OPEN ASSEMBLY

Experiments in Aesthetics and Politics

Image Associations: In response to Rachel Garfield’s Introduction to “Experimental Filmmaking and Punk: Feminist Audio Visual Culture in the 1970s and 1980s”

Published on: May 7, 2023
By: Amy Poncher

Image Associations

This piece uses Rachel Garfield’s Introduction to Experimental Filmmaking and Punk: Feminist Audio Visual Culture in the 1970s and 1980s to explore the exercise of image associations in the work of British artist, Ed Fornieles. 

definition: IMAGE ASSOCIATIONS

Ed Fornieles. Dinosaurs & Strange Creatures with Mr. Know-it-Owl, 2021
Large format inkjet print on semi gloss photographic paper, mount board with multi aperture windows
18.5 x 93.5 x 4 cm

 

GARFIELD AND IMAGE ASSOCIATIONS

The following takes Garfield’s focus on DIY, lo-fi filmmaking and puts it towards  contemporary (mass and art-based) uses of images 

Garfield’s text relates various post-war experimental feminist and punk filmmakers to the early 20th Century art movement, Dada:

 

“The re-emergence of an approach from Dada identified at the time as a close precursor to punk could be seen as the same event or entity that nonetheless is transformed in a new context of a different period or epoch.” (Garfield) 

 

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, collage, mixed media, 1919–1920 (Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin)

Example of Kuleshov’s use of montage (known as the Kuleshov effect where more meaning is derived from two sequential shots than one shot in isolation):

^ while the first image remains the same, combining a differing second image creates [forces] different mental associations for the viewer 

^ This approach differs from Fornieles’ contemporary Associations series, in which the image and its following images are read in relation to the subject’s (Fornieles?) own associations

This can be shown in the diagram variants (my own) below:

 

 

^ A distinction can be seen between the roles of director / artist / subject / object and viewer within film montage and association 

 

IMAGE ASSOCIATION AS DIY AND LO-FI 

-> The image association system is itself a DIY, lo-fi method for both exploring the larger contextual climates of visual culture today (understood in mass culture through endless image streams) and the particulars of simultaneously individual, paired, triad and larger image connections. What is meant by the latter is that while the image association places importance on the contents and choice of an individual image, the connection between each image, its following image, that following image’s relation to its own following image and the overarching relation between all of the images is of course equally relevant.

The below diagram (my own) demonstrates this system:

Ed Fornieles. Ghostfinger, 2021
Large format inkjet print on semi gloss photographic paper, mount board with multi aperture windows
18.5 x 69 x 4 cm

^ The diagram shows the potential origin and end points for image association series. You can see a ‘no association edge’ where the first chosen image begins. Subsequent connections form between each image until the end image is reached and a ‘no association edge’ appears again. Encircling all of the images is a ‘continued association’ frame made up of already formed contextual, psychological and societal associations. The diagram exposes the paradoxical nature of the image association technique – while a clear edge (first image) can be visually presented, it is impossible to read any of the origin images in complete isolation or the end images as final.

Also, compare early film experimentation with motion and time:

Muybridge. Plate 163, with keywords “Male, Jumping; standing broad jump (shoes),” model is Percy C. Madeira (1862-1942). The black and white grids used to track movement are visible on the top two panels. (Image: University of Pennsylvania Archives).

 

^ Image series shows ‘capture’ potential of photography. Motion is frozen. “Space in between” is muted but present

Compare with Hollis Frampton’s 1969 film, Lemon, showing the slow movement of light over a single object:

^ use of light, time and object is both predictable and illusory 

Potential origin points for linear work (arrows my own):

Ed Fornieles. Dinosaurs & Strange Creatures with Mr. Know-it-Owl, 2021
Large format inkjet print on semi gloss photographic paper, mount board with multi aperture windows
18.5 x 93.5 x 4 cm

 

Ed Fornieles. Man Eating Pumpkins? Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Theory, 2021
Large format inkjet print on semi gloss photographic paper, mount board with multi aperture windows
53 x 62.5 x 4 cm

^ Example of ‘looped’ associations series 

 

Ed Fornieles, The Loop, 2021
Large format inkjet print on matte photographic paper mounted on aluminum
41 x 30.5 cm

 

Looped-Stage Capitalism

Garfield situates the 1970s punk filmmakers within a disillusioned state and “disenfranchised world” (Garfield) e.g. shrinking social care in Britain: 

“The claim from the No Wavers was that of the end of belief in the project of social mobility and its corollary of art as an edifying and transformative cipher.” (Garfield)

-> failures of the Left (France 1970s), successes of the Right (rise of Neoliberalism 1980s; deregulation (Thatcherite Britain; Reagan’s America)) —> no hope 

 

->  ‘Late-Stage Capitalism’ – ‘zombie-ing’ effects of images and social media (technology)

 

-> irony of phrase suggesting linear trajectory of Capitalism in its ‘later’ stage as opposed to continuously enveloping political, social, labour worlds, etc.

