Manipulation of the Family Photo Album: A Commentary on Esther Parada's Transplant, A Tale of Three Continents

 

By Valerie Innella © 2000

Texas Tech University

School of Art

 

Artist Web sites as an information resource allows vision into artists, world and can bring their ideas to our global community without having to leave the studio. Many sites become interactive arenas for advancing art beyond the traditional. Roy Ascott writes "It replaces the bricks and mortar of the institutions of culture and learning with an invisible college and a floating museum the reach of which is always expanding to include the possibilities of mind and new intimations of reality" (cited in Lovejoy, 1997, p. 212). The existence of a culture in a cyber world is unique to history. Can it provide a tangible new society of values and ideas? The Internet is providing an arena for people to connect and discuss issues important to society. Some artists use the site as a commentary on issues common throughout history such as themes of commerce and family. This medium allows the visual codes to be viewed in an integral, non linear story that oscillates between areas of the earth. It also allows for non-chronological time travel in multiple versions of stories of human life. A story may be created in different time zones connecting in the same cyber reality.

Esther Parada creates a site (http://www.rtvf.nwu.edu/Homestead/eparada/ep-1.html) as an intersection between traditional visual arts, such as photography, and the latest wave of media using technology, such as the Internet, to comment on the social status of upper class women in Victorian England. The ideology embedded in Parada,s site facilitates the viewer to create a commentary on feminism, imperialism, and the social impositions of a foreign economy on a culture of their own construction using "the facts" she provides. Her site is to be viewed is a complete work of art with the computer as the sole provider of the imagery and iconography for the viewer. If this site were downloaded it would not have the same impact, as the ability to click between American, British, and Indian civilizations would be lost. However, the traditional medium of photography is used as a focus of the information presented.

Parada exposes the viewer to political messages of feminism and the role of the Victorian era bride to the groom. Several types of feminist philosophies overlap
such as radical feminism and Marxist feminism. Radical feminist thought concerns women,s self-perception, status, and function in private and public domains. Marxism is a theory of feminist thought where it is impossible for anyone, especially women, to obtain genuine equal opportunity in a class society where wealth is held by a powerful few. This site seems to be about the emotional impact of significant events in women,s lives, such as societal control through marriage and economic situation.

There are six options which are links off the main page titled "Bride, Groom, Brother, Husband, Daughter, and Wife" (Parada, 1996). The story is presented as if each Web page is part of a puzzle. Only when each page has been reviewed, in no particular order, can full meaning be understood. The family portraits, themselves, are accessed in a linear fashion, one per page as might be found in a traditional photo album. Parada redefines these photos by adding flashing text over each one, and assigning titles to each page in the form of a quote. This technological addition of dynamic text layers the identity of the characters so that the societal confinement of each family member,s role is revealed along gender and class.

Parada titles the work "Transplant" referring to a diasporic condition of an upper class woman. The American bride of a titled Englishman is transplanted first to England. The culture she encounters is different from her own and the text for this page reads "Mary felt isolated due to both excessive admiration and to resentment of her American ways" (Parada, 1996). Then she is uprooted once again by her husband,s economic ventures to India. She is thrust into a political life among another foreign culture in which she is expected to be a mother to their children and hostess to affairs in their home. The bride is claimed as "the toast" of three continents by English peers in India, but it is her inheritance that seems to captivate her husband. Titled, but not as wealthy as his political aspirations need him to be, George Curzon uses her family inheritance to acquire the coveted position of Viceroy. His rule in India is necessary for his home country,s control of a crop that is shipped out to England. This is the double meaning of Parada,s title "Transplant", in which the control of plants provides wealth and prestige. Throughout history, European and American corporate capital have shown imperialistic tendencies to gain control over land which produces lucrative products.

England's interest in the Indian landscape in the 19th century hinged on the production of the cinchona bark that produces quinine that controls malaria. Parada,s art provides a multilayered nonlinear narrative, which examines cultural implications of economic power. Her art is interactive and can be a different journey for each individual viewer. Links provide new information and alter our perception of the story. The viewer must be actively engaged to learn the whole story. Cultural colonialism is an important issue in this artwork. The family presented is moved from the United States to India to a world of British imperialism. This unusual arena for a bride, who experienced a new culture and life in which the dominant ruling force, was a minority over a completely different culture of values and beliefs. The culture she was introduced to was created in part by a group outside of the geographic area in which she came to live. She is a commodity to be possessed while the male characters are the controllers. Parada's integral worldview is easily recognized when one considers all elements of the site. The site has a unique style, but a story common to many cultures and time periods. Her characters transcend local existences and become part of a global culture. The most important aspect of the work is the human element. This story is a commentary on reality as well as a virtual story where the character identities are more complex then a traditional literary text can convey. The viewer can recognize visual codes that give layers of information on each character. For example, the visual codes on Mary include the words "Bride, Lily, Heiress, and Oleograph". Lilies are also shown as a repeating background around the central photo and text. For centuries in art women have been represented by flowers. The lily was common in European Renaissance art, especially paintings, where it was used as a symbol for the Virgin Mary. Parada,s use of the lily icon for the bride Mary may be a modern
parallel to the virtues of the Biblical Mary such as the virginal quality of the bride. In a sense the site is offering dematerialized art or art whose "importance lies beyond what can be seen or touched" (Lovejoy, 1997, p. 77).

