The kit breaks a full-face image up into component parts–hair, brows, eyes, nose, lips, chin-line with ears, and age lines, plus beard, hat, and glasses, if any.
It contains several dozen transparent slides picturing each of these components with
different types of contours, 500 slides in all
with five notches on the side for different placements of each feature.
Each slide is coded with a letter for the facial component illustrated and a figure for the particular configuration.
One of the advantages of the kit is the ease with which its coding permits a face to be recorded or transmitted to a distant location through
almost instantaneous assembly from another kit there.
A face is contained, for example, in the code message:
This film explores how participants respond to being photographed, how they comport for the camera, how they see themselves and how they express ideas of being seen.
The setting is a reconstruction of the grid system used in early anthropometric photography, which has been described by Elizabeth Edwards as: ‘the most overtly oppressive of photographic practices’. Anthropometry is the term used to describe the anthropological sub-discipline of the measurement of human anatomical difference.
These images, which have come to represent the intersection of anthropology and photography, were generated in the 19c as part of a colonial exercise in the classification of peoples of the world. In addition to measurements taken using callipers and weighing machines, photography was seen as an essential adjunct to this sub-discipline, which coincided with the with emergent European interest in images of the ‘exotic other’.
Malayan Male, photographed by J.Lamprey c. 1868-9
In Savages, the subjects were invited to stand or sit in front of the camera, while a continuous three-minute shot was recorded. They were free to do whatever they wished during that time. The pseudo-scientific setting removes all quotidian context and reveals nothing but the body of the subject, figures in space.
After each three minute take, the participants were given the opportunity to feed back their experience and describe whatever thoughts emerged during the process. Whilst experiencing photographic/visual tropes of objectification and classification, the participants articulated childhood memories, issues of identity, relationships with time, and reflections on the recording process itself.
Shooting Savages at ART Studio Manchester – Susan and Sabrina 02/06/13
Performance, identity and the photobooth.
An expedition into the world of photobooth art and a search for lost narratives.
The film celebrates the work of photobooth artist Mr Mixup, who has been using chemical photo-process analogue photobooths to create his work since 1979.
Yes, 1979.
Along with other significant figures on the UK photobooth scene, Kate Tyler, Mark Aldous and Alex Kokott, we encounter images made by a number of strangers. These lost, found or separated photostrips present mystery, enigma and speculation. The only thing we actually know about the people represented here is that they entered the booth, placed the requisite coins in the slot and waited for the flash…
All the music featured in the soundtrack is produced by Mixup with a variety of collaborators.