– > 2009 Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism 

 

Displays & Circulation of Ed Fornieles’ Associations

As such, the grid has done its job with striking efficiency. The barrier it has lowered between the arts of vision and those of language has been almost totally successful in walling the visual arts into a realm of exclusive visuality and defending them against the intrusion of speech. 

– Rosalind Krauss, Grids (1979)


See Rosalind Krauss’s 1979 essay,
Grids, in relation to Modernism’s use of the grid as simultaneously functioning as pure materiality and myth: 

https://culturescontexts.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/krauss-grids.pdf 

 

Ed Fornieles, Associations, 2021, Installation View. Carlos/Ishikawa, London. 

Associations, 2021, @eddfornieles Instagram. 04/06/21

^^^ Note that above we can see two separate presentations of Fornieles’ Associations series:

Associations – Instagram carousel post from Fornieles’ account: 

Associations scrolling post @eddfornieles Instagram. 04/11/21. 

 

Linguistic Breakdown
REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE / PHOTO (REAL) / DIRECTION: RIGHT -> 2. PUPPET (REAL/UNREAL) / FACIAL EXPRESSION / PHOTO (REAL) / DIRECTION: FRONT -> 3. CARTOON (UNREAL) / FACIAL EXPRESSION / THE SCREAM (CULTURAL ASSOCIATION) [REFERENCE MERGE DIGITAL IMAGE: ART (MUNCH) / POP CULTURE (SIMPSONS) / DIRECTION: FRONT; RIGHT -> 4. DIGITAL IMAGE (UNREAL) / FACIAL EXPRESSION / THE SCREAM (CULTURAL ASSOCIATION) [REFERENCE MERGE: ART (MUNCH) / POP CULTURE (WOLVERINE) / DIRECTION: FRONT -> 5. PHOTO / DIGITAL IMAGE (REAL / UNREAL) / POP CULTURE (WOLVERINE) / DIRECTION: FRONT; RIGHT -> 6. PRODUCT (REAL; MATERIAL) / SOFTWARE (UNREAL;IMMATERIAL) / IMAGE/TEXT ASSOCIATION: “X-MEN” / MASS CULTURE (APPLE) / DIRECTION: RIGHT -> 7. IMAGE ISOLATION / RENDER (UNREAL) / MASS CULTURE (LOGO; REAL) / DIRECTION: FRONT/RIGHT -> 8. APPLE (REAL) / MOUTH (REAL/UNREAL) [MERGE] / FACIAL EXPRESSION / DIRECTION: RIGHT -> 9. CARTOON (UNREAL) / FACIAL EXPRESSION / DIRECTION: FRONT

 

