WHICH PHOTOGRAPHER INSPIRED YOU AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CAREER?
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01/2021
UDC 77.04
Tom Lisboa
photographer, art curator, MA Photography and Urban Cultures, Goldsmiths,
University of London, MA Communication and Languages, Universidade Tuiuti do
Paraná, Brazil. tom.lisboa@hotmail.com
Rua Padre Agostinho 2885 / 1603, Torre Paranoá, 80710-000, Curitiba PR Brazil
www.sintomnizado.com/tomlisboa
WHICH PHOTOGRAPHER INSPIRED YOU AT THE
BEGINNING OF YOUR CAREER?
ABSTRACT
In the article, the author described his work with photography from the perspective
of influence on him by Rosângela Rennó, a Brazilian artist. The author took a look
at Rennó’s series Matter of poetry, Minus-Value [Auction], Fantastic Realism,
Experiencing Cinema, and Hipocampo. The author presented short descriptions
for each project and methods of Rennó’s approach to photography, which
concentrates on recycling the discarded photo information, on issues of memory
and forgetting, changing context, and text. With Rennó’s series, the author
contextualised his projects (in)visible polaroids, Palimpsests, Street Topographies,
The Commuting, and TOY-OGRAPHY. The results address different concepts
and ideas, but all of them in one way or another build a dialogue not only with
the spectator, but also other artists, and Rosângela Rennó acts as a collective
portrait of those. Replacing Polaroids with text, revealing hidden images behind
the newspaper article, constructing new reality through montage techniques,
exploring hidden possibilities in the photos of commuters in London underground,
and hacking toy cameras to make them the instruments of philosophy — these are
Lisboa’s strategies to exploit vast opportunities behind the image.
KEYWORDS
Photography; text; photo series; Tom Lisboa; Rosângela Rennó; montage; urban
life; memory; Polaroid.
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ARTIST’S VISION
Fig. 1. Rosângela Rennó. Seven groups of ‘Matter of Poetry’.
2008–2013. Photo: Edouard Fraipont
When the curator and researcher Irina Chmyreva asked me, in January of
this year, ‘Which photographer inspired you at the beginning of your career?’, I
took a trip back in time and transported myself to 1999. I found myself looking
for a photography course. At this time, I still worked exclusively with painting and
needed to organise a more professional portfolio with my works. It was this need
that led me to join a year-long course and even to buy a professional camera. I just
did not count on an unexpected fact. Photography, by giving me a great possibility
of experimentation, transformed my relationship with painting, which went from
being practical to becoming a reference. Irina’s question led me through a maze
of fleeting and uncoordinated memories of my first photographic experiences. I
remembered my first group exhibition, the books, the first series and going to the
laboratory to develop photos. However, from this tangle of memories, the answer
to the question emerged with unmistakable clarity: Rosângela Rennó (b. 1962).
I do not remember for sure when I went to Rosângela Rennó’s first exhibition.
It must have been around 2000 or 2001. Because of my projects, I was placed in a
niche called ‘contemporary photography’, which gave me a contradictory feeling.
If on the one hand I was considered an ‘innovator’, on the other hand, it seemed
that I was not considered a photographer. Rosângela’s work, in addition to its
quality, brought me something I lacked at the time: that of belonging to the field
of photography. Professionals like her have paved the way for me and so many
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others who seek to expand the technical and conceptual possibilities in this area.
Almost twenty years have passed, I already consider myself a more experienced
photographer and Rosângela continues to surprise me. She does not know that, but
besides being a reference, she is ‘my ideal spectator’. Whenever I finish a series or
set up an exhibition, I think: ‘Would I have the courage to show this to Rosângela?’.
My work is only finished when I have a yes to this question.
This article is divided into two parts. Initially, I will present some series
by Rosângela Rennó and, in a second moment, I will show some of my own. The
selection of works, rather than trying to cover the totality of the artists’ production,
aims to establish points of contact and complementarities.
