How To Do Things With Cameras
type: CreativeWork
description: The primary site for this research is artistic production, through exhibitions and performances presented in galleries between 2008-2012. The written thesis closely examines the large body of practical work I have made through discussions with Dean Kenning, a viewer to all the artworks submitted. This is combined with a contextual analysis reflecting on the research behind and ideas provoked by this practical work. The research aims to create an encounter with the photograph or video where the lens-based image, still or moving, is not a window onto a world but operates as a presence sharing the viewer’s time and space. I name this changed manner of encounter a live mode of address. I begin the thesis by describing video and films I feel go beyond providing a description and are experienced as a presence. Through looking at the work of Spartacus Chetwynd, John Smith, Laure Provoust, and Ryan Trecartin, I locate reasons for why my concept of a live mode of address happens. I then bring together the different ways it works and greatly expand its limits and possibilities through my own art making. The thesis operates within the field of fine art yet I am challenging the consumption of lens-based images within wider visual culture. This enquiry does not set out to change how the camera works, or question our conventional understanding of what a camera does; its mission is to change how we encounter what it produces. How can I, as an artist operating with a camera - a machine that can only repeat, describe and represent things from the past - engender a live mode of address between a viewer and a lens-based artwork? It is through the production of artwork that this question is explored. In this thesis the artworks are examined in the order they were made, as each one evaluates and takes forward research and ideas present in the previous work. They build on each other to form a cohesive and staged investigation, culminating with my exhibition TO DO (2011) Matt’s Gallery. J…
abstract: The primary site for this research is artistic production, through exhibitions and performances presented in galleries between 2008-2012. The written thesis closely examines the large body of practical work I have made through discussions with Dean Kenning, a viewer to all the artworks submitted. This is combined with a contextual analysis reflecting on the research behind and ideas provoked by this practical work. The research aims to create an encounter with the photograph or video where the lens-based image, still or moving, is not a window onto a world but operates as a presence sharing the viewer’s time and space. I name this changed manner of encounter a live mode of address. I begin the thesis by describing video and films I feel go beyond providing a description and are experienced as a presence. Through looking at the work of Spartacus Chetwynd, John Smith, Laure Provoust, and Ryan Trecartin, I locate reasons for why my concept of a live mode of address happens. I then bring together the different ways it works and greatly expand its limits and possibilities through my own art making. The thesis operates within the field of fine art yet I am challenging the consumption of lens-based images within wider visual culture. This enquiry does not set out to change how the camera works, or question our conventional understanding of what a camera does; its mission is to change how we encounter what it produces. How can I, as an artist operating with a camera - a machine that can only repeat, describe and represent things from the past - engender a live mode of address between a viewer and a lens-based artwork? It is through the production of artwork that this question is explored. In this thesis the artworks are examined in the order they were made, as each one evaluates and takes forward research and ideas present in the previous work. They build on each other to form a cohesive and staged investigation, culminating with my exhibition TO DO (2011) Matt’s Gallery. J…
author: Hart, Emma
language: en
keywords: Fine Art
identifier: Hart, Emma <https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/view/creators/Hart=3AEmma=3A=3A.html> (2013) How To Do Things With Cameras. PhD thesis, Kingston University.
date published: 2013-09
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:00:35Z
provider: University of the Arts London
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of the Arts London