"Loch Ness"
Stephen Lyons' "Loch Ness" asks what facts are available in an
electronic image and how this relates to the ontology of screen and
the space between it and it's audience. At first glance the piece is
confusing- a jumble of foam-core, paint, and wood scraps roughly
assembled in seeming disarray in front of a screen presenting the
image of a 1965 photograph of an expedition to photograph the Loch
Ness monster. To one side of the installation a video camera
apparently operates. It is not clear at first what it is capturing
because it is pointed at the apparent jumble but after concentrating I
realised that the image on the screen had been created by using the
forced perspective to organise a seemingly incoherent group of objects
into a simulacrum of a two-dimensional image.
After recognising the artifice involved in creating the piece, I began
noticing the occasional shadow of a gallery visitor sweeping across
part of the screen image, as the camera captured the shadow of a
gallery visitor falling across a section of the installation. The effect
was uncanny, as it would often occur on only one element of the image
even though other elements appeared to be on the same picture plain,
suggesting a shadow should fall on all of them.
The Loch Ness monster has long achieved mythical status, status fueled
by one famous photographic image that suggests a sea serpent, or the
head and neck of a pleisiosaur or an odd piece of wood floating in
the waters of Loch Ness. No physical evidence supporting the existence
of such a beast has ever been presented and survived scrutiny. The
blurry image purported to be that of "Nessie" as she is affectionately
referred to by the residents near the Scottish lake, has neither been
confirmed or debunked. By recreating a facsimile of a photograph of an apparent monster-
hunting exhibition, Lyons has effectively raised questions about the
facticity of images, as well as their ability to invoke mythos. What
is particular to this mythos is it's attachment to an mythic
interpretation derived from empirical science.
Cryptozoology is the title given to the study of such creatures as the
Loch Ness monster, the Sasquatch and the Yeti and even more fabulous
creatures such as the chupacabra. The film footage of a sasquatch
disappearing in the woods of the rocky mountains provides another
example of photographic evidence of a subject devoid of any primary
evidence. In Lyon's "Loch Ness" the artist has asked the question of
how we can claim facticity and providence of the object.
It becomes evident we must abandon the folklore that pictures never
lie, by examining images as intrinsically constructed.
Loch Ness explores the technological myth of photographic facticity
and the relationship between screen space and inter-subjectivity and
the epistemological questions it raises.
- Steve Lyons : Loch Ness 10/01/08 → 10/02/13
- Centre des arts
actuels Skol
372, rue Sainte-Catherine
Ouest, espace 314,
Montréal, QC
H3B 1A2
