiated on their terms; it is set out before we arrive and continues after we have left. The photographer particularly, a gangly alien landed from outer-space, is only ever an intruder upon private interactions that take place in public. So place is something that one continually orbits, never belonging at its heart – always a piece of the puzzle, but lost somewhere in space.