Documentary as Post-Conceptual Art

Introduction

Documentary film has been brought to the eyes of the public for just under a century. The idea of recording anthropological life became extremely popular through different styles of the medium, such as City Symphony Films, Newsreel tradition and Cinéma-vérité

The lack of continuity and changes in movements within documentary film is one of the reasons as to why it has gained so much popularity, there is so many styles for people to adopt; this along with advances in technology and ideas is why documentary film has slipped through the cracks into the open arms of contemporary art, and yet in many ways it is still underappreciated as an art form in it’s on terms, and often put into the subgenre of Film Art.

Throughout this essay I will be discussing the importance of post-conceptual documentary film within contemporary art, as I believe the best way for us to understand documentary film as contemporary art, is by understanding this type of documentary. I am going to critically engage with historic and contemporary documentary filmmakers and photographers and pinpointing where documentary film starts to overlap with post-conceptual art by differentiating Modernist Documentary Art and Avant-garde documentary art.

I am also going to break down what a documentary film is; an archive of memory, history and time, shown only through the eyes of the filmmaker or artist, to articulate an idea that has political or social significance in order to rupture the temporality of a subject. To do this I will be engaging with theories on time, memory and history by renown thinkers and philosophers, as I believe contextualising what I am doing with these theories will benefit my own practice and give me foundation of understanding, as I know that to understand any piece of art, we must understand how and why it exists.

I will then go on to critically analysing the work of Luke Fowler, a post-conceptual filmmaker and artist who has deeply inspired my ideas about filmmaking, his work and ways of creating has inspired the way I am contextualising my art practice.

My final chapter is about my art practice with documentary filmmaking in relation to theory and practical understanding of the medium. I am going to be breaking down my subject matter of the working-class family and its relation to film, citing ideas from artists and theorists that have helped develop and contextualize my work, I believe the best way I can give documentary film a place in contemporary art is by personally reflecting of the medium as a post-conceptual artist.

Chapter 1

What is Post-conceptual documentary art?

I’m going to start with writing about one of Walter Benjamin’s theories from ‘in the age of mechanical reproduction’. Benjamin responds to the question; “How does the cameraman compare to the painter?” He states; “The surgeon represents the polar-opposite of the magician. The magician heals a sick person by laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient’s body. The magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself; though he reduces it very slightly by the laying on of hands, he greatly increases it by virtue

of his authority. The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the petitions body.”- Benjamin, In the age of mechanical reproduction (Page 13, Part XI) Benjamin is stating that a camera allows the artist to penetrate life and flow into life, the mechanical technology of a camera allows us to capture an image completely, when this becomes film you are capturing fragments of life. Post-conceptual documentary art wants to turn artistic production into a form of information. When we can penetrate life with a camera and capture events, we can say we are already starting to create post-conceptual documentary art, however this isn’t always the case. When understanding documentary as post-conceptual art

we must understand the difference between modernist documentary style and Avant-Garde documentary style, because when documentary becomes Avant-garde it can then become post-conceptual art. For example; filmmaker, Dziga Vertov explored a form of film making called Kino Pravda or ‘film truth’ in the early 1900’s, with the idea of capturing authentic life and editing it in a way to form a meaning. These films became constructed realities or a representation of real life in the Soviet Union. Vertov’s ‘Kino eye’ is an Avant-garde documentary which captures the day to day lives of people in the Soviet Union. The work is a direct penetration of the camera into the field of life. There is no particular narrative but clips poetically edited together for the audience to develop their own interpretations from. Our focus as the audience is the subjects within the film, this is an important factor when understanding if a documentary is Avant-Garde. Compared to Modernist documentary art where the work becomes a reflection of the artist, the authorial and aura of the artist is embedded into every photograph or clip.