 

This art is not static and therefore contemplation of a singular image or page would only provide partial understanding. The connection of the characters to the viewer is the most important aspect. The ability to change screens at the viewer,s command gives time for each part of the story to have impact. Viewing time is subjective to each user. The emotions felt by the viewer can be brought on by words alone, but the visual and viewer,s movement through the site completes the story. The photos presented are reminiscent of those found in many photo albums in the Unite States. Photos that document marriages, homes, children, and what one owns, has seen, or loved. The actual feelings and physical situation of the characters could have taken place in any century. The plight of the new bride, being whisked off to foreign lands, is a common occurrence. This occurs often today as avenues of transportation are even more easily accessible and many families find career opportunities all over the world. There is not much distancing between this virtual world and the traditional realm of story telling as our culture can easily read the story as occurring before the invention of the technology that delivers it. Yet, Parada is using the site as the medium and her story would not "work" without the technological advantages of the digital machine that adds pictures to text and more iconographic aids as background to the main pictures and text. Visual codes embedded on this site are in the form of text and background prints surrounding each picture. Backgrounds, for example, include live tigers behind vegetation as a backdrop to a photo of Curzon and a local man posed with two dead tigers after a hunt. There are several meanings conjured from this image. First the tiger may symbolize power, or a link to the natural habitat of India, or it may be in contrast to the photo of Curzon with the tiger he has killed in sport. If these images were shown to someone else they may represent other themes such as animal rights.

In the story there are links between people/photos/drawings. The story does not read in a linear fashion but the viewer is engaged to click on areas to learn more about each icon presented. This method of presenting information can envelop the receiver in a positive manner, creating a virtual reality. However, the areas to click on are not random in that a new story will appear on a link previously viewed.

What happens when reality becomes a cyber story? The meaning of the story can change because it is not presented in a linear fashion. Words taken out of context are no longer part of the author,s story but subjective to viewers and the route they choose in which to view it. The author,s intent may not be conveyed in the manner in which it was originally conceived. Parada,s art, a form of interactive computer art, gives the viewer choices of what to see and contemplate in order to construct meaning from the themes of gender, economics, imperialism, marriage, social class, and politics.

This site is reminiscent of Maya Deren,s films because of the emotions that are convey through a two dimensional inanimate object. The film projector and the
computer monitor cannot express emotion, but the characters presented through these media become connected to the viewer and their story is felt in the viewer. There were common themes of women,s romantic relationships to men and the underlying submissiveness women sometimes embody when in such relationships. The individual,s journey is revealed through visual art and no language is necessary to convey these emotions. It is odd that we, as humans, can receive emotion from an emotionless object. We are distanced from others when viewing the works yet we can feel connected to others because of it. The machine provides a story that embodies emotions yet it has no "body".

Can Web sites be thought of as virtual museums? If yes, can they be accessed using the same criteria of museum effectiveness found in physical museum sites? Recent research into visitor appreciation of museum exhibits provides some ways to measure the effectiveness of their mission. The main reasons for visiting a museum include cognitive, object, social, and introspective experiences (Doering, 1999, p. 87). Yet, these experiences do not fit for Web visitation. It is not a physical social activity where one leaves the computer area, or to really "see" an object. The main reason to visit may be strictly for the cognitive experience since one can learn new information. Likewise for the introspective experience. Parada,s site may be part of the introspective experience as the viewer can feel a virtual connection with the characters and possibly recall memories of visited places. Thus technology links can evoke what we have experienced and what we want to experience, and to give us insight into others, experiences.

 

In Postmodern Currents Lovejoy (1997) writes, "The postmodern presumes the modern, and includes both an academic, or high aspect and a low or vernacular one" (p. 67). Parada,s site has the "high" or research intense study of culture and social dynamics of the family unit. The vernacular aspect is the text employed over each photo. The photos themselves are not high art photography but those that can be found in a family album. Her work is postmodern partly because it uses cutting edge technology as the medium. Parada,s commentary on the women,s traditional role as an object to be possessed is a feminist cognitive aspect of this artwork. Overall the site gives the viewer many codes and symbols about culture and sociology. The reality Parada creates must be viewed as she intended in a non linear manner, to fully comprehend the multiple facets of this commentary
on feminism and the idea of being "transplanted".

 

References:

Doering, Z. (1999) "Strangers, guests, or clients?" Curator. Vol. p. 74-87.

 

Lovejoy, M. (1997). Postmodern currents: Art and artists in the age of electronic media (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

 

Parada, E. (1996). Transplant, A Tale of Three Continents. (Available On-line: http://www.rtvf.nwu.edu/Homestead/eparada/ep-1.html )