What is Context?

helen.clarke@leeds-art.ac.uk

Mondays and Thursdays 3.30-4

Context is:

● What else is going on as this image is made?

● The environment in which an image is made.

● Background information which helps us ‘read’ images in more depth

● making us question what we see on the surface of the image

But Why?

● You cannot ignore 173 years of history!● Image making professionals have that

knowledge (mostly)● Learning to think, write and talk about your

own work and that of others will make you a better photographer

Context can be:

● Technological● Historical● Geographical/Cultural● Physical- in display● Political● political● Human/personal

William Henry Fox Talbot

● From his book The pencil of nature

● Published in 1844● ‘leaf of a plant’

Technological/historical context

● he set a pressed leaf or plant on a piece of sensitized paper, covered it with a sheet of glass, and set it in the sun. Wherever the light struck, the paper darkened, but wherever the plant blocked the light, it remained white. He called his new discovery "the art of photogenic drawing."

● (metmuseum.org)

Here is a William Henry Fox Talbot Calotype rotated, cleaned up and re-coloured.

Geographical/Cultural

● Edward Curtis● American photographer

● Late 19th early 20th century

● George Washingtons idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S.

citizens in the early 19th Century

Political/political context

● 1968 Olympics● Tommie Smith and John Carlos receive gold and bronze

medals for USA in the 200m● The US national anthem plays● Carlos writes that his mind raced from the personal to

the political and back again. Among other things, he reflected on his father's pained explanation for why he couldn't become an Olympic swimmer, the segregation and consequent impoverishment of Harlem, the exhortations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to "be true to yourself even when it hurts”.

● (www.guardian.co.uk, March 2012)

Personal/display context

Christian Boltanski

● 1980’s● French artist of Catholic

and Jewish heritage● Images of children

taken by the Nazis

What context is this?

● The advertisement “equates women, and in particular their breasts, with a piece of meat (!). Women’s bodies are objectified as yet another good to be consumed and give pleasure to men,”

● (cyprusmail.com, November 2011)

Small group exercise

● Explain each of the contexts in your own words.

● Eg: Answer the question: “what is (technological) context of an image?”