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The Photolab is a new initiative created in the slipstream of the regular programming of Noorderlicht, which aims to bring new impulses in the field of photography by providing space for research and experiment. Case #3: Valérie Rouyer - Still Life
The skin is slimmed down by means of liposuction of the subcutaneous adipose tissue and can then rather simply be separated from the lower layer, the SMAS (Superficial Muscular Aponeurotic System).
With the series Still Life by Valérie Rouyer Noorderlicht PhotoLab focuses on the surrealistic reality of the mutable body. Rouyer photographed interventions by plastic surgeons in an uncompromising manner. The gory scenes refer rather to the crude work in an abattoir than to the painless and precise interventions that are presented to us by the plastic surgery industry.
Case # 2 - No ID On Wednesday, June 24 20:00h Photolab's case #2: No ID opens in the basement of the Noorderlicht Photogallery. Willem Popelier will be present to talk about his work. You are most welcome to attend! Case #2 - No ID deals with the violence and coercion involved in identification photography. The exhibition is the second part of a photographic investigation into the meanings of the photography of persons, in particular the identification photo.
The inertness that greets us in [...] Alphonse Bertillon's mug shots or Désiré Charnay's ethnographic forays in Madagascar survives to this day in passport photos and security cards. They are little icons within a monitor system, unrelated to the idea that a human may possess anything as intrusive and irrelevant as a soul. Official identification photos in fact have only one purpose: the recognition and identification of citizens as social entities. As objects, their status is more like that of a fingerprint than that of a photograph. There is no aesthetic promise behind them, no memories for the future, only pure functionality: the recognition of an individual on the basis of his or her unique facial characteristics. The identity photo is merely the predecessor of the DNA-profile and the iris scan: as soon as these technologies become more prevalent, the identity photo will perhaps become redundant. The origins of the identification photo are rooted in the traditions of physiognomy and anthropometry. These 19th century pseudo-sciences approached the outward features of the human face as objects of characterological or ethnographic analysis. The form of one's face could be fitted into an analytic model, on the basis of which one's disposition to certain (particularly criminal) conduct or one's ethnic origins could be determined and categorised. Ultimately today's identification photo is still all about the same control and anticipation, even though the illusion that we can determine someone's character on the basis of their appearance has largely been abandoned. The passport photo merely serves the immigration agent who at a glance must judge whether our identity is true or false. Rigid passport photo guidelines assure efficient processing of the long queues of travellers. It is therefore important that all details in the face are visible, so that nothing is missed. The format is sterile, the face set at "0" - expressionless. The new passport photos with their regulated compositions refer all the more strongly to the 'mug shots' of the 19th century scientists and police inspectors. They are non-aesthetic objects with the forbidding faces of people who know that they are being photographed in order to be controlled. Without a smile we all have the face of a potential criminal. We are suspect until we are proven innocent. It is easy to see today's identity photo as an icon for the mass society and anonymity. A government that desires uniformity in a million faces is driven by a proclivity for control and oversight over an ever-expanding civilian population. In this perspective the greatest fear and the greatest danger is the "Homo Anonymous": the person who slips through the mesh of the glass barriers of society and is designated a possible terrorist or cyber-criminal. The fear of this Homo Anonymous is the driving force behind every mass registration. It is ironic that identification photography is ultimately deeply at odds with the idea of personal identity. The identity photo is a conversion formula that abstracts our features into universal image proportions, creating a human species, a collection of a category, like butterflies in a cabinet, in which everything is presented uniformly precisely so that the differences in details stand out. In this way the categorical destroys the unique identity that each person would want to ascribe to him or herself.
Case # 1 - Lost and Found
In the first edition, Lost and Found, Photolab investigates identity and memory in personal photography, and the way in which we connect our histories with images which themselves are also transitory. If our personal photos represent memories, they are almost as frail as our memories themselves. This vulnerability can be manifested by doing damage to the physical bearer of the photo, which in the course of time fades or discolors, or even gets lost - an empty space in the album is the silent witness to an obliterating moment. But they are also vulnerable because of what they represent: if the link between personal memory and the photo is lost, there remains only a void. A family photo means almost nothing to an outsider. It is just one of countless millions.
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