They Live Still
Nisanth Srinivasan and Allan Parker
Full colour
76 pages
Section-sewn
Swiss (open) binding with 2-color screen-printed cover, blind embossed title.
They live Still features the photographic work of Nisanth Srinivasan accompanied by an essay by Allan Parker
Nisanth Srinivasan is a young visual artist based in Bangalore, India who has only recently begun to use stills camera and film to make photographs. However, his work recreates the look and feel of analogue images, using digital files and a range of photographic techniques. These include re-photographing found images and scanning the pages of old books and magazines. Why does a contemporary image-maker foreground this strategy in their practice?
Here are his thoughts on the processs:
The accompanying essay by Allan Parker considers ways in which digital technologies often fall short in their offer image-makers.
“Contemporary life includes bonds with the past which cannot be so easily discarded. For urban dwellers, the built landscape forms the bedrock of the look and feel of the world ‘out there’. Residual grime and combustibility threaten to disrupt any dreams of a perfected, marketable present; a project which requires a vigorous edit of the surroundings to produce sufficiently idealized images to grease the rails of commercial ambition.
The creation of mood and atmosphere provided by the material aspects of photography – in which we could include printmaking techniques as well as the presence of ‘poor’ images, all conspire to populate a psychological landscape replete with mystery and banality; its hues and textures seeping across the tonal range of anxiety and desire.
“…An act of analogue rebellion in an obnoxiously digital world” [1]
[1] Teju Cole
Smell the ink and drift away: why I find solace in photobooks, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/24/teju-cole-photobooks-fernweh?fbclid=IwAR0ESFuss7qTVIBD5WYuXFo2X7XEX32bb7csg-NB7XILxtWzKJzspbJrfgo