Part Three: Summary

In this section I have sought to map some of the key factors which have informed my own montagist artwork and identify how it might be considered as a sort of critical realist practice. In doing this I have outlined some of the central notions of critical realism which have largely resulted from the ground covered in Parts One and Two. In considering a suitable method for creating a contemporary 'realist effect' I also have assessed the position taken by Brecht and Benjamin on the popular and pleasurable capacity of the artwork.

In acknowledging both the increased closure of the 'media world' with its lack of space for potential counter-cultural use, it is possible to see that contemporary conditions are far from similar to those in which Benjamin and Brecht operated. Whereas technology in the early 1930's could be seen to have a transformative potential in its use by the workers' movement, today it can be observed to be increasing the fragmentation and alienation of late capitalist commodity culture.158

In considering how artists may 'key into' this culture in a popularly accessible way, I have indicated that advertising (with its pervasivness use of montage and production of a literate audience) may provide a useful starting point. It is here that the use of montage may be seen able to recover its critical capacity and reverse Adorno's observation that

the principle of montage was supposed to shock people into realising just how dubious any organic unity was. Now that the shock had lost its punch, the products of montage revert to being indifferent stuff or substance.159

Through the use of montage it may be possible to facilitate a reversal of the alienating operation of advertisements and thus contribute to a realist practice and its agenda to reveal the real. Although there are still manifest problems with this formulation, access being a paramount one, this notion has formed an important foundation for my own montage work.

Considerations of technique has been accompanied with considerations of the productive technology with the development of digital image processing. Here I have sought to make it clear that although the chemical photograph's dominant cultural role is set to be eclipsed by the electronic one, it does not follow we are entering a 'post-photographic era' where the image cannot be said to refer to 'reality' in a concrete way. Here I have stressed that the function of the image in contemporary culture is of a far more complex nature and that meanings are determined for a large part outside the image itself.

It is here that I have located the development of digital imaging as providing the artist with a creative medium which privileges interventionist approach. The ability to rework, blend and transform digital imagery into a coherent and seamless form has provided another important foundation for my own montagist work. In discussing one example of my work I have identified the working method involved and made clear what is its main agenda. It is here that I have tried to assert that the work I have produced for this project creates a sort of realist effect. This can be seen to be because of the theories of knowledge which informs the work and the way the working method organises the found imagery to engage with popular sensibilities.

 Footnotes

159 Adorno, T, W, 1984, p 223