everyday

Photographic Art
Surrealism – Defamiliarising the familiar

Introduction

“Reality is often unreal, what seems unreal is more real than real.”

Surrealism is a cultural as well as a political movement that began around 1920. It was influenced by Dada (anti-art for anti-war) and used the principal ideas of Andre Breton (anti-tradition). The prime ideal of surrealism is liberation of the unconscious mind or imagination. The unconscious mind can usually be found in the dreams we have during the night and day when everyday reality is unable to invade our thoughts. The majority of us are bound by tradition and not free thinking individuals. Surrealists wanted to confront this by using their work to attack political ideas and societies ‘rules’. They strived to bring about a ‘revolution’ to bring about freedom.

One of the main influences for this project was Ben Highmore’s essay “Unprocessed data: everyday life in the singular”. It prompts questions such as, what is the everyday? Why is it hidden? What makes something ordinary extraordinary and vice versa?
Everyday life is everything around us. What we eat, drink, breathe, use, watch, listen too, think about. The everyday is vast but a good platform for me start to thinking about what is included in my own everyday life, especially things that I do not take any notice of or give any real thought too.

I investigated the history of surrealism especially the Dada movement and the ideas of Andre Breton . The focus of both movements is to bring about some form of change in politics, behavior or society in general. At the time of the movement war was raging so a large proportion seems to have been dedicated to European politics. Using the ideas of Ben Highmore of looking at the everyday I looked into today’s major news headlines, which is where the primary idea or ‘surrealist attack’ of my project was to be found. Global warming is a huge issue, much more so than even ten years ago. It is tied up with consumerism, capitalism and poverty, which frequently ignite debate. It is a major issue that affects everybody on earth. Global warming causes droughts as well as floods, which affects the food chain especially crops. Starvation is a reality that many already face in the poorest countries like Africa. But what causes Global warming? Most argue its industrialized western nations and our consumerist culture – the disposable society.

I was unable to find any examples of photographic surrealism on global warming so I looked into different photographic styles primarily focusing on photographers who focus on the everyday and uncanny. Some used rotation or distortion. Dora Maar used a close-up technique to create what could be seen as repulsive into something appealing. Brassai also used this technique of creating a mundane, ordinary object into something extraordinary. The primary style of my project would use extreme close-up almost so the image looks distorted but also makes an everyday object seems extraordinary when viewed at an angle which it is not primarily viewed in.

Selecting objects to photograph in macro as well as the objects themselves having meaning was difficult but by using Ben Highmore’s as a reference I looked into what I use everyday which has a dual message against global warming. By paying particular attention to my everyday activities I managed to select a few items, which included carrier bags, food, drink, clothing, jewelry and stationary. When most of these items are bought they mostly came home in plastic carrier bags, the majority of which are not biodegradable and also create toxic fumes when they are produced. So it seemed a sensible approach to use something that signifies the culture in which I am ‘attacking’. Natural light would be used because I wanted to create a conflict of ‘natural’ versus ‘man-made’, which is the overall idea of the project.

For the Jewelry I used a necklace made of beads. The connotations that I wanted to make would hopefully highlight traditional modes of jewelry like beads and glass rather than silver, gold and even plastic. It also has signifies the traditional beaded jewelry made in Africa. A nation hit by frequent droughts and mass starvation. The second image was of a carrier bag. The white of the bag is much like clouds or fumes/vapors that are released into the atmosphere. There is a dark area of the photograph with a subtle highlight made to look like a baby still in the womb. This ‘cloud’ is enveloping the fetus, encroaching on it to suffocate. Which is a play on the warning printed on carrier bags to keep away from small children due to danger of suffocation. The carrier bag may cause suffocation in more ways than one. This is what the future holds for today’s children. The third photograph is of breadcrumbs on a plate. The plate is reflecting the crumbs, almost as if they were floating on water. The scarcity of food on this round plate signifies world hunger and drought. The plate originally has a brown hue to it. It seemed appropriate to signify dust and dirt due to crop failures but I changed all 3 photographs to grayscale due the popular way of black and white thinking, which is a term psychologists tend to use. It is an ‘all or nothing’ approach. The west has everything, wants everything and has become incredibly materialistic disregarding the consequences of their actions. The consequences being the slow destruction of the earth’s atmospheric balance. It again feeds into the ‘buy now, pay later’ mode of thought.

Conclusion

The images were effective in a surrealist approach of making everyday objects marvelous. It defamiliarises the found objects of the everyday and creates new ulterior meanings from them. Using surrealist techniques like magnifying and distorting enabled me to create meaning in the unfamiliar.
Researching and being creative with the techniques of the surrealists created political meaning, especially with the carrier bag. The ‘fetus’ is actually just a darkened part of the bag. The bag has meaning not just in a physical sense of carrying loads but also in a broader sense of what it contributes on a grander scale. It produces carbon emissions when made which suffocate physically but also suffocates the earth’s atmosphere. The plate’s meaning is the consequences of such actions, drought and famine. The beads are the first picture in this series of 3. It is about materialism too. We do not need jewelry. It is an accessory. When bought its usually in packaging. It signifies the human desire for wealth and frivolity.
The overall aim was not to create ‘art’ per say but to use the everyday to bring about change much like the dadist and later surrealist movement by unleashing the viewers imagination. They look but do not recognize so the imagination starts to come into play – the photographs are an imaginative playground with meaning.