From Pixel To Print

Note: The exhibition is now closed. This article is for historical reference only.

Summary

From “Pixel to Print” is what happens when a group of Perth photographers bring their works, previously exhibited in an online photo-sharing community, into a physical gallery space, infusing this space with the dynamic and interactive nature of the online environment!

Overview

The online community, Flickr, is a photo-sharing web service designed to let photographers store and share their work on the Web. Its popularity has grown to the extent that it now hosts millions of images taken and uploaded by people from around the world. Flickr’s complex engine allows users to create and join groups dedicated to particular styles or subject matter, to comment and annotate each other’s photographs, to nominate images as favourites, and to even transact such images by using one of the service’s partners to order prints of these images.

It’s not surprising, thus, that Flickr has led to the formation of virtual communities of photographers, both professional and amateurs, becoming in effect a virtual exhibition space that goes beyond traditional undertakings of such spaces: its interactive nature provides for immediate feedback and critiques of one’s photographs, and allows the exchange of ideas between photographers. It has led to the formation of virtual collectives of photographers, and to collaborative photography projects between photographers separated by physical distances of thousands of miles.

Craig Abbott, Shem Bisluk, Nathan Cantwell, Brendan Head, Guy McLachlan and Seng Mah are Perth photographers who use Flickr to exhibit and workshop their work. While their styles and favoured subjects differ, all six photographers have embraced the organic and interactive nature of Flickr to show, grow and evolve their photography. In fact, it is through the medium of this online community that the six disparate photographers met.

In the last 12 months, all six have exhibited their work in Flickr and been actively involved in a range of online and digital photography projects. Now, they bring their work out of this virtual space into the physical space of a gallery and challenge their audiences to interact with their images as hundreds of Flickr users have before.

What this means for you

Traditionally, gallery spaces do not encourage active engagement with exhibitions. Images and artwork tend to be regarded as artefacts, to be observed, scrutinised and understood, often on a personal, non-vocalised level. At most, visitors may leave a comment or two in a guest book en route out of the gallery.

As an exhibition, “From Pixel to Print” challenges viewers to engage with the images in ways that mirror the interactive nature of Flickr. It makes the experience of viewing an exhibition one of active interaction, instead of passive reception. Photographs at the exhibition are displayed with a brief description by the photographer; however, more importantly, each image will present its own ‘comment space’ – where viewers may leave comments (anonymous or otherwise). Viewers may also nominate images as favourites, and contribute to the way an image asks to be read by tagging it with alternative titles, or descriptions. A viewing of a photograph in the exhibition, thus, is not just a passive experience – a viewer may access comments and tags left by others and add their own.