...Show All Tags
... And Couting @badgaltranny 2018 Guangzhou Triennial 2020 abolition activism advertising aesthetics Aesthetics & Politics Aesthetics and politics affect Afro-Futurism afropessimism agonism ai AI art Aidrley Queiros Aimee Bahng algorithmic bias alt-right alum alumni American history American Mythologies anarcha-feminism Anarchafeminism Anarchism anders engberg pedersen andrea fontenot Andy Warhol animal studies anime Anthropocene anti-abortion anti-blackness Antiaesthetics apocalypse aporetic argentina aria dean Armor art Art Critic Art History Art prompt artificial intelligence Asia asian american art Asian Art Asian Futurity assembly associations aural authoritarianism auto-fiction automation Beijing Being Human beluga Biswas Mellamphy Black lives matter black out black studies black study Blackness Blm blockchain Blondie body Boots Riley borderlands Branco Sai Preto Fica Brasil bratich Bridget Crone Bring springer CalArts California Institute of the Arts calvin l. warren calvin warren Capital capital is dead capitalism carceral tech carceral technologies carceral technology care Carlos Villa cars CBGB CCM Censorship Charity Chiara Bottici china Chinese Art chinese philosophy Christian Dior Christopher Kulendran Thomas chronology cia cinema citizneship class Claude Monet collective Colombia Coloniality comics Community computer science Contemporary Art Contemporary Chinese Art content moderation control coronavirus Cosmetics covid Covid-19 creaturely criminal justice Crisis Criticism Critique crypto Cuba Cuba Revolution Cuban Art culture curation Dance Daniela Lieja Quintanar data data collection data sourcing Debbie Harry decoloniality Denise Ferreira da Silva Dennis Cooper desire Deway-Hagbord Diaspora dictee digital digital art digital culture Digital Media digital tools diversity Documentation Donna Haraway Doris Salcedo DOXA drag Drag King drag name drifting drones ecological ecology Ed Fornieles Édouard Glissant Eminem emory Empathy exhibition experimental experimental film experimentalpublication exploitation extinction facial hair fallout Fascism fash-wave fashion fbi feminism fiction film flicker fluxus foreign labor foucault franco barchiesi Frank O'Hara FREEPLAY Futura 2000 gabriel rockhill gas Gean Moreno gender geography Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari Gloria Anzaldua Grebowicz Halston Hannah Arendt Hauntology Havana Hereafter Hermeneutics hip hop hipsters Hiroshi Fujiwara historicism HIV/AIDS horror human Human rights hypebeasts hyper-masculinity identity im here to learn so :)))))) image theory impressionism individuation industrial revolution industrialization infrapolitics Infrastructure Instagram Installation Intelligence Gathering Intelligence Led Policing Intergalactix internet internet of things INTERPRETATION intersectionality intimacy Invisible Hand irony j kameron carter Jaar jack bratich Jack Burnham Jazz Jean-François Lyotard Jemima Wyman Jennifer Ponce de Leon John-Michael Rivera Judith Butler Julian Stallabrass Kara Keeling Karina Alma kathy acker Kettling Khademi kinging koreanamericanliterature Kubra Khademi LA LA RIver lapd LARPing larval warfare Larvas Warfare LATERAL Latin America Latin-America Latino American Latinx Studies Latipa Laurie Anderson Les Immatériaux exhibition libidinal Line Dance linette park Lisa Nakamura Los Angeles Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions loss Louis Vuitton Luciana Parisi Mahakali Manuel Shartzberg Marc Jacobs Marianne Hirsh marketing martial aesthetics Marvel marxism masculinity matias viegener Maurice Merleau-Ponty mckenzie wark Medea media theory mediocre war novels Mellamphy memory metaphysics METHOD metic Mètis MGMT mimesis Misael Oquendo montage mourning Mudd Club museum Music Nan Z. Da Nandita Biswas Mellamphy Necro-Politics Necropolitics net art NFT nicholas mirzeoff Nike niunamenos noc non-fungible tokens nonhuman nylan October ontological terror ontology packers paint tube painting panopticism Parametricism Patrik Schumacher Paul Preciado Performance persuasion Peru Pettman phantasmagoria photography pleasure plurality Poetics poetry poiesis police police state police training politics pop music popular culture Pose post-human post-millennial Postmemory Predictive Policing PrEP prison abolition psychology punk QUANTITATIVE quarantine queer queer calculus queer media Queer Theory questions ra judy Race race and racialization Rachel Garfield Racial Empathy rationality READING Real Abstraction reality reductionism resistance Revolution rhizome Rihanna Robot Skin Ronak Kapadia Rosalind Krauss RuPaul Ryan Murphy Sarah T. Roberts sci-fi Science Fiction screenshot Sculpture sentient flesh SHAKESPEARE ShanaL Redmond skin Skoghall Konsthall smart cities smart city sneakers social media Socialism sociology Soft Science Fiction Software exhibition solitude sonic sonic voice sound space spatial justice spectacle and counter spectacle Speculative Fiction speed Spin spirituality Sri Lankan civil war Stephen Sprouse Stop LAPD Spying Coalition structural film structuralism STRUCTURE student repression subcultures suggestion superheroes Surveillance survival Susan Buck-Morss Swarm Intelligence syllabus systems analysis systems art Systems Esthetics T5311 Taylor Swift techno-orientalism temporality Teresa Margolles terror TEXT The Aesthetics of Net Art the archive The Body the disappointment the imaginal The Modular Body The Postmodern Condition the refrain the sky opened up with answers the tiller girls The Zapatistas Theorist in Residence theory theresahakkyungcha Thierry de Duve Thor thought experiments TikTok time Tomás Esson trans fem aesthetics trans literature Transindividual transindividuality trauma Undocumented UNDOCUMENTS Urban Space Victoria Ivanova Video Art video essay vignette virality Virtual Reality visibility visual activism visual categories visual culture Visual Studies Visuality voice VR wafaa bilal war war on terror War on Youth whale WHAP Womanhood Yiyun Li Zac's Haunted House Zach Blas Zinzi Minott

Other posts by this author