ROSÂNGELA RENNÓ
MATTER OF POETRY (2008–2013)
‘In photography, you can talk about aesthetic value, documentary value, symbolic
value, sentimental value, and so on ... but when an image is sent to the bin, it means
that it has lost a lot these values’. (Rosângela Rennó)
To what extent a discarded image is considered useless? Is it possible
to deprive a photograph of any value? Matter of poetry pays homage to the
Brazilian poet Manoel de Barros. He is known for his style that explores certain
elements of the natural world (especially its emphasis on the ‘precarious’ things
and beings) and the linguistic inversions (which defy normative grammar). In
1974, he wrote a book also called Matter of Poetry and there we can find a verse
that synthetizes Rosângela´s series: ‘what is good for the rubbish bin is good
for poetry’ (Barros, 2019).
Matter of Poetry is divided into groups from A to Z and each group
consists of six inkjet prints on Canson Rag Photographique paper 310gr (75 x 110
cm each image) (Fig. 1) and two boxes of Plexiglass and PVC (15 x 10 x 3 cm, each
box) containing slides that originated the prints in big dimensions. These boxes
were accompanied by verses by Manoel de Barros that deal with the nothingness,
the void.
The printed images were generated by superimposing and enlarging digital
images from several discarded slides, collected at random in many different cities.
Through this procedure of selection and accumulation, distinct images in space and
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ARTIST’S VISION
Fig. 2. Rosângela Rennó. Six printed images of ‘Matter of Poetry’.
2008–2013. Photo: Edouard Fraipont
time, join to form a new and unique photograph by combining landscapes, people
and events (Fig. 2).
Poetry and photography come to a full circle in this exhibition and show
that what was once discarded and rejected has a chance to be reinvented by the
imagination of these artists. By giving new context to these lost images, Rosângela
offers abandoned memories a chance to fight forgetfulness.
MINUS-VALUE [AUCTION] (2010)
The project Minus-Value [Auction] comprised a collection of 73 objects
(Fig. 3), all found and purchased in various flea markets. Through a long process
of selection, reconditioning, transformation and recontextualization these objects
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Fig. 3. Rosângela Rennó. View of installation at the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial.
Photo: Edouard Fraipont
underwent successive aggregations of material and symbolic value along the way
to their final destination: an auction was at the 29th São Paulo Biennial.
Regardless the degree of physical intervention embedded in their
development, each piece carried a small acrylic plaque indicating its origin and,
at the same time, that it was transformed by the artist. The plaque also attests an
attachment to a world where use value and exchange value are almost inexistent.
On the other hand, when this object enters this new world, the art market says, new
values can be created.
The desire for these ordinary and forgotten objects was reactivated by a
consecration system that makes them noteworthy and desirable, as they may have
been someday, but for different reasons. This system was nourished by critical
recognition of Rosângela Rennó´s career, by support from galleries that represent
her and by the institutional legitimacy of the biennial itself.
The collection was exhibited at the 29th São Paulo Biennial and auctioned,
object by object, by Aloisio Cravo, official auctioneer, on December 9th, 2010.
The intense competition for some lots exposed the enthusiasm of some and
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ARTIST’S VISION
the discomfort of others in face of the transparency and crudeness with which
vital and basic mechanisms for the generation of wealth in the art world were on
display.
The book was completely sponsored with the revenues of the auction and
covers the whole experience of Minus Value. Along with texts from five authors,
including Rosângela herself, and quotations from different sources such as Marcel
Duchamp, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, J.K. Rowling, Water Benjamin,
Zygmunt Bauman, Sarah Thornton and many others. One of my favourites is from
Italo Calvino: ‘The fascination of a collection resides in what it reveals and conceals
about the secret impulse that motivated it’ (Calvino, 1984, p. 13). This publication
takes us on a journey where we testify the power of art to create value from
virtually nothing and presents, at the same time, the tensions and risks to which
this operation is exposed. Just to mention an example available in the publication,
lot 20, Polaroid Bicho, was originally purchased for R$ 85 and sold for R$ 52.000,
a profit of 30.488%. As one of the authors, Moacir dos Anjos, said ‘If art can make
poetry from trash, it can also reduce the invention to a unit of currency’ (Rennó,
2012, p. 40).
