Photographer as Alchemist

Where an Alchemist would take a base material to turn into something precious, the Photographer takes precious materials, such as silver (which in alchemistic symbols is the crescent moon, representing, at the very least, night-time or darkness), and creates something even more precious still, the image.

The inventive spirit of early chemical experiments is intuitive to the creative process needed for artistic experimentation. Through this same spirit I have started experimenting with the base elements of photography: Light, Chemical Reactions, Uniqueness and Photographic Tradition. I have managed, through the use of a chemical cocktail, to produce photographic images, which have never seen or been in contact with light. By doing this I am undermining the core of photographic practice, removing light itself, and creating something that has a life, aura and photographicity of its own.

In the past I have said that I have been trying to combine the whole history of language with the whole history of photography. I now realise this was wrong.

I have been interested in language for its different ability, styles and forms of communication. The idea of tale telling or myth making; change, difference and sameness within one story, is where my interest lies. Many of the fairy tales, folk lore’s and well known stories we know today are variations of the same stories that people have been telling for centuries. I have been working with some of the ancient Greek myths. Originally these were spoken stories, being told around the campfire. These stories were easily changed and slightly altered, constantly evolving. Then eventually it was set into written text (ancient Greek). As we enter the Roman era it was once again translated into Latin, thus changed and slightly altered, into the structures of this new language, evolved into this scribes particular construction. Throughout history this has happened and is still happening as our language evolves. A gigantic palimpsest.

All my efforts have been towards combining these ideas.
Performed Photography has been the vehicle that is taken me there.
Performed Photography is a new hybrid medium.
The performance is not the art, but what leads to it,
the result: the photograph: the art.

That being, the object dose not project the concept, this is done by the concept in itself. The object is the vehicle, that thing which leads us to an understanding of the concept.

So to this end, performances are constructed to work as a direct allegory of a certain text. Then by performing these allegories I use the written word to explore the depths of photographic practice. By doing this I then have the result, which is the words, and mark from my hand. All the performances are set in the dark with no human audiences.