This is a project in scanography from my Digital Imaging course at Bowling Green State University.
This series of scanography pieces was based on a Lore Podcast recounting haunted tales of the city of London, England. One such tale centered around a figure known as the woman in black. After her brother Philip Whitehead was covertly killed for crimes against the Bank of England, Sarah lived in a constant state of mourning. Dressing in all black, she returned to the bank daily only to ask the same question: “Where is my brother?” To this day, London bankers claim they feel a sense of hopelessness in certain areas of the bank, sometimes seeing her shadowy figure and yet always hearing the ominous echo of those same words.
In creating my image, I utilized a piece of parchment paper as the base upon which I layered photographs of brother and sister pairs and scattered coins to evoke the imagery of a bank. In order to create a ghostly feel to the image, I left the scanner lid open to provide a black background. I then used Vaseline and black ink to create spiderweb-esque texture and heighten the grim tone. I then pressed my hand and face against this painted piece of parchment.
Another story of the haunted history of London focused on the outbreak of the Black Death. This plague ravaged the continent of Europe, an estimated hundreds of thousands of people falling victim to this disease in the city of London alone. Compounding upon this tragedy, a fire broke out and instantly cremated many of these corpses that were left behind.
In creating these scanography pieces, I evoked medical imagery through the use of the face mask and sterile gloves. To create a sense of being trapped or quarantined due to contamination, I used the packaging material of bubble wrap. Wearing one glove on each hand, I created repetition by moving my hands underneath and on top of the bubble wrap as the scan was being made. These pieces feel very timely with the current epidemic of the Corona Virus in which thousands are currently being quarantined and walking around in face masks for protection.
Although the process was rather messy, I do feel that this experiment of translating an audio experience into a visual expression was ultimately successful. Given that these ghost stories have numerous details and vivid imagery, it is relatively easy to find objects of literal representation. The greater challenge, however, is being able to capture the essence of the audio experience in the feeling it creates and expressions it elicits in the audience.
As Lev Manovich states in his article “The Language of New Media,” working with technology to create art affects all stages of communication. This had to be taken into consideration when utilizing the scanner, understanding its benefits and limitations, depth of field, speed of scanning and impact on motion capture, the horizontal and stationary position of the equipment itself, and internal light source in order to know how to properly use it to its full potential. In order to become familiar with its qualities and capacities, I completed hundreds of scans in order to experiment and make small adjustments to achieve the desired results. By tangibly understanding how this piece of technology impacts how my work needs to be approached, created, and consumed, I believe I was able to create successful creative scans.
