Rob Carter

Wrigley Castle, 2006

Foobel (an alternative history)
2005, color/sound, total running time: 8 mins 56 secs

Statement on Stadia

These photographs address the conflicting relationships between architecture, sport, religion, class and entertainment that have made these structures so historically significant. The first series focused on English football stadia by visually removing them from their actual location and placing them within more unusual environments. The Church of England is an image of Old Trafford (home to Manchester United), placed in the partially blurred town of Canterbury. Here a stadium which is sometimes referred to as ‘The Church of England’ is placed along side (and obscuring) Canterbury Cathedral – home of the Anglican Church. The image represents the great historical disparities that exist in England in terms of the significance of the country’s cities in relation to faith, community and scale.

The most recent series of photographs represent a more international perspective. The idea of the stadium (in this case Baseball) as a fortress or palace refers to the role of ‘the team’ to their fans, but also considers the iconographic and historical status of the buildings themselves. Here all the locations and stadiums are essentially American, but the castles are from Europe. The implication is that these stadia are often the iconic structures of the U.S. urban landscape in a way that older structures (like castles) are in other parts of the world. Though they form a significant part of the identity, culture and employment of the community, the architecture and franchise is often surprisingly disposable.

Process: All these images are made by digitally manipulating an existing image – adding or removing items to create a composite. The perspective is then altered (stretched) and the image reprinted. The imagery is then cutout or twisted out of position in three dimensions and sometimes new photographic elements added, then re-photographed from an angle that corrects the perspective alteration. As a result, physical transformations take place in the space just above and just behind the imagery. The viewer can see the thickness of the paper, as well as the imagery or printer pixilation on its surface. