After inspecting the Horta House yesterday we took a bus to the WIELS Contemporary Art Center. On the second floor there was an exhibition of Lutz Bacher’s work. It was called “Burning the Days” which referred to her running around with a camera capturing the 60s and 70s. Black and white stills of a friend who was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, snapshots of her stalking Jackie Kennedy in Central Park, very slice-of-life without a real statement or particular point of view.
Then there were Vargas-style pinup paintings meant to upset her feminist friends.
So she could be mundane and she could be provocative. There was an installation that was reminiscent of the Pop Art that was fashionable at the time.
On the third floor was an array of black rubber balls that people were meant to walk through and scatter. They reminded me of what some scholars call: THE FIRST FILM.
It takes place during the Crimean War. Roger Fenton, a pioneering British photographer was sent in 1855 to document the conflict for a publication in London. He is famous for a couple of shots that were called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Let me demonstrate with the help of Lutz.
In the first photograph taken after a battle where Tolstoy was active on the Russian side, spent cannon balls have fallen in a ditch by the side of a dirt road. They have rolled down a slight incline to form a single line in the ditch.
After looking at the developed shot Roger thought that it didn’t reflect the assault that had taken place. It was way too linear, like a truck load of cannon balls had been upended and nudged each other into a ditch.
So Roger instructed his assistant setting up the tripod for the camera to go and scatter the cannon balls over the road. Setting up the shot he made sure that it looked like they had been hurled through the air and landed randomly. The disordered cannonballs on the road seemed like the aftermath of a conflict.
The two photos published side-by-side showed how the cannonballs had moved and this implied motion inspired cinephiles construe as the first use of photography for a movie.
You could also say it’s an early example of false news, or altered reality. It didn’t start with AI…