(fig 1) Rhiannon Adam. Dreamlands Wastelands 2014 During my memory of place project, I began to research ways to convey nostalgia. Part of this research took me to the aesthetics of analogue media (notably photographs and home cine film). I wanted to try and identify the colour palettes which conjured up nostalgia, and also discover why this might be so. I looked at my own family photographs and films, and I trawled instagram and pinterest looking for old polaroids and Kodachrome photographs. I found that the colours were a reflection of the chemical deterioration and exposure to light, and that this was dependant on the type of film, how it was processed and how it has been kept. Polaroids are particularly sensitive to light and air pollution, and will crack, fade and discolour (they shouldn’t be stored with other photographs or be exposed to a maximum light of 40 candles!)(Wilker 2004: 5). Photographs can have a yellow/ orange cast, or blue, the colours can fade uniformly or have a high contrast, with some colours more unstable than others. Why are these old photographs so emotive? It’s not just the subject matter, but the materiality of them which is so appealing. Over the last 30 years there has been a massive acceleration in the development of new media technology, and the more this has advanced, the more nostalgia there is for technology of the past (Shrey 2014 p27). It seems that the aesthetic materiality of an old film, record, postcard, is very desirable today. These things show their age, and each time they are used and handled, they decay even more. The marks of deterioration are signs of someone else having appreciated the media. Robnik calls these ‘textual ruins’ (Robnik 2005 p.59), and mimicking a textual ruin is a common enough aesthetic approach (just Google ‘distressed effect’ ). When this is duplicated, it connotes this history, pleasure and connection to the past, when it doesn’t actually exist. Rhiannon Adam is a photographer who explores the aesthetic of deterioration as a symbol of memory and nostalgia for childhood. Rhiannon spent most of her childhood living on a boat at sea. Her photographs in this series 'Dreamlands Wastelands' explore a 'rose tinted' view of a British holiday(fig 1). Colour palettes: Old photographs and postcards In addition to this research, I was also curious about the popularity of Instagram filters, many of which, replicate the 'vintage' aesthetic of old photographs. There are plenty of studies into the subject, Instagram is just one of many apps which aim to recreate analogue film processes, for example Retrocamera, Camerabag,and Hipstamatic. In one such study,' Pictures or it didn't happen', Gant suggests that the addition of an aging filter gives a materiality and authenticity to an otherwise transient collection of data.The idea is that because the faked accidental light leaks and deterioration are not accidental, the subject becomes twofold, the thing that is being photographed, and the photographic process itself (Chopra Gant 2016). He also makes an interesting observation that most social media photographers are younger than the technology they are emulating. He draws the conclusion that real or personal memories aren't the goal, but rather an aura of the past, a general rose tinted, 'wasn't it better then' feeling of the past. CHOPRA GANT, M. (2016). 'Pictures or it didn't happen:Photonostalgia, Iphoneography and the representation of everyday life' Photography and Culture.[online]. Vol 9 (2) p121-133.Available at:
://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17514517.2016.1203632?scroll=top&needAccess=true [Accessed 8 December 2016] ROBNIK, D. (2005) Mass memories of movies: Cinephilia as norm and narrative in Blockbuster culture. In DE VALK, M. and HAGENER, M (eds). Cinephilia, movies, love and memory ) [online] Amsterdam. Amsterdam University Press. Available at: http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=340201 [Accessed 8 December 2016] SCHREY, D (2014). Analogue nostalgia and the aesthetics of digital remediation. In: NIEMEYER, K. (Ed). In Media and nostalgia, yearning for the past, present and future. [online]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dominik_Schrey2/publication/287508471_Analogue_Nostalgia_and_the_Aesthetics_of_Digital_Remediation/links/56775b5a08ae0ad265c5b79d.pdf [Accessed 6 November 2016] WILKER,A (2004). The composition and preservation of instant films [online]. Available at: https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~cochinea/pdfs/a-wilker-04-instantfilm.pdf {Accessed 7 December 2016] Comments are closed.
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