193

Authors:

 Wright, Alexa.

Title:

 5 x SAMPLE IMAGES ATTACHED AS JPEGS

Keywords:

 BODY/SELF, PHANTOM LIMB, PHOTOGRAPHIC 'TRUTH', MYTH, BOUNDARY.

Abstract:

 Precious 2 (1995 - series of 7 - each 50 x 60cm); Geo 1 (amethyst) (1997 - series of 4 - each 65 x 75cm); After Image RD2; After Image GN2; After Image JN1 (1997 - series of 24 - each 56 x 75cm) - all C Type photographs.

The photograph, whether documentary, constructed or digitally manipulated, still holds a residue of authenticity; it therefore remains a powerful means of representing 'reality'. In parallel with scientific expansion of the boundaries of physical possibility, digital imaging technologies extend the possibilities of representation; tangibly and philosophically distrupting existing structures by which we define the authentic and the original: permitting a new photographic reality more akin to mythology than to a momentary reflection of light off a surface. A lecture using my own work to illustrate the potential of digital image manipulation to create a new photographic 'truth'. Incorporating a discussion of scientific notions of truth as quantifiable (the ability to see something as proof of its existence), and a suggestion that digital imaging takes us on to a pre-photographic era in which images may once more represent a mythological, rather than superficial, truth. Presentation of my collaborations with medical practitioners and discussion of various perceptions of the relationship between art & science, focusing on my own experiences. (Including a contribution from Dr Peter Halligan; Neuropsychologist & collaborator). The subject of my work for many years has been the relationship between self & body; investigating the influences of medical advancements and of technology on perceptions of the boundaries of the self. Notions of normality, completeness and closure are challenged in earlier work, where images of surgery show a literal breaking of the endless and total surface of the skin.
Autheniticity with regard to perceptions of self will be discussed specifically as the project AFTER IMAGE is presented. This work consists of 24 photographic images in which the phantom limbs of 8 amputees are represented + 8 text panels the amputees own descriptions of their phantoms. The work is intended to question which is the 'real' body: that experienced by the person with a (often differently shaped and painful) phantom limb, or that seen as ending at an amputated stump. (EXAMPLES ATTACHED).
Alexa Wright alexa@dircon.co.uk SENIOR LECTURER (P/T) IN FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLNSHIRE & HUMBERSIDE, HULL.is a visual artist currently working with digitally manipulated photography, and installation. Alexa has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad; particularly in Canada and the USA, and most recently at the Ataturk Cultural Centre in Istanbul. She has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre in Canada (fall '92 & '93), and at the Bemis Foundation in Nebraska. In 1995 Alexa was Artist in Residence in Electronic Imaging at Oxford Brookes University. She has taught at a number of Universities and art schools across the UK, and has lectured in a variety of contexts. In 1997 Alexa was commissioned by The Wellcome Trust to collaborate with two scientists to visualise the phantom limbs of amputees. In 1998 this work was exhibited at the Ruskin School in Oxford, Regina Art & Science Fair in Saskatchewan, and the ICA in London, where it won Imaginaria a major new digital art prize. This project has gained widespread publicity in UK and abroad, and will be the subject of a short BBC2 documentary. Alexa won the Digital Print Award in June 1998 with an earlier body of work, and has a St Hughs Foundation Award to support the development of her next project. Alexa's work will be included in the 1998 Kobal Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and in an exhibition at the Stedelijk
Museum in Amsterdam. Alexa has an essay and images in Desire by Design, published in November 1998 by IB Taurus, and is curator of Unclassified; an exhibition of photographic and digital art for Photo '98 Festival of Photography.