The UMMA has recently installed an exhibition in their new media gallery located on the main floor entitled Performing Still Images: David Claerbout and Matthew Buckingham. The exhibition problematizes the relationship between photography, film, and time. Buckingham’s piece, “Image of Absalon Projected Until it Vanishes”, features a still image with the intention that the image continually deteriorates over the course of its exhibition. I saw this piece for the first time Wednesday, and it had already deteriorated to the point where Absalon’s figure is barely recognizable, and many of the finer details of the photograph have already disintegrated. The piece is a haunting reminder of the limitations of the medium—although we tend to see photography as an art form that immortalizes a snapshot of time, Buckingham reminds us that the medium, like our own memory, is faulty and transitory, ultimately worn away like all other things by time. Claerbout’s piece, “The American Room”, is a 25 minute video of a series of still photographs taken from a room—it is as if someone hit a pause button—everyone is eerily still. Although the images are still, the Claerbout has manipulated the images using green-screen technology to create the effect of a moving camera within each shot—audiences see sweeping pans and changing camera angles over these stills, a seemingly impossible phenomenon.
This Wednesday, I attended the exhibit and a panel discussion on the artists afterward. The exhibit featured a curator, two local artists, and a visiting lecture through the Stamps school, all individuals from unique artistic backgrounds who lended the audience their insight in hopes of achieving a greater understanding of the internal meaning the exhibit presents. During this exhibition, the panel addressed themes relevant not only to the two works in the exhibition, but also relevant to each artist’s entire body of work.
After viewing Claerbout’s earlier work, I understood his artistic progression to the piece I saw in person, his tremendous fascination with the social reality of time as opposed to the objective reality of time—in other words, real time versus experienced time. The computer generated effect of camera movement imposed on still images detached me from the subject I was viewing—rather than attempt to identify with the characters in the photo, I identified with the photographer, who must choose one ideal vantage point out of thousands of possibilities in order to capture the emotion of his or her subject. Another fascinating idea the panel discussed was the idea of experiencing filmic time while viewing a still image—Claerbout turns a still image into a 25-minute film that is compelling enough to keep people watching. In some sense, he’s creating something out of nothing.
Buckingham’s also considers the distinction between experienced and real time. His decaying photograph is like a metaphor for memory—our own perception of the experiences we have had in our lifetime is imperfect and fleeting. The longer it has been since the event we are recalling, the more fuzzy the details get, the more likely we are to remember the event in question incorrectly. My personal interpretation of Buckingham’s work was a confrontation with the mortality of human experience. We believe we can immortalize our experiences by logging historical records and photographs, but we forget that these records are also vulnerable to the passage of time.
Needless to say, the exhibition features fascinating and creative works of art that challenge the limits of what their medium is capable of, and present some stirring philosophical and metaphysical questions to mull over. I highly recommend attending UMMA’s hub lecture series to students interested in the UMMA’s exhibitions. The panels are an opportunity to gain a deeper introduction into an artist’s work, and to glean understanding into the artist’s personal philosophy, which in my opinion enhances the museum experience as a whole.

Read more about the exhibit here: http://www.umma.umich.edu/view/exhibitions/2013-davidclaerbout.php

Some links to videos presented during the panel discussion:
Claerbout’s “Piano Player”
Bas Jan Ader’s “The Fall”—This is pretty funny to watch on repeat
Bill Viola’s “Reflection Pool”—A 7 minute video that is a time commitment, but well worth a contemplative viewing.