Been there. Done that. Can't see what all the fuss (here) is about.
Crosher is doing things that I find interesting. Mining archives for insights which were included unintentionally, or which only emerge when the archive is seen as a whole. Looking at how images condition behaviour, and at how we interact psychologically with images of all types and formats. The way that photographs present only part of the whole, and how recovery of what's missing becomes harder and harder as the physical archive deteriorates and the chance of interviewing the participants fades along with it.
The talk was typically insular, and included a certain amount of jargon - but then, it's a talk at the Aperture Foundation. Were I ever to give a talk there, I would assume people were mostly interested in the photographic aspects of my work. I would also assume a basic familiarity with the language in which these kinds of issues are usually discussed.
I do detect an odd sort of cultural cringe. I'm not sure if the motivation is ring-fencing a secure little territory, or a continuation of photography's traditional inferiority complex; but the way both participants insisted 'it's not about the content' seemed like protesting too much. Of course it's about the content. Michelle Dubois' life is much more interesting, titivating even, than most, and the narrative which lurks in the background is calculated to attract interest, even if only prurient.
Perhaps I'm only confirming my own biases, but there is a point where raising issues isn't enough: you need to address them. This project isn't like the Hilbert Problems in mathematics. There is no great merit in simply pointing out that there are contradictions expressed in women's lives in the era of mainstream feminism. It's an issue that's been identified time and time again.
I am not one to insist that art be as self-contained and complete as a well-crafted and fully-researched essay. However, if you're going to insist that the conceptual is important in your work, and draw authority and prestige from the respect accorded to good examples of academic archive mining and found object anthropology, then you open yourself up to judgment using the tools traditionally used in the academy to decide whether your ideas are any good or not.
I live and work in a world where ideas are taken seriously, and not just consumed, but assessed for worth. That makes me a sort of über-snob: snobbish about work that most people here already seem to find snobbish. So be it. In this case I feel like a supervisor with a student who has done a basic run through the archive, and a bit of background reading, but no real work. It's a good start, and there are some promising ideas, but it's not enough to get my respect.
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