Part 9 In 1859, the Harvard poet and medical professor Oliver Wendell Holmes described photography in a much earlier guise as being a ‘mirror with a memory.’ One aspect lost in this oft-quoted soundbite by the noted medical reformer was that he was discussing photography as explicitly producing an object. It is the photograph that is the mirror because the viewer can look and see … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 10)
Part 8 Souvenirs The past is dangerously addictive. Nostalgia, especially second-hand nostalgia such as mine, often threatens to become an endless placebo in place of living. How alluring the past seems when we convince ourselves of having experienced it for a brief moment through culture and art. The ghost story writer M.R. James lived with this addiction to the past more than most. James famously … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 9)
Part 7 Remembering Afterimage ‘At times,’ the Nobel Laureate and novelist Patrick Modiano writes, ‘it seems, our memories act much like Polaroids.’ This interesting thought comes from the semi-autobiographical perspective of a character in his novella Afterimage (1993). It is a narrative filled with strangeness, derived in part from the recollection of memories once forgotten; put to one side, left in the back of a … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 8)
Part 6 Time and again, cinema seems drawn to Polaroid photography, often in unusual and tangential ways. Antonioni’s film, even if ultimately about 35mm photography, is not the only one to explore the strangely tangible qualities of space within photography (or the things contained within a photograph beyond the image). When looking at Polaroids, we perceive them spatially. By that I mean we have the … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 7)
Part 5 In the Park I often find myself asking a question. ‘What film would I live in if I could?’ It is a question that belies my own rather childish need to escape reality. But, if I could live in a piece of film, it would probably be Michelangelo Antonioni’s celebrated swinging cult classic, Blowup (1966). It is more than a little questionable as … Continue reading Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 6)
Celluloid Wicker Man 