Singular Pleasures 5

The penultimate piece in the series first run in The Age, 1997

Five Eyes: The Emmet Tugby Centre for Photography

Given the potential of photographic artifice to re-negotiate our perceptions of visual "truth", it is surprising that the old adage "the camera does not lie" has been so persistent. This dictum is only valid in as much as a photographic image exists as an observable phenomenon: the veracity of its content as a record of any aspect of reality is infinitely flexible. This was not lost on pioneering photographer Emmet Tugby, who managed to call the very existence of his subjects into question in his penetrating studies of Edwardian social life. 50 years after his death however, it is debatable that the exhibition now showing at the institution that bears his name does his legacy justice. Even in the most generous assessment, Five Eyes is woefully inconsistent. The photographers represented here exhibit work that ranges from the banal to the indecipherable.

In opting for banality, Irene Shanks has squandered far too many opportunities. Her stated intention is to force the viewer to re-assess the significance of her subjects via the archival clarity of the silver gelatin print, but she has failed. No matter how exquisitely they are photographed, those peculiar dolls in lacy crinolines sometimes used to cover spare toilet rolls resist the iconic scrutiny that Shanks demands. The same can be said of crocheted poodle lavatory-brush cosies. By divorcing these items of suburban kitsch from their contexts, Shanks avoids the discourse of euphemism and the eliminative functions, which would have given her work some substance.

Gareth Chivers has positioned himself solidly at the indecipherable end of the Five Eyes spectrum. His single untitled offering occupies an entire wall, but his ill-conceived attempt at monumentalism falters at the hurdle of scrutability and plummets into the morass of empty opaqueness. In the middle of a huge montage of bleached images of shredded newspaper, Chivers has placed a minuscule Rococo cherub. He provides no hint as to the purpose of this exercise, and in effect offers nothing more than a photographic analogue of a game of Where's Wally?. The answer is achingly obvious: he's right in the middle, which scarcely justifies the effort involved.

The other three artists in this exhibition are slightly more au fait with the ramifications of the photographic discourse. Anastasia Thyrsos addresses the issue of narrative in Interloper I - XXIV. This sequential series, depicting the gradual progress of a large huntsman spider along the cornice of a living-room, also evokes the idea of trespass. We see the spider as an intruder in our environment, but from the arachnid perspective, the reverse could be just as valid.

Although hovering at times on the the fringes of the banal, Gordon Carp has explored the furtive gesture in his Amber, Red series. These pictures at least simulate a detached, objective reportage. Carp is saying "I am a camera - and I can see what you're doing while you're waiting for the traffic lights to change". Carp does not sit in judgement. Rather, by capturing the clandestine nasal excavations that occur in moments of arrested vehicular progress, he delegates qualitative assessment to the viewer. Our implied complicity in such acts must therefore inform our interpretation of the images.

Finally, Gilda Wyverns infuses 9 Elbows with an awareness of the body as landscape. By a careful selection of angle and plane, she effects an unexpected interrogation of a largely neglected area of the individual physique. Wyverns's lens causes us to question this extremity. Elbows they may be, but in a re-defined context where they are reduced to discrete entities, they could also be lunar peaks, sand dunes or the beds of ancient lakes. In their ambivalent minimalism, they constitute Five Eyes' closest approach to eloquence.