FANTASTIC REALISM (1991)
Fantastic Realism is Rosângela Rennó’s first experience with projection
of moving images. The installation consists of two rotating ‘magic lanterns’ with
photographic negatives on plywood pedestals from which portraits of anonymous
people are projected on the wall. The device evokes an old system of producing
‘phantasmagorias’, common to 18th-century magic rotating lanterns (Fig. 4).
However, instead of a spooky decoration, total darkness, suggestive verbal
presentation, and sound effect, everything takes place in a bright and silent room.
The luminous spectra that inhabit this room observe us from the front. Their outlines
are clear, but their features remain anonymous (Fig. 5). The style of the portraits
reminds us of those of the identity cards, which causes more discomfort: these
people existed. Do they still exist? These characters do not indulge us in detailed
contemplation because they not only escape our gaze but merge constantly. The
magic lantern was a good medium with which to project fantasies as its imagery
was not as tangible as in other media. Since ghosts were believed to be incorporeal,
the magic lantern could produce very fitting representations. In the book of the
exhibition Spirit of Everything, which included the installation Fantastic Realism,
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Fig. 4. Rosângela Rennó. Installation of ‘Fantastic Realism’.
1991. Photo: Paulo Costa
Fig. 5. Video of the installation ‘Fantastic Realism’.
URL: http://www.rosangelarenno.com.br/obras/exibir/38/3
Rosângela quoted the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo regarding this work: ‘They are not
recollections. They are just images. I do not preserve anything in memory except
for the flashes that remain in place like cement, like grains of sand which become
displaced only when there is an upheaval in our destiny’ (Rennó, 2017, p. 111).
EXPERIENCING CINEMA (2004)
This installation takes place in a dimly lit room, where the viewer is
surprised by momentary projections of luminous images onto a screen of steam
that suddenly acquires a spectral, volatile appearance. They are distorted and
agitated by their fluctuating movement on the smoke. The association with
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ARTIST’S VISION
Fig. 6. Rosângela Rennó. Experiencing Cinema. 2004.
Photo: Luigi Stavale. Courtesy of The Museum of
Modern Art of São Paulo
Fig. 7. Video of the installation ‘Experiencing Cinema’.
URL: http://www.rosangelarenno.com.br/obras/
exibir/24/1
cinema comes from this moment where the image hits the fluidity of this gaseous
‘projection screen’ (Fig. 6).
The projections are organised in four videos recorded on DVD´s (Fig. 7),
each one of them displaying 31 photographs over 21 minutes in length. They are
separated into four themes: crime, war, family and love. The photographs in ‘Love’
show people intimately engaged with one another; those in ‘War’ depict scenes
relating to the military and armed conflict; ‘Family’ consists mostly of grouped
individuals, although some photographs in this category depict lone figures; and
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‘Crime’ features images of police officers, arrests and prisons. Although the pictures
in each group are only loosely related and are composed in differing ways, there is
often a subtle connection between each photograph and the one following it. For
instance, two consecutive pictures in ‘War’ feature figures looking out of the frame,
while another two in the same group that are presented sequentially both include
people touching their faces. Each projection is eight seconds long, occurs in 30
seconds between each image and is synchronized with a sound that announces the
appearance/disappearance of the photographs.
According to a critic María Angélica Melendi, in Rennó’s work photographs
‘do not recover the memory, but witness the forgetting’ (Tate, 2021). In Experiencing
Cinema, this is achieved through the extremely hazy appearance of the projected
images, which makes them difficult to discern and gives them a ghostly quality.
HIPOCAMPO (1995–1998)
This installation consists of 16 texts painted on phosphorescent painting on
the walls, halogen lamps and temporizer.
Hippocampus is an area in the brain where today scientists believe our
memory is stored and connected. It constitutes the basis of who we are as individuals.
However, memory is selective and so is photography. We only remember what we
want and the way we want it. The strategy of using texts for to generate images in
this exhibition aims to take to the extreme the fact that two people never see the
same image in the same way, or that one person never sees (or thinks) twice the
same image accordingly.
