In search of a utopia

It is easy to consider photography as a medium that captures reality, but in fact the image in a photograph is quite different from the reality. The artist’s gaze captures a particular scene, and the finger instinctively presses the shutter. The moment a photograph is taken as such, the scene captured in the frame detaches itself from reality. In Le Photographique, Rosalind Krauss (b. 1941) considered framing to be the equivalent of a tear. The photographer’s act of pressing the shutter is an act of tearing the image out from the scene outside the frame, and from this point on the image constitutes another world, separated from the continuous world of reality.

The image of reveling in the beauty of nature and basking in the blazing sun on a European beach is a scene of a paradise that the artist yearns for. Although the image is set in a real place, the artist cannot experience this utopia because she is a mere stranger with limited time, a laborer who must work on the photograph. Even so, the artist cuts this utopian image out of reality with the hope of finding her own paradise. As a result, she creates an image filled with intense and radiant colors, resembling a painting. Although I have not seen the landscape with my own eyes, I am convinced that it will not be as shimmering as this work.

Just as I was looking into the utopia filled with bright and beautiful colors—just like in Wes Anderson’s films—I stumble upon the sudden presence of a red rubber ball. I begin to doubt whether this utopia expressed by the artist is truly built upon light in the first place. If this image were a person’s face, I begin to doubt whether the bright smile can be taken at face value. I become curious about the narrative hidden behind this radiant image.

The tenacious path of youth

The red rubber ball, which adds an even more unrealistic tension to the already unrealistic landscape, is precisely the image of the artist Hannaz herself: an alien existence in search of a utopia, but unable to find comfort or blend into the landscape. She fails to become a member of the utopia and remains an intruder who has jumped in from the outside.

The rubber ball desires stability and seeks a place to settle, but ironically, it is this anxiety that drives the ball to keep moving. With the hope that where she arrives will be her utopia, the artist cuts the image and finds the energy of life. But fantasy is not eternal. When the fantasies to be cut out are exhausted, the rubber ball bounces back up, using anxiety as a springboard. This angst-ridden desire to always be moving somewhere and transforming oneself accordingly, the need to constantly reassure oneself that one is alive, is what the passion of youth is all about. The path of the rubber ball resembles the path of youth.

On this path, one may seek unreachable stability, but will never settle down. Stability and settling down are similar and yet different. While stability means “finding one’s safe and firm ground,” settling down means “finding a place to live a comfortable life.” One can settle down and still not find stability, but finding stability easily leads one to settle down. However, these images that lack stability also do not easily find a way to settle down.

A rubber ball that always bounces up when it hits something is an existence that can hardly settle down in one place. Its thin skin—easily torn or burst—adds another layer of anxiety. At the same time, its advantage is that it can be easily replaced it with a new one. You can simply buy a new ball when you arrive at a new place. This light and fast-moving ball is always reborn, wandering like a nomad. The desire of the rubber ball is not to become a tool of destruction, but a driving force for creation and generation.

If so, what is it that we see here? In his book L’acte Photographique, Philippe Dubois. (b. 1950) claims that photography is like an action. The photograph before our eyes embodies all the elements that made its existence possible: the act of finding a beach that resembles utopia and moving there, looking at it, capturing the scene, pressing the shutter and thereby cutting out the frame, throwing a rubber ball in the air and running to take a photo of it, the circumstances at that time, and the emotions of the photographer. Yes, to look at a photograph is to experience this lump of time.

Between the sparkles of light, a journey struggling to affirm life reveals itself. The faint sensations left in the artist’s body—an unfamiliar experience in an unfamiliar space, the humidity or temperature of the air that touched the skin—are the traces of youth struggling between anxiety and stability. Somewhere between these tensions lies the path of youth longing for utopia.

Nevertheless, light

Perhaps one finds stronger vitality in a cactus growing in a barren land than in a flower planted in a neatly trimmed garden, because the cactus has the power to persevere in adverse conditions. Hannaz continues her persistent search for a utopia. Her photographs are “images in action,” encompassing the act of traveling the path of youth and capturing scenes along the way. It must have been a strenuous journey, but bad memories quickly evaporate through the light movements of the rubber ball. The memories that have passed through the artist are transformed into concentrated energy of life and remain on the surface of the image as bright shining sunlight. The image whispers, “Whatever lurks behind, I will gather the brightest light and present it to you. I hope these images invite you to dream, to bounce back, and to find the energy of life.”

Under a clear blue sky, ripples shine, and the cactus grows as if dancing. The rubber ball, still not quite settled, wanders around the cactus. It’s hard to tell which direction the ball will bounce; it could plunge into the water or be popped by the thorns of the cactus. Tension seeps in. A transformation is about to take place. Perhaps it has already gone through several transformations. These images assert that the current status is not a given. It carries a certain dynamic of plunging in again and again, finding a new vision and running towards it, or searching for a better place, a place where I truly belong. It carries the tenacity of not giving up even when the discovery reveals itself as nothing but a mirage.

I reflect once more about what it means “to find one’s safe and firm ground.” If life is a dialectic process of finding balance and then breaking it again, the movement of bouncing up and reaffirming one’s aliveness embodies the very meaning of life. Perhaps we could call this stability. Stability is not a taxidermied life, but the self-assurance one gives to one’s existence, gained through a generative process of moving from one place to another.

The images are here, and yet they are moving again to another place. Wherever they land, light shines over them. Perhaps the sunlight is nothing new, but the light gathered in the image is not to be taken for granted. Behind the image is a narrative that the artist has passed through time and experience. And yet, before our eyes, the overflowing energy of life still shines like a smile. This is precisely the final ingredient, the “nevertheless.”

Kim Jiyeon (Art Critic) bloom_ing@naver.com