This thesis explores the epistemological shift in my photographic practice from an ethnographic position to that of surrealist documentary. In charting this shift I have consider the use of documentary photography by the historical Surrealist movement ,and, the synthesis of surrealism and ethnography found in the English group Mass- Observation. The photograph’s oscillation between indexical record and mystical emanation forms a key position in understanding these two groups belief in the found images ability to describe a repressed reality located in the mass unconscious. Drawing on the Lacanian model of the Real used by Slavoj Zizek as a tool of cultural critique I suggest a new framework for a surrealist documentary practice. In bringing the methodology of the early Surrealists into a contemporary context I consider the position of suburbia as a new terrain vague in relationship to the fantasy of the Real.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235202 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Lake, John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds