LO-2

I was interested in Mitchell Whitelaw’s Succession. It is a beautiful, haunting work that I think takes a modern approach to documenting and presenting history. I find the combination of each fossil element to have the striking effect of confusing viewers and forcing them to take time to pick apart and understand each element. Each part of the composite it displays is shown below the entire image so viewers may deconstruct the composite to better understand the work. Whitelaw’s description presents the mechanics of the code, which selects five images from a database of two thousand and combines them. I suppose there is something which controls how the images fit together, most likely which controls each layer, as there is a foreground and many layers of backgrounds, and an algorithm for transparency as well. It’s a very deep work which presents Whitelaw’s own respect for the culture as all of the pieces of the composite are presented as vital, and even pieces of the composite are recognized below. His description includes his artistic goal for the piece: to present new views on industrial capitalism and find new ways to document and look backwards.

https://mtchl.net/succession/#