Tableau
Sophomore year, fall
Humans cannot process complex imagery instantaneously. We must navigate what we might naïvely call “static” imagery. This quick assignment stresses the designer’s role in preparing a space through which the reader might construct a narrative. Evidence is provided for a reader’s deduction.
Tableau (n): A representation used to express the sudden creation of a striking or dramatic situation, a scene, which it is left to the reader to imagine. (OED)
Jeremy Purser: “Eff It.” The coffee cups, especially as two are on the laptop (read: they were finished during a period away from computer work), establish a passage of time, which in turn serves to explain the Rubik’s-derived frustration evident in the “solution.” Thus, a photograph, which naturally captures a single moment in time, suggests a story.
The Setting
Imaging I was redesigned to better serve NCSU’s new GD curriculum, which reinforces design as a relational system. Buttressed by my doctoral research, I built the course as a focus on the human experience of imagery, classifying images in cognitive terms (rather than, say, format). Pacing was important, with many short assignments that were not overly demanding and kept the students in motion. Assignments were matched to targeted technical proficiencies—to empower the students and address some shortcomings of previous groups—and one or more of 11 image functions—which the students were engaged with helping to define. (The image functions glossary includes narrative imagery, addressed in this assignment.)
Narrative imagery: Connects concepts through a sequence that suggests a temporally derived order. Narrative imagery invests a static page with a time signature. It should be stressed that it is the reader that actively constructs the narrative from the static page.
Tableau is one of 9 assignments in Imaging I, a sophomore-level core studio at the NCSU College of Design. Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays for 2 hours. Students at the College of Design have dedicated desks with 24-hour access.
Task Brief
Set up a space to be shot. Output is a single photograph, not digitally altered (beyond levels), that tells a story in the single frame. The nature of the story is determined by the student. Use any and all means (props, models, etc.) to design the shot. The photograph should include evidence that implies a temporal sequence that reaches beyond the confines of the moment in time actually captured. Meaning will be derived largely through suggestion and implication, based on the quality and nature of the set-up. Success is best judged by the reader’s ability to translate the shot—the story must be evident. (The final photograph is displayed on a basic template at 18×12″ with a title that doesn’t give away the story.)
Betsy Sherertz: “Not So Happy Ending” (below left). Will Calloway: “It Was a Crime of Passion, He Confessed” (below). Note the shortening wick below the perp’s head, as well as the hand-made quality (encouraged).
Day 1: Assignment introduced in the last 20 minutes of class (following previous assignment’s critique). By Wednesday pick out a location or contrive a set-up and sketch out the scene, especially the story-fulfilling elements. Bring personal cameras and manuals on Wednesday. Day 2: Photography demo: inside and outside shots, light color (incandescent, fluorescent, natural), silhouetting, low light, and manual settings (white balance, shutter speed, and aperture). This day is technically inclined. Desk crits and questions as time permits. Day 3: Group crit.
Objectives
As with other assignments in the course, exploration that generates useful discussion is highly valued. Simply put:
- Tell a story in a single set photograph. Make the story as complex as possible given the limitations.
- Compose and execute a set photograph with good craft. Focus, lighting and metering are especially important. Construction of the scene also involves craft.
Non-performative image functions:
Performative image functions:
Process & Critique
In line with my conceptualization of Imaging I, students are not permitted to present their own work. Instead, their classmates engage in interpretation on the spot, so that each designer might learn how his or her Tableau actually works, in practice. The designer writes the intended story embedded in the photograph on the back of the print-out in pencil. This is checked against the story as constructed by the group. This critique method puts the emphasis on how the image works, as the group tells the designer (not the other way around!).
Betsy Peters: “Make a Wish…” This story is among the more difficult. The birthday boy closes his eyes to make a wish—regrettably, as it turns out, because his “friends” waste no time in blowing out the candles and opening his presents.
As part of planning, and for confirmation in critique, the student articulates her story using plain language, as discrete steps. The stories are simple, but must use these time-stamped steps.
Erin Choplin: “I Need My Towel!” As noted by the peer reviewers (below), the use of color is demonstrative. Note that the imaged story is not a complex one. It need not be. It must simply make good use of imaginal coding.
Two classmates interpret the final Tableau and make notes for their presentation. The pair then presents the designer’s work by proxy, without any input from the her, in order to inform the designer regarding a reader’s actual interpretation—as opposed to designer intent. (The designer can reveal intent thereafter, and the full group can troubleshoot any discrepancies.) In this way we do our best to “test” the work—indeed, the assignment is designed so as to produce testable results.
The notes sheet (right) provides some guidance. The hope is to engage the class in discussion of how the tableaux go about meaning, not what they mean in a deterministic sense. This emphasis is core to the course plan.
Outcomes
This quick assignment is an exercise in image-making that promotes discussion. Furthermore, it introduces the students to a particular kind of authorship too rarely exhibited by designers. The utilization of set photography as modeled here seems, at least, to have had an impact on how the students go about making images.