"Dziga Vetov, Still taken from Kino Eye (1924)"

To break this down I am going to briefly analyse the work of Walker Evans, a Modernist documentary photographer and compare his work to that of Allan Sekula, an Avant-Garde documentary photographer. Walker Evans explored ‘documentary style’ through his photography, He was administrated to document the effects of the Great Depression on working-class farmers by the ‘Farm Security Administration’, which was an agency created in 1937 with the idea of combatting poverty in rural America at the time.

Evans is one of the first artists to establish the connection between documentary and art, however he doesn’t see them as just raw information like the way you would understand a document, he categorises it as art through ‘documentary-style’. He sets up and stages the subject he is photographing, he carefully chooses who he wants in his photograph to represent the working class By doing this he is only capturing his own vision of the working class, which can never go on to represent the working class of the great depression.

"Walker Evans, “Portrait of a Sharecropping Family in Alabama" (1936)"

American Photographer Allan Sekula’s photographed ‘Untitled slide sequence’ which Captures people leaving a factory after their shift. This work is completely concept based because the hand of the artist is removed, the camera is set to shoot at certain times, continuously facing one angle. Sekula does this in a way that opens his work up to interpretation, which is what we see in Avant-Garde documentary film.

When thinking about documentary as post-conceptual art we need to think of its possibilities and conceptuality as a document, however we must not forget the reasons as to why Sekula had the idea to take the images like he did. He used the technique to capture the real side of the working class. Sekula is as Walter Benjamin would call, a ‘surgeon’, ‘cutting into the body’, cutting into life, thus creating a document that can be used in the future, unlike Walker Evans, the ‘Magician’, beautifully composing each image through his own artistic vision, these photographs could never become useful as documents, they are simply photographs depicting a minority of the working-class.

"Allan Sekula. Untitled Slide Sequence. 1972"

Documentary art as post-conceptual art must be Avant-Garde documentary, but how can this be achieved currently in the world of contemporary art? John Roberts claims in ‘Revolutionary times and the Avant-Garde’ that; ‘Art liberated itself from the constraints of craft-specificity in order to place itself within the advance technical relations of the epoch (Photography, film, mass- production)’.- Roberts, Revolutionary times and the Avant-Garde The liberation has left techniques open to explore the complexity of what an art form can be; documentary film and its reference to the exhibition has been explored in many different ways, such as multi-screen installations, that are only possible due to the progression of technology within post-conceptual practise. Jane and Louise Wilson are an quintessential example for the progression of technology within post-conceptual practise because of their use of multi-screen film installation to show their documentary film based work. ‘A free and Anonymous Monument’ was a piece of work co-commissioned by BALTIC and Film and Video Umbrella, the artists from Newcastle came back to the North east to film the industrial areas that had undergone regeneration, they filmed many different parts of the area, from architectural structures of oil rigs which aesthetically created a geometric and abstract pieces of film, to filming children playing and climbing on the walls of an industrial building which captures the humanist and emotional side of the regenerated areas.

The films were curated into an ambitious multiscreen installation, which the audience could walk through and become immersed with the film. The lack of complete narrative and the use of aesthetical imagery created a style of documentary that was immediate and gripping and that the audience could view in many ways to create different interpretations of the subject. This work has really developed the way my own work is displayed, the idea of my work taking up space is extremely important, especially because of the content, the working class, overlooked because our government is made up mostly of people from very privileged backgrounds, power is held by a small number of people, who create injustices and overlook the working-class or poorer class, so the idea that these films can take space and take the audience’s attention is an interesting juxtaposition. The artists are challenging art-life separation and constructing life on the basis art. Their camera’s like Vertov’s are penetrating life, however due to the progression of technology they can create work that can represent life. Life is extremely dynamic, multifaceted and fragmented, and what do we get from life? Memories, when we think of a memory we do not think of a single image. We formulate memories from different moments and then create interpretations from them. Every time we try to think about a certain memory we do not visualize the same one every time, that is because life is fragmented, the same way multiscreen film installations are fragmented, this allows the audience to ambiguously connect with each film in any way they want, to create their own interpretation.