In the beginning, the room is in the dark. Suddenly, a bright light almost
blinds us for about 40 seconds. After this period, the light fades out and the texts,
written with phosphorescent paint, appear magically on the wall (Fig. 8). Until they
started to fade. This lasts for about five minutes and then the light goes on again
and everything starts over.
The texts were taken from newspapers and appear in distorted letters,
in perspective, as if they were in motion. One of them refers to one of the most
iconic images of the Vietnam War: ‘the children had just left the temple when jets
dropped four bombs and four barrels of napalm. The entire area was consumed by
an enormous fireball. K. was hit by drops of napalm. Tearing her burning clothes
from her body, she ran, howling in pain, toward the photographer’s camera and a
place in history’.
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Fig. 8. Rosângela Rennó. The moment the lights are turned off in ‘Hipocampo’.
1995–1998. Photo: Eduardo Ortega
As a photographer, Rosângela looks more interested in the history and
possibilities of photography and that her work is a kind of understanding of the
photographic universe. About Hipoccampus, Agnaldo Farias, a Brazilian art critic,
reminded us that the meaning of the word photography is writing with light. When
Rosângela transforms phosphorescent texts into images she uses fundaments of
photography just to better understand it.
TOM LISBOA
(IN)VISIBLE POLAROIDS (2005–)
The (in)visible polaroids project is an urban intervention and, at the same
time, a photographic work I started in 2005, in Curitiba, Brazil. In the past 15 years,
it was reproduced in more than 30 cities and has participated in several solo and
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Fig. 9. Tom Lisboa. An (in)visible polaroid at a bus stop in Curitiba/
Brazil. 2005–. Photo: Tom Lisboa
Fig. 10. A screen of the Guidebook in Curitiba, Brazil. Photo: Tom Lisboa
group exhibitions. Each polaroid is a small piece of yellow paper with a dimension
of 14 x 11.5 cm. In the place of the image, I write a text that gives instructions to
the person to look around in the urban space and search for the photograph that
should be there. As a ‘real polaroid’, the image appears instantly, but using words
as its ‘new technology’. It is a very simple process: you read, look around and see
the image.
The text in this picture says: ‘Have you noticed the tree on top of the pink
building that is behind you, on the left?’ (Fig. 9). In this way, my Polaroids do not
impose the photographer view. When I install an (in)visible polaroid in a bus stop,
138ARTIST’S VISION
for example, it is like if I have taken a picture and have not developed it. The image
will be only a reality when people interact with them. It is the observer that will finish
my work by constructing the image in her/his mind.
The texts of the (in)visible Polaroids propose different types of
participation. By reading my texts, spectators rediscover hidden urban scenes,
notice special details and are reminded to pay attention to everyday life. Like a
photographer that is continuously getting lost in the city, looking for angles and
situations, (in)visible polaroids texts translate this behaviour into words to inspire
their participants to live the same kind of pleasure in making an image.
Another feature of (in)visible Polaroids is that they are ephemeral. As
they are fixed with tape (for not injuring the surface where they are placed), they
disappear very quickly. For this reason, the internet is an important tool to allow the
continuity of the intervention. To document its progress in some cities, I created
what I called Visitation Guide (Fig. 10) where you can choose a city, print the
Polaroids and their addresses and do the intervention by yourself. The only way to
see the images of these Polaroids is going to the places personally because I never
show the photographs that are referred to in the texts that I write.
Fig. 11. Tom Lisboa. Stills of a video of the
‘Palimpsests’ series. 2007–. Photo: Tom Lisboa
Fig. 12. Tom Lisboa. Video of the ‘Palimpsests’ series about some
protests that took place in São Paulo/Brasil due to the raise of the
bus fare in the city. URL: https://youtu.be/EEVRIPKtxtw
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PALIMPSESTS (2007–)
Palimpsests is the name of a series of videos that I have been producing
since 2008 and I had the pleasure to show them at the Photovisa festival in 2015.
