On Tuesday 23 September I ran a workshop at Fabrica for volunteers and staff. After looking at some documentation of the Hirschhorn work that will be showing during the Photobiennial I asked people to write down their responses to the work. Each response was then sealed in an envelope, thrown into the middle of the room and then each person picked an envelope. In small groups of four we read out and discussed these reactions to the work.
Looks very overbearing, it’s so big.
The writing looks like it could have been written in blood (if it wasn’t black)
The position of the viewer is very difficult.
How do I look at disembodied/uncontextualised images of gore? When they were taken, what was the purpose?
Media images of war have become so ubiquitous, do we see them at all when they’re in their original context, if not, why not?
It is hard to tell what the images are until closer in, but it has a feeling of them being something terrible.
The shock value of ths project interests me, from a stand point of pacifist protest, this is a very violent protest.
I have mixed feelings
Too many blood
SHOCKING
Who will see this exhibition? (AGE)?
Is not for everyone
Dramatic
Vast, overwhelming, provocative, violent, distressing, confrontational.
Collage, use of mass media, second hand images, everyday/familiar, perhaps those we have become desensitised to in a way but given the context and quantity of images we are forced to confront them in a new way, banner suggests element of protest. Currency of war, universality, immediacy.
I find it interesting how the artwork appears so impersonal to the artist – any one could of copy and pasted the images from google or spray painted the title – AND YET it is such a highly personal piece ~ personal to the people in the images ~ a unique + personal story to each and every one of them.
In my opinion I find the work pretty vulgar and disrespectful.
This work makes me feel guilty. Because sometimes I’m a passive person and I think I could do more. I think the war is the consequence of a lot of passives people. This images probably come from the Irak war but they came from any war.