"Jane and Louise Wilson: ‘A Free and Anonymous Monument’ 13 Channel Video, 2003"

To break down this first chapter, we so far know that for documentary art to be post-conceptual art it must be Avant-Garde. We have concluded that life is dynamic, made of multiple layers of memory and interpretation, the only way we can capture this is by letting our cameras penetrate life with no restraints. Life can never be shown through a singular, staged image like Walker Evans’ photography. We must let life flow into the cameras with no artistic vision, like Vertov’s films and Sekula’s Photographs. We have also identified how Post-conceptual documentary film has progressed through technology and ideas to create contemporary art using multi screen documentary. This has showed us how post-conceptual documentary today can capture the idea of life being dynamic, multi-faceted and fragmented.

Chapter 2

What is documentary?

In my previous chapter we explored what visually makes a documentary film post-conceptual, In this chapter I am exploring what ‘documentary’ is by understanding how memory, history and time informs it, I am engaging with major positions in the theories and philosophies about these subjects and linking them back to post-conceptual documentary film. Documentary film is a valid medium to contemporary art, so we need to understand exactly what it is and why it exists, by achieving this we get an idea as to why artists use documentary material in pursuit of truth within their conceptual practice. Documentary film explores the exposing of testimony in which we can make assumptions from, meaning whatever is in a documentary should be real, however it will inevitably be one perspective of a subject and is always open to interpretation.

I have been interested in Philosopher, Paul Ricoeur and his theories in ‘Memory, History, Forgetting’, The reason Ricoeur is important to my research is because his work has made the connection between phenomenology meaning the study of lived experience that seeks to understand the world that is interpreted through human consciousness. This links heavily with my argument as documentary filmmakers rely on interpreting the world through lived experience When Paul Ricoeur writes about memory, he states what kind of memory he is referring to, because of this I understand that the word memory is multidimensional. When thinking about the existence of memory we must understand they are mutable or liable to change; documentary films stops that mutability from happening, thus rupturing the temporality of said memory. However, we must understand that even though post-conceptual documentary film-makers are letting their camera flow through life, it will still be through their interpretation on what the camera will capture. Ricoeur states; “I shall follow the movement thanks to which declarative memory externalizes itself in testimony.”- Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting. (Page 186) Declarative memory is explicit memory; it is memory that we are consciously aware of, it is what one knows and remembers, thus becoming the origin of the document. We must understand that when Ricoeur writes about testimony, he is talking about documented, declarative memory.

He goes on writing; “I shall give all its force to the witness’s commitment to his testimony. I shall dwell then awhile on the moment of inscription of testimony that is received by another. This moment is the one when things said tip from the oral field to that of writing, which history will not henceforth abandon. It is also the moment of the birth of the archive, collected, preserved, consulted.”-Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting. (Page 186) The archive is extremely important to documentary; the archive protects testimonies from the abandonment of history and open memory loss. People are abandoned by history and this links to who writes the history and that this is implicit to any historic narrative, this brings politics to bear on senses of memory and history raising the question of whose history is being archived and why?

The abandonment of histories intrigues me; my current creative practise is engaging with this issue. I am creating post-conceptual documentary films based around working-class people from the deteriorating mill town I grew up in. Through making my films I am opening up a platform for these people to have their voices heard and archived They will become the testimonies of life in Nelson during 2019 to 2020; this platform wouldn’t exist if I didn’t use my practice to give them an opportunity to engage with their lived experiences. If I wasn’t doing this, they would eventually be forgotten.

Let’s think of this in terms of all history, all happening, all ‘Oblivion’; the world and everything we understand it to be has been taught to us through the work of historians, the mass media and documentary films and photography. These have been made through the reflection on what has been documented and archived in the past or what they want to be documented for the future.