The term Palimpsest refers to the process of erasing a text so that another
can be written over it. To create these videos, I look for a (rare) coincidence in the
layout of the newspapers. I need to find a photo in which, on the back, there is
an article related to that image. What you see in each video is me, slowly erasing
the text in front of that photo with a wet brush. Meanwhile, it is possible to read
the news, make the visual relationship with the photograph, and, slowly, see these
connections being broken (Fig. 11). Text and image have always had an intimate
as well as a conflicting relationship in photojournalism. Is it the image that gives
meaning to the text or the text that redefines the photo? Palimpsests series
emphasises this issue when I overlap these discursive forms and interact with them.
Since this connection will always exist, this video goes back to the beginning (Fig. 12).
Fig.13. Tom Lisboa. One of the sculptures of ‘Street
Topographies’. The QR Code shows details of the work and the
two sides of this object. 2011–. Photo: Tom Lisboa
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Fig. 14. Tom Lisboa. Out of the block of 312 photos, 12 were selected and here you can
see four of them. On the right, the time slices that interested me. Photo: Tom Lisboa
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Fig. 15. Tom Lisboa. Modelling different situations in the
same landscape on Photoshop. Photo: Tom Lisboa
Fig. 16. Tom Lisboa. My dissertation ‘Street
Topographies’: sculpting possibilities for photography
in public domains, MA in Photography and Urban
Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London 2019
STREET TOPOGRAPHIES (2011–)
Since 2011, the ‘sculptures of time’ of Street Topographies were developed
in 12 cities of 8 countries, being London the last one. The use of the term sculpture
seemed appropriate for two main reasons: the volume of the image and the
possibility of walking around it. The transparency of the acrylic layers generates an
illusion of the third dimensionality and transforms each artwork into a double-sided
object that can be twisted to better appreciate its contours (Fig. 13). This three-
dimensional object also emulates fourth-dimensional characteristics by showing
views of the same subject from different viewpoints — views that would not normally
be able to be seen together at the same time in the real world. Under the fourth
dimension, there is no Henri Cartier-Bresson´s ‘decisive moment’. Everything is
continuous and connected.
142ARTIST’S VISION
The idea of modelling these ‘sculptures of time’ came from the book Sculpting
in Time, by Russian cinema director Andrei Tarkovsky: ‘What is the essence of the
director’s work? We could define it as sculpting in time. Just as a sculptor takes
a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece,
removes everything that is not a part of it — so the film-maker, from a “lump of
time” made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards
whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished
film’ (Tarkovsky, 1989, p. 63). To create each sculpture, I choose a site in the city and
stay there for about 10–20 minutes, taking several pictures. In the ‘example you are
seeing, I had a ‘block of time’ of 312 photos that I ‘carved’ to produce my sculpture.
Out of the block of 312 photos, 12 were selected and then even these 12 photos were
edited to extract the parts that interested me (Fig. 14).
After carving, there is another stage that I denominated ‘modelling’.
Before printing in the acrylic layers, I test different possibilities of situations on
Photoshop (Fig. 15). Sometimes there are several options for the same landscape,
but normally I choose just one. Once the layers are defined, it is time to assemble
the pieces and construct the sculpture that offers us an open narrative of
situations with the chosen characters and condenses the period I stayed in that
site (Fig. 16).
THE COMMUTING (2019–)
Another series that is also cinematic is The Commuting which I developed
on the undergrounds of London. Here, for the first time, I used the collage as a
technique. Six to eight photos are pilled and glued together in each work. However,
before this assemblage, each layer is hole-punched in certain areas to highlight
characters and situations. Once they are overlaid, it is possible to see the carriage
and some selected moments that happened there.
As in Street Topographies, to create each work I stay in the same place
taking several pictures. On the other hand, in The Commuting, I explore questions
related to memory and perception. The French academic and writer on film theory
Jacques Aumont once said that ‘we do not look at images in one go but through
successive fixations’ (Aumont, 1997, p. 39). For this reason, what we visualise is the
integration of these fixation points. It kind of explains why our memory fails and
our perception is incomplete. We never see things as a whole but by the choice or
certain fixation points.
