Stephanie Ognar and MSCHarding
Jacob Hashimoto: An Infinite Expanse of Sky (10,000 Kites)
Flip books have been pop-culture novelties for a long time, but Ognar gives us both the central action, relating to the flip book’s illusion of movement, and quieter moments that offer a sense of the living person behind the woman on display. Flip Book Glance, for example, begins with Ognar turning toward the viewer and looking directly out, then smiling and looking downward. Finally she turns away, and for the last few seconds–about a third of the book’s “running time”–we see the mostly immobile back of her head. In Flip Book Bed we see Ognar apparently asleep, head and hand on a pillow. But before she predictably turns toward us and opens her eyes, she extends her forefinger.
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Details such as these are distractions from the flip book as an amusing little spectacle. Ognar’s flirtation with the viewer is intertwined with elements not normally associated with attractiveness. The finger also hints at a phallic joke, as does the spittle Ognar shoots upward in Flip Book Spit, a white stream against a black background that seems an obvious reference to semen.
Changing direction is only one of several kinds of control the viewer has; the other chief one is the speed of flipping, which determines the speed of movement. That speed almost always varies during the book’s running time, making one aware of moving imagery’s source: a succession of still frames. And holding the book in one’s hand creates an illusion of possession more direct than is common in film viewing. While an actor’s presence on the big screen can be overwhelmingly intimate, Ognar establishes a relationship that’s no less intimate but in some ways more equal and more thought provoking: one cannot forget one’s own direct participation in the creation of movement. Ognar makes intelligent use of this aspect of the flip book: as one holds her image in one’s hand, making her move, she emerges almost confrontationally from her bath.
Armada made me wonder if one could speak about intelligent and dumb art with some precision. Most definitions of intelligence suggest that it depends on the ability of the mind to compare things, and to do so with some flexibility; Jean Piaget held that intelligence in older children goes beyond “a mere schema of behavior…various possible physical movements in near space” to make use of “formal operations” that involve thinking “beyond the present” to consider “implications” and even “contradictions.” Filming and photographing oneself has been a popular choice among art students for a couple of decades, but such work is often circumscribed by the adolescent narcissism that seems its primary motivation, remaining “stuck” in the artist’s assertion of his physical presence “in near space.” Ognar’s flip books may also spring from that impulse, but she goes beyond trying to make herself seem seductive to create a complex, generalizable relationship between work and viewer: her books made me think about performances in commercial films, women’s imagery in the media, and my own surreptitious glances at people in public places. Her work is intelligent because it goes beyond its particulars to examine–and encourage the viewer to examine–their implications.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): uncredited photos.