Philosopher and critical theorist, Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ is significant to my understanding of how history has been documented, it is also influential to my art practice as his theories have inspired me to investigate ‘abandoned’ histories. Benjamin states; “To articulate what is past, is not mean to recognise how it really was, it means to take control of a memory as it flashes in a moment of danger.”- Benjamin, Theses on philosophy of history. (Part VI)

Benjamin is critiquing conventual understanding of history, which is understanding history by learning about a sub-sequential time or sequence of events. When we do this, we only learn about a single trajectory of history. He also states; “The only writer of history with the gift of setting a light the sparks of hope in the past is the one who is convinced of this; That’s not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, for he is victorious.”- Benjamin, Theses on philosophy of history. (Part VI)

What Benjamin is saying is that the victor is writing history, in the way that we only learn about their single trajectory, he is saying the dead are unsafe, because the victor can re-interpret or misinterpret events or just not document events at all, leaving them to be forgotten. So, when artists such as I, or other documentary film-makers and photographers start to document certain subjects we are breaking down these barriers that have been set that the only important or the ‘victors’ history should be remembered.

Benjamin also claims; “Universal History- has no theoretical armature, it’s method is additive; it musters a mass of data to fill the homogeneous, empty time.”- Benjamin, Theses on philosophy of history. (Part XVII) ‘Homogeneous empty time’ is the time measured by clocks or calendars, it is homogeneous because each moment in time is equivalent or empty. Therefor, this leaves us in a predicament where the history we know is only history through a pinhole view on what was happening at that time, the issue is historic memory is just made up of data and dates and small pockets of knowledge, we know an event happened one a certain day, but we don’t know exactly what happened.

I understand that because most history has been dictated to us by the Victor’s, there is a gap where most of the history goes undocumented. Some declarative memories may last through shared relative memory (memories passed down through families or friends) however as the progression of the future comes forth, these what Benjamin calls ‘oppressed histories’ get forgotten and lost in ‘Oblivion’. The only way these forgotten histories can be remembered is by the rupture of present time, to stop being pushed into progression by the victors who are causing us unconsciously forget about the oppressed histories and allow memories to ‘crystallise’ in our minds. Post-conceptual documentary art allows us to look back on untold history, in a way that engages creativity but is still a document.

Someone who documents oppressed histories through film is John Akomfrah, whose work is known for investigating post-colonialism, memory and experiences of migrants globally. In ‘Vertigo sea’ a three-way screen film. Akomfrah establishes a dialogue between the real-life experiences of Migrants crossing the sea to find a safer life, he investigates the deaths and the carnage they go through because the places they live are too dangerous. Walter Benjamin uses the word ‘Crystallisation’ to describe the moment a memory flashes into your mind and becomes a part of present time. This means the moment a memory springs from temporality and becomes significantly visual in ‘spatial image’, thus giving us, as Ricoeur puts it ‘the moment of the birth’ of a part of history that can be written down which can then be archived for us to view as a significant part of history. Akomfrah’s film’s play on this idea of Crystallizing the memories of the migrants through the footage that he plays simultaneously.

He uses documentary style shots like Walker Evans, staged appearances to create a visual and emotional open narrative. However, he is documenting these testimonies and declarative memory, and he is ‘crystallising’ them into the memory and a document, he is giving migrants a platform to be acknowledged in a way that is going to be emotionally embedded into people. Akomfrah also uses found footage within his videos, to really embed the idea of real memories, the archive is opening space for interpretation within Akomfrah’s work. The way the media documents deaths of migrants crossing the sea is often disconnected which makes people who watch these stories on the news not understand the actuality of what is going on, whereas Akomfrah is shining a light on the reality of the situation by making you connect with real-life migrants and their experiences, while visually presenting you with footage that overloads your senses but is too fascinating to look away.

"John Akomfrah: Still from Vertigo Sea (2015)"

Jonas Mekas is extraordinary example of how the feeling of ‘Crystallisation’ can be generated through documentary film making. It is often not just the raw footage that can achieve this, but the operation of editing and cutting up footage, to then re-emerge it to create a narrative of memory. The 288-minute-long experimental documentary; ‘As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.’ Made up of years upon years of home footage, accumulated together, as a ‘re-construction’ of his life.

