When I started to think about “what is an artefact?”, I questioned “Is a photo an artefact?” , “Is the object in the photo an artefact?” and “ What’s the value of photography? ”. These questions were asked during whole project process. Then I was truly stuck after asking these questions.
Before choosing an object, I was stuck on patterns and looked for some daily objects which make patterns. But that didn’t make me go forward with this project.
Later, I chose one photograph by Tim Walker.
This photo took my interest to discover is it the real shadow?
Then I kept searching some books like Beauty in photography , the art of photography to find the definition of photography.
When I read No. 12 in Record by Daido Moriyama, a Japanese photographer. I got more definitions from him.
“ A realist is not someone who produces a copy of a natural object, but someone who take an existing copy and copies it again. This definition comes from Roland Barthes. I completely sympathize with his idea, as, in addition to copying the outside world, I keep copying those copies, and then the copies of those copies. And while I’m at it, I even copy my own image. ” .
“It goes without saying that every photograph is a copy of reality and a fake depiction of the world that incorporates ideas of reality and actuality. Henri Bergson once said something along the lines of ‘the whole world has already been depicted down to the last inch’. From the perspective of my daily routine with a camera, I would second that claim. The infinity recorded by camera is, of course, a Möbius strip. The eyes of countless human being have, in fact, been observing and depicting the world, continuously and interminably producing a copy of it since prehistoric times. This process, totally devoid of originality, is exactly where the single strength of photography lies.”.
After these words, I roughly knew the value of photography is not creating something new, but using our own thought to record the world.
I wondered to explore “is shadow real or virtual?” and I searched shadows everywhere then took a series of photos around the shadow, named “Uncertain Reality ”. It is interesting to say some of the photos show that you can’t tell which is the shadow and which is the real person.
After these photos, I would keep think what the meaning of shadow for different countries. It would be a fairy tale, or a scary icon. Black and white colours usually let viewers bring more imaginations into artworks. I will keep to use light and shadow to develop the idea about reality and virtuality.
CHiNG 