How can reflexive indexical image making expand the visual communication of liminal space?
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-05-10

What kind of work is involved in the co-emergence of interpretation and reality, and what role do materials play in this process? Alberti, Jones, Pollard, J. (2013)
The paper makes reference to recent work I have developed that explores the themes from this recent research. My work attempts to fuse experimental photographic art with visual  anthropology/archaeology. The paper aims to outline the debates/ problematics/ catalysts that exist combining these two seemingly polar opposite practices and the hierarchies / consequences between making as process and as finite outcome.
The paper is divided into three segments as would be this proposed presentation. The themes within these segments are inexplicably linked and are at first separated out diagnostically, and then related in their complexities and overlapping’s.
Indexicality: An issue that has arisen is the relationship between the indexical and the iconographic. There are tensions between direct index’s, displaced index’s and the icon, thus complicating the notion of semiotic relativity / arbitrariness.
Reflexivity: A debate that has opened up is the tension between a Hegelian and Marxist Dialectic in relation to the indexical image and its referential space. A common misconception between the ontological nature of the image and its epistemological interpretation is opened up.
Between Art and Research: Relationships between the previous two segments are woven and related to archaeological and anthropological practices in order to tease out the mechanisms within my practice.
Alberti, Jones, Pollard, J. (2013) Archaeology after Interpretation. Returning materials to archaeological theory. Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek, CA.

Benjamin Hunt, University for the Creative Arts, www.benjaminhunt.co.uk