An excerpt from Comparative Cinema. Biannual publication;

“I began now to put all these rolls of film together, to string them together, the first idea was to keep them chronological. But then I gave up and I just began splicing them together by chance, the way I found them on the shelf. Because I really don’t know where any piece of my life really belongs.”- (Mekas, 2013)

The fact that the film wasn’t meticulously edited gives it more authenticity, making it relatable to the audience. The random splicing of footage and the forcing of random footage together to me is a perfect example of post-conceptual documentary film, as he is removing the vision of the artist. It is, moreover, a visual representation of the word ‘Crystallisation’; fast, moving imagery that flashes before your eyes and then forgotten as the next bit of footage plays. It’s not until you pause the film that you will arrive at one single ‘moment of birth’, however this is addressed by how you intend to watch the film; I watched it in bed, on YouTube, with the ability to pause and take in what I have seen. If it was in a gallery space where you could watch a few minutes and walk away, the result on the audience may be different. Either way you are getting a glimpse into someone’s memories; memories that do not matter to anyone else, yet they are nostalgic to our own past.

"Jonas Mekas: still from As I was moving ahead occasionally I saw brief glimpse of beauty. (2000)"

Through my examples of John Akomfrah and Jonas Mekas, we can grasp where the importance of documentary film can enter and play a significant role of documenting oppressed histories or forgotten memories. In the past testimonies were documented, through text and drawing, but we as the audience can struggle to grasp the emotions or importance of a subject without being able to comprehend visual information. I believe the only true way to witness an event from the past is to visually see it through film or photography, this way we as a viewer of history can make our own interpretations of the event or time and not have to base them on anyone else’s or our imagination. Akomfrah and Mekas are exceeding the boundaries of what should or could be documented, they are at too opposite sides of the film-making spectrum, not only with technology but also with subject, however each has given their subject an important platform for interpretation, without a forced direction, that to me is also where documentary film crosses into post-conceptual art.

Chapter 3

Critical analysis of Luke Fowler

One artist whose practice is deeply embedded into multifaceted, experimental documentary filmmaking is Luke Fowler. He is an artist that moves fluidly between creative roles, such as musician, filmmaker and curator, this gives him a wide range of developed talent clearly shown throughout his films. His work explores the limits of documentary film-making, through critical responses to the truth, he often focuses upon subjects that have already been ‘concluded’ and subjects that society has already made their assumptions about, but re-visits them to resume a narrative of critical response, between the audience and the art, by doing this he makes the audience rethink their relationship with history. When I think about Fowlers work, I think about how his ideas link with Benjamin Walters theories on ‘Oppressed histories’, as he is opening up these new, contemporary discussions about his meticulously researched subjects. This explodes the temporality of a ‘Oppressed history’. We begin to learn about what has already been documented, but he reveals new information or ideas that could only be thought of many years after an event or a movement, which makes for new assumptions, interpretations and reconsiderations. His work is radical and revolutionary, he is rejecting and disrupting social order, by engaging with the political and social struggle that an event or subject can have more than one conclusion. The subjects he works with can’t be documented or archived through just one, single image, and this makes some audiences apprehensive towards his work when they only want to accept one assumption or ‘truth’.

Depositions (2014) Depositions is a documentary film made up of BBC documentaries and archival footage from their work with Scottish Highland communities from around 1970’s-1980’s. A subject that has already been explored and concluded to the public in an arrogant and pretentious way. Fowler’s interest in the political conditions to film-making is evident in depositions; it has created a platform to criticize how many documentaries especially within the mass media that use subjects to gain, through doing this they represent said subjects in a way that is inaccurate and misguided, condemning them as only as how they seem within the documentaries. As Paul Riceour would put it, by using archival footage he is using “declarative memory” which “externalizes itself in testimony” of the subjects within the film. He has made the narrative open, which gives space for the audience to interpret the subject as they wish, unlike how BBC originally edited the footage so the viewer could only make one assumption. Luke Fowler’s work has heavily been linked with the Free Cinema movement that emerged in Britain in the late 1950’s, which became the beginning of political and social engaged approach to film-making. With the idea that the working-class within any creative background was a part of a revolutionary stance against social values of art and film-making. “No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.”- Lindsey Anderson, Free cinema Manifesto. Many films that were created in response to the free cinema manifesto engaged with the working class or unrepresented communities in a way that was respectful towards them, the film-makers were not filming for their own gain nor did they reflect on the subject with their own assumptions, instead they created a platform for the people in their films to be acknowledged on their own terms, for the audience to them make their own opinions and assumptions of the subject and be unguided through the interpretations of mass media documentaries.