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Fig. 17. Tom Lisboa. A work of ‘The Commuting’ series.
2019–. Photo: Tom Lisboa
By pushing holes in each layer, I try to recreate these fixation points. Each
photograph/collage is like a puzzle where fragments offer clues that can be
connected into multiple possibilities (Fig. 17). Depending on the time you spend
looking at the photo and trying to ‘connect the dots’, you can fill the gaps I left
behind with your memories and intuitions. It is even possible to see time passing
by as I sometimes show actions of the same character in different positions. In the
same way of the carriages as the underground, I create some movements inside
each work.
TOY-OGRAPHY (2013)
The philosopher Vilém Flusser pointed out in his book Towards a Philosophy
of Photography that when manipulating the camera whoever intends to generate
a photographic image thinks that he/she dominates the camera. However, the
144ARTIST’S VISION
Fig. 18. Tom Lisboa. Above:
Cameras of TOY-OGRAPHY.
Below: One of the texts
inserted inside the camera. It
says: ‘Images are mediations
between human beings and the
world’. 2013. Photo: Tom Lisboa
Fig. 19. Tom Lisboa. Take a
look at one of the cameras
operating. It brings a quotation
of Susan Sontag: ‘Today,
everything exists to end up in a
photograph’
user is insidiously dominated by it, because the camera is itself a ‘black box’ type
technology, which hides the program of which it is constituted. To stop being a mere
‘employee’ at the service of the program/device, the user must sabotage or subvert
this program/device, to overcome this limitation and achieve new possibilities of
creation or use.
In TOY-OGRAPHY I bought 100 toy cameras, erased the embedded
drawings and replaced them with statements from 13 authors. Some of the phrases
were: ‘Photos can lie’ (Umberto Eco); ‘Controlling images is a potential form of
power’ (Lucia Santaella); ‘Image is a place that doesn’t exist’ (Ananda Carvalho);
‘Every gaze is summed up in falsehood’ (Júlio Cortázar); ‘Today, everything exists
to end in a photograph’ (Susan Sontag), ‘Images are mediations between human
beings and the world’ (Vilém Flusser) (Fig. 18, Fig. 19).
In common with Rosângela, I share the search for a relearned way of seeing
the most elementary things. In a world increasingly saturated with images and where
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the act of photographing is available to everyone, it is up to the photographer to
renew our interest in image-making. Argentine writer Julio Cortázar once said that
the writer’s job is to destroy literature (Cortázar, 1983). I do not know if Rosângela
agrees with me in this regard, but much of what I have done, since the beginning of
my career, is to try to dismantle photography so that, by knowing its mechanisms,
I can understand it better. What fascinates me until today is precisely to analyze its
gears and its inexhaustible capacity to deceive us.
I would like to end this text with another flashback. It is a bit far back from
1999, but it explains a lot about the photographer I became. I remember that when
I was a child, maybe around 1974, after seeing my first film at the cinema, I ran to see
what was behind the screen. Of course, this time, I was a little disappointed, but it
was enough to incite me a new behaviour. The image may fascinate me, but what I
like is looking for what’s behind it.
REFERENCES
Aumont, J. (1997) The Image. London: British Film Institute.
Barros, M. (2019) Matéria de poesia. Madrid: Alfaguara.
Calvino, I. (1984) Colección de arena. Madrid: Alianza.
Cortázar, J. (1983) O jogo da amarelinha. São Paulo: Círculo do livro.
Flusser, V. (2000) Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London:
Reaktion Books.
Rennó, R. (2012) Menos-valia. São Paulo: Cosac Naify.
Rennó, R. (2003) Rosângela Rennó: Depoimento. Belo Horizonte: C/Arte.
Rennó, R. (2017) Espírito de tudo: Rosângela Rennó/curadoria Evangelina
Seiler. Rio de Janeiro: Cobogó.
Tarkovsky, A. (1989) Sculpting in time: reflections on the cinema. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Tate (2021) Rosângela Rennó. Experiencing Cinema. 2004–5. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/renno-experiencing-cinema-t12897
(Accessed 9 July 2021).
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