You can see an online version of my Honours Thesis Starting Points and Destinations here: http://www.invisiblecity.org/essay/.
The thesis explores concepts of memory, travel, space and place, including musings on the operation of monuments, cities of the gigantic, and non-places such as airports. The thesis then examines photography as a tool to join fractured narritives and explorations.
A criticism I give it now is its fusion of two disperate ideas: "non-places" and "fractured memory" which I tried, somewhat unsucessfully, to argue as related concepts in relation to ideas of travel and spacial and placial awareness. I feel I had too much going on, and my photographs, instead of being a collection of different images highlighting and exploring these concepts, operated more in a reconnected narrative sense which was at times confusing.
I like the chapters individually where I concentrate on different ideas, places and actions, and then explain why I photograph them and how the act of photography itself as a participation in those... but I feel I fall down when I try to explain this idea of "rebuilding narratives". I should have really got rid of the entire reference to non-places, which would have given my argument a greater degree of synthesis.
Also I do not touch enough on the subjectivity of such processes in my essay, which was difficult because my images were so subjective. I think I tried to intellectualise my idea too much (I was trying to legitimise) where I should have been challanging, addressing and teasing out the subjectivity of my work a bit more.
Anyway, I love the ideas I addressed, and would love to expand on it in the future.
The thesis explores concepts of memory, travel, space and place, including musings on the operation of monuments, cities of the gigantic, and non-places such as airports. The thesis then examines photography as a tool to join fractured narritives and explorations.
A criticism I give it now is its fusion of two disperate ideas: "non-places" and "fractured memory" which I tried, somewhat unsucessfully, to argue as related concepts in relation to ideas of travel and spacial and placial awareness. I feel I had too much going on, and my photographs, instead of being a collection of different images highlighting and exploring these concepts, operated more in a reconnected narrative sense which was at times confusing.
I like the chapters individually where I concentrate on different ideas, places and actions, and then explain why I photograph them and how the act of photography itself as a participation in those... but I feel I fall down when I try to explain this idea of "rebuilding narratives". I should have really got rid of the entire reference to non-places, which would have given my argument a greater degree of synthesis.
Also I do not touch enough on the subjectivity of such processes in my essay, which was difficult because my images were so subjective. I think I tried to intellectualise my idea too much (I was trying to legitimise) where I should have been challanging, addressing and teasing out the subjectivity of my work a bit more.
Anyway, I love the ideas I addressed, and would love to expand on it in the future.
Labels: Honours thesis, memory, reflections
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