Because Fowler is using archived footage, you need to understand the footage was never intended to be put together, and it is only when it is put together we get to see the Scottish Highlands as a whole, if I as a viewer was to sit and only watch the fragments of footage as it was intended through the BBC, I would have a completely different assumption of the place and the people.

Fowler’s use of cutting and editing creates a narrative; from the opening scene of the desolate landscape cutting to different angles of the same place. You immediately understand the emptiness of the place, but then Fowlers experience with music and sound shines through with his use of highland, folk music starts to play through the silence, and this is when the audience is hooked, we see this barren space, but the music makes you know someone is there, and you want to find out who.

From these opening scenes we get to watch people’s lives unfold and learn about them in a way we wouldn’t have been able to without this piece of work. There is a nostalgic aesthetic of freedom and old-timey community, but this is contrasted with shots of scientific realisations, blurring the boundaries between socially norms and their lives, but even by the end there was no real armature or direction, you just have to take in what you’ve seen and not try understand it, but accept it.

"Luke Fowler: Still from Depositions. (2014)"

Through ‘Depositions’ Fowler is using footage that has been used to create a previous assumption but recreates it and abolishes any footage or voice that makes the viewer feel a one certain way about the subject. Instead of using the footage to document the place and community he uses it to document the individual, through multi-layered narratives, interpretations and arguments that does not govern to one direction, thus creating a discussion that reopens the audiences understanding of history.

Luke Fowler is a prime example of how documentary filmmaking can become a form of contemporary art.His work is contemporizing historic ideas and understanding, creating new Avant-Garde thoughts, thus breaking down the temporality of the past. It is very much in the nature of Avant-Garde Art as it is reintroducing subjects to new ideas at the forefront of socially and politically engaged thinking towards documentary filmmaking.

"Luke Fowler: Still from Depositions. (2014)"

Chapter 4

My post-conceptual art practice.

My work is predominantly concerned with the life affected by social class and social roles. I make documentary films based in Nelson, which is the town I have lived in my whole life. I have used my practice over the past two years to explore place and people within the town, which has opened up new ways of thinking about how our backgrounds effect our mundane, day to day life. Previously I created an experimental documentary and performance piece called ‘Back home’, which explored my life growing up in Nelson. It was an accumulation of footage from places I would often visit and my family. While I was developing this film, I had moved out of my house to university; so, when I had the chance to slide back into my old life, I was looking at it from a different direction, as an outsider. I started to notice things I would have usually ignored, every walk or interaction I had through the camera became a performance of everyday life.

"Jessica Warren, Still from Back Home, (2019)"

However, now I look back at the work; I realised where I wanted to develop my next piece, I needed to stop focusing on myself and start focusing on other people, phenomenology has become extremely important to me, the appreciation of our consciousness to direct experience became the key to my current work. I feel the need to get down to an intimate and personal level of the subjects in my work. Walter Benjamin’s statements in ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ on oppressed histories, along with Paul Ricoeur’s theories on declarative memories becoming testimonies in ‘Memory, History, Forgetting’ has been the main inspiration on this current project; as my ambition is to give the people in my film the platform to be archived, to explore their importance in 2020. I believe that the working-class has a hard time in today’s society and isn’t acknowledged, with a conservative government who make it difficult to put food on the tables of so many families, the working class deserve to have their part in history documented.

