Seriality
We will use seriality to create more nuance. Seriality is: from three artworks, two more. These artworks don’t work as a single art piece, but require several.
For example, Bernd and Hilla Becher – their artworks don’t start working until you have at least 9, hopefully 12, then it works; but before that, it’s boring. These artworks particularly highlight subtle similarities and differences by using sameness as a linking theme.
(See also https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-718/who-are-bechers)
Image Description: Nine photographs in a 3×3 grid, all black and white photos of concrete water towers, all with similar, but different, shapes to their construction. (Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-water-towers-p81238)
So whether it be like their artwork, which is making very ‘same distance, same type of day’ photographs, or such as in my work, using very similar borders to show the subtle differences and the similarities, and create a more nuanced perspective on them;
Image Description: A small red brick house next to a high brick wall, on top of which is an even higher wire mesh border fence. Kirk Crescent, Protestant neighborhood, Belfast, 2014 | c-print | 31 5/8 x 39 1/2 inches
Image Description: A lush green cultivated field beneath a blue sky. There’s a wire fence border in the background, and a grassy mound of a fortified machine gun nest in the field. Cultivated field and fortified machine gun nest overlooking North Korea, Baengnyeongdo, 2014
Image Description: A road winding down a hillside, bordered by a wire mesh fence, with another fence of looping barbed wire in the foreground, cutting through the scrub. Security Fence on the road to Bethlehem, 2004
See also Yishay’s gallery at: https://yishay.com/index.php/2019/08/09/severd-connections-do-what-i-say-or-they-will-kill-you/
This is also in the work of Gabrielle Le Roux, the paintings of trans people with room for their words if they wish;
Image Description: Four paintings in a row, all portraits in light colorus of trans people, against dark backgrounds onto which their words have been written. (Source: https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/42.4_featuredartist.jpg?resize=940%2C330)
Sameness and the subtle differences are part of what makes the work work, that a single object doesn’t. Sereality.
Deepening the understanding of the conflict by adding subtlety of small comparison. We had the big comparison of the forces that are causing the friction inside and outside; the question of Day 2 is trying to articulate the nuance of the singularity, of the things that don’t fit, the discomfort comes from something – and articulating it in a more nuanced way, using comparison to get more flavour of what is this discomfort, what is this rage, what is this hopelessness. What is the thing that is bothering us so much that we have to act.
Seriality day is about subtlety, having more nuanced understanding, sensitizing, and educating the viewer towards seeing small differences. Variation in tone instead of using just one particular colour, using shadings, and making the viewer more sensitised towards the subtle variations that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent.
It’s photographing water towers all around the world and having the sameness. Help see the subtle differences, or in my work, comparing these separation barriers from all over the world shows their sameness and their difference, but also pointing towards some hopefully very uncomfortable truths that would be much larger than just photographing one of these borders, these single-dimensional separation barriers. They have no strategic value. Western war doctrine depends on what is called ‘defense in depth’, which is controlling hilltops, slowing the enemy, and counter-attacking. So why do all these places around the world erect these very thin, not wide, not deep, fences and walls? That is not an army question, that is a psychological question that leaders around the world use these barriers in order to scare their own population into submission and into following their edicts.
How can you use small variations in the topic that you’ve selected and the medium you are working in, in order to highlight the small differences, in order to highlight the variation, in order to sensitise, in order to educate the viewer to see small differences? Big brush strokes are wonderful but sometimes we need to work with more subtle means. One is not better than the other, but knowing both is a skill. Compare.