4.4.2011
I am working as a researcher at the School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Finland, preparing my Doctor's degree. I am part of The Doctoral School of Communication Studies CORE, that funds my research. I will be defending my thesis early/mid 2012.
Abstract for my research project
Documentary created together
− The reception and signifying practices of post-documentary photography which focuses on issues of violence
Basis of the research
Not much is known about the reception of photographic art. Even though there is a great number of theories about meaning-making, empirical research on reception of photographic art is nearly non-existing.
Within my ongoing PhD research I am focusing to the reception on documentary photographic art. I am asking whether certain photographic artworks and the ways they are received and interpreted by the audience can be studied from broader communicative perspective -- can artworks be considered as contact points for the artist and the viewer? From its groundings communicative perspective assumes that if there is communication happening at all, there needs to be something the “sender” and the “receiver” shares.
My Ph.D. project is built on of two 'parts': artistic production and empirical reception study. Firstly, what it comes to artistic work, it consists of three different bodies of work. First one is Battered (exhibited for the first time 2007). It looks to the banal street violence in Finland. Second one is Playing Belfast (2009), which focuses on children in post-conflict Belfast. Third one Notes on Finnish gun culture (2010). It is a multiperspective narrative on gun culture in Finland.
Secondly, as a reception study, I am focusing to audience engagement and the meanings the actual vievers are giving to the artworks at the gallery and museum context. Along with the three above mentioned bodies of work I am conducting the research also with my Prison sheets series (2005). So far pictures from these series have been exhibited in 39 exhibitions in 14 countries. Reception study is conducted within 12 exhibitions (11 solo, 1 group).
Research questions
Following this dual layout in my research project, artistic work + empirical reception study, first research question in my reception study is what kind of interpretations viewers make and what kind of meanings they give to the artworks they engage with.
Secondly I ask how do the artist’s and viewer’s perspectives to the artworks and significations relate to each other. Within this I ponder what are the differences in interpretations and how can they be explained.
With these questions I wish to bring fertile approaches to the field of research of art. Although communication perspective is not absent there, very little is known about how the artist’s and the audience’s significations relate to each other.
Third question arises from the two previous ones. Since all the four series deal with actual incidents and issues −− that is their thematics focus on societal issues −− from documentary perspective, therefore it is relevant to ponder how viewers understand this real life connection. In other words I am asking what is documentary and how it is constructed when asked form the actual viewers.
This question leads to extended conceptualization of documentary. Within my research I am developing a concepts such as documentary gaze / desire for documentary.
Research methodology and theoretical perspectives
My theoretical approach is based on communication theories, but the perspective is not tied to classical transmission model, nor it is purely following Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model. I rather develop a communication model that is a combination of transmission, semiotic and ritualistic perspectives freshened up with an input from content-based approach to experiencing visual art and genre theories. Research viewpoint then connects to the cultural studies and reception studies approach.
I am conducting the reception study in gallery surroundings during the exhibitions and with the artworks that are made by myself. The study, then, is namely done within an institutional settings. Under analysis there are 318 questionnairies, 13 semi structured interviews and 31 freely written descriptions.
The fact that the researcher is at the same time the author of the images under the research, problematizes the classical approach where the researcher distances her or himself from the topic. Within this study both the author’s and viewer’s subjectivity is at the same time revealed and probed.
Main tentative findings
Preliminary findings suggest that the author’s and viewer’s perspectives and significations on the exhibitions in question clearly relate well to each other. It seems so that the artist’s understanding on his own work and the viewers’ interpretation/reading are very close to each other, and that the viewers are quite interested in about the author’s perspectives and intentions.
Following this I consider the photographic artworks as contact points, places where the author and the viewer meet each other.
What it comes to the 'documentary gaze', it arises from the viewer's urge to understand the photographic artworks. Within this gaze the viewer leans on to the pronounced features of the picture, connecting her/his observations to the preliminary knowledge she/he has. Along this line, the viewer gives meanings to the artwork in relation to her/his historical knowledge. This means that when encountering the artwork the viewer connects the work to her/his previous experiences. This leads to 'streched' experience. Which on its behalf is both time related and also inbuilt to structures of cognitive processes.
Altogether I have discovered 13 different looks / gazes the viewer uses when observing the documentary artworks which look into issues of violence. In the final written report these gazes will be carefully explicated and considered.