I am in the process of creating a large-scale, multiscreen, projected film installation, which will include three films. These films are Avant-Garde documentaries that follow the everyday life of three of my family members. I am following around one subject per-day, with my camera always filming, capturing every moment, I do this through different ways of filming, from still, tripod shots to fast-paced handheld shots. I do this because I want to exaggerate on time throughout the day and draw out different narratives through the editing process, this allows me to capture the idea of memories crystallising through the materiality of film. By doing this I am creating biographical portraits of these people, I am exploring social roles and intimate lifestyles of working-class people in 2020.

Like that of filmmaker Vertov’s and his film ‘Kino eye’ my camera is penetrating life; with no boundaries or constraints on the ‘rules’ of filming. When I film, I am cutting into real life, nothing is staged or set up, nothing is perfect. When I am doing this, I am already starting to create a dynamic view on everyday life, and a way to address the idea of life being dynamic I realized that multiscreen film can create that illusion of real life; it is multifaceted and fragmented, because of this I want my film’s to have this effect on my audience. I want them to be able to ambiguously connect with each film in any way they want, receiving fragments from either film to create their own interpretation.

I am not just filming aesthetic compositions and subjects; I am filming real life. I am not abstract with my editing. I want to unveil the truth of a community I am so deeply connected too; it is not mutable nor is it ignorable. My work will grip the audience’s attention, making them think and assume things about the subjects, which will more significantly influence their understanding of how social class has a profound effect on our existence.

My ambition is to put information out into the world and intervene with the world through the immediacy of the camera. It is important I do this because who else will? I am exposing ‘oppressed histories’ as Walter Benjamin put it, I am making their lives relevant in a time where there are so many other histories being wrote, Brexit, Wars, Prince Harry leaving the royal family. It’s easy to forget about the people, when history is being written by the Victors.

"Jessica Warren, Projection Experiment with current films, (2020)"

"Jessica Warren, CIRCADIAN II: Mother. (2020)"

Conclusion

At the beginning of this contextual report, I wanted to give documentary film a place in contemporary art, by exploring post-conceptual documentary; a style that strongly resonates with what contemporary art is, which is concerned with the artist’s Avant-Garde ideas or concepts, not the aesthetic. We understood that previous documentary art such as Modernist documentary cannot stand along with contemporary art, as it is created through the artists vision, the concepts behind them do not matter as long as they are aesthetically pleasing. We have delved into historic and contemporary examples of post-conceptual documentary and seen how it has developed and how it is still developing to this day, through technology and new understandings. If a style of art can still be developed, it is still contemporary, whereas if it can’t be developed, like Modernist documentary, then it can’t be contemporary.

We have deeply analysed and contextualised why artists have used post-conceptual documentary as their practice, through understanding theories from philosophers and renowned thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur, who believes that once a memory is archived it becomes a testimony for an event or moment in time; meaning post-conceptual documentary artists should use memories as testimonies and explore how declarative memory controls our lived consciousness. Also Walter Benjamin who critiques how history has previously been archived and documented, and believes that the histories of oppressed people get forgotten; post-conceptual artists have an important role in giving oppressed people the platform to have their lived experiences to be documented, so the world can have information about them and not just the ‘victors’ of the time. Throughout the contextual report I have used many different documentary artists, photographers and filmmakers as examples to visually represent the theories I have written about. Importantly Luke Fowler who used all of these theories when creating his post-conceptual documentary ‘Depositions’, he collected memories through found footage, and then re-edited it into a way that is giving the subjects and the wider community who the subjects represent a platform to have their memories shared in a positive way, unlike how they were represented by the mass media. Through all of this I have legitimised my own practice as contemporary art. My technical and political objective as a post-conceptual documentary artist is to explore my ideas and concepts by allowing my camera to penetrate life, put information into the world, and be Avant-garde. This is the objective of all post-conceptual artists, and documentary does this in a way that allows the artist to explore the immediacy of life, that is why post-conceptual documentary is contemporary art.

Written By Jessica Warren