How We Evolved from Lego : Materiality & Photographic Practice
- Submitting institution
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University of Portsmouth
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 26322093
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Belfast
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
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- Year of production
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- How We Evolved From Lego considers how digital simulation in photography effectively unseats many of the former verities of the discipline, such as the photographer’s heroic role of being in the right place at the right time, and of the fortuitous, momentary image. Since digital capture is fundamentally different to analogue photography, and images can be made to resemble the latter without a real-world referent, what is its significance for contemporary image-making? Kolker used 3D modelling/rendering to examine this question, bringing objects into the studio for infrared or laser scanning, or fabricating them from basic geometric forms in digital space. The series uses both computer generation and analogue techniques to study various organic and inorganic forms, drawing upon the canon of early and scientifically oriented photographic history. These include views of Everest formed using Geographic Information System (GIS) data and rendered to resemble John Noel’s 1924 film Epic of Everest, cyanotypes of the sun and a primitive photosynthesizing organism, and a remodelling of suspended geometrical shapes after a 17th century still life painting by Sanchez Cotan.
The images in the series destabilize received ideas of representation in photography and play with conditions of the medium in order to expose them. ‘Lego’ is invoked because its perfect blocks influence children’s perceptions of objects and of how things might be constructed, while also invoking its representational evolution in the animated Lego Movie (2014) which used digital simulation for the analogue toy. The series was published and reviewed in a feature article in Source: Thinking Through Photography by Gavin Murphy in Spring 2019. A selection of works from the series was also published by the Lucie Foundation (https://www.luciefoundation.org/richardkolker-how-we-evolved-from-lego/#,
28 December 2019). Kolker has also disseminated this work in a series of artist’s talks in the UK and Japan.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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