Norman Behrendt: Blueprint 2017 - 2020
-
39,00€
About
"Blueprint 2017–20 is partially about Brexit: about nationalism and xenophobia and how they play out visually on a local and global stage. It is also about contemporary image culture, the TV and internet, and the way media images are used—both consciously and unconsciously—to persuade, provoke and influence us." - Lucy Soutter
Blueprint 2017–20 explores how the mass media has influenced political debates and democratic processes during the process of Brexit. Norman Behrendt’s photographs of Brexit-related video material examine what sort of imagery is used to influence people by stirring up deep-seated attitudes around national pride, immigration and lack of control. The blue color of the cyanotypes reflects the invisible influence of the European Union on the United Kingdom.
In his work Norman focuses on particularly underhand forms of persuasion, grandiloquent language and powerful visual metaphors, which are strategically used to undermine the democratic process and to transform a reality that was once considered to be uniform, homogenous or monolithic.
By photographing details of publicly accessible online video content, uploaded on various media channels including newspapers, magazines, Leave and Remain Youtube channels, documentaries and political debates in the UK and EU parliaments, Norman Behrendt disassembles the visual layers into their individual parts and thereby scrutinize and recycle these pixelated, transient images. In his presentation he brings these different visual extracts together, rearrange them and thereby form a new narrative.
As a photographic method, he used the blueprint; a chemical process discovered in 1842 by English astronomer John Herschel. Originally used to reproduce documents, this historic proofing method traces the practices of the media and mirrors them back. The blue colour reflects on the idea of the invisible influence of the European Union on the United Kingdom.
The book is part of the following public collections:
Martin Parr Foundation / Tate Library, main collection / Berlinische Galerie Library / Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum Art Library / Musée de l'Elysée Library / Stedelijk Museum Library / Swedish public libraries
OTA bound paperback with coloured edges, 304 pages, Duotone offset printing, 212 photographs
17 x 25,5 cm
Essay by London-based artist, critic and art historian Lucy Soutter
Appendix featuring crucial texts and speeches about Brexit and EU-UK relations
First edition of 800 copies
Published in May 2021 by Kult Books
