Supporting Wall

Globe Theatre's Supporting Wall

Perhaps a good place to start is with this picture.  I do not profess that the photo, technically is brilliant.  However its subject matter is perfect for this blog.

The photo is of the words Supporting Wall printed on a wall at or near the Globe Theatre in London. Since I took this picture some years ago I cannot remember the exact location or the purpose of its message, but given that a wall must by definition support at least itself, why did its architectural-cum-building team elect to tell the world that it was necessarily a supporting wall. Perhaps it supports the Globe Theatre?  Perhaps it does not.  Nevertheless someone decided in their wisdom that conveying the message was as a important as building the wall in the first place.

I mean they could have simply had a small tag put discretely somewhere stating "supporting wall".  In being discrete they could have fulfilled the aims of the wall, and its future.  But no they instead elected to make a show of this wall's importance.  They thus give the wall a longevity through time not necessarily attributed to many other walls.  It at least challenges future builders, "touch me if you dare!"

Having now raised at least my own aesthetic hopes, let my now dash them.   And so if you look at the Globe Theatre's website the whole matter becomes worse than boring, since it is simply a fund-raising exercise: as such I hate the whole wall.  What was a chance for something to challenge the brain now is in fact a place for people who have a need to demonstrate to the world that they have too much money.  How awful!

The Importance of Frame

Tracy Emin's unmade bed

It could be said that life is about frames and how we interact with them.  This could be said of science, for instance, where we are forever exploring new worlds whether that be attempting to be the first to find intelligent life on far flung planets, or the intricate study of life under the microscope through to the attempts to recreate the Big bang via the Hadron Collider.

And then in asking the question "What is Art?", one possible answer is pushing the envelope of what is acceptable, or what is possible, of what is desirable in an Aesthetic World.  Is it right or acceptable to display a bed, one's own bed unmade - as actually done by Tracy Emin.

What I intend to do on this blog is explore frame, and its importance to me, by exploring my own digital photographic world, and to help put this into context, by commenting on those of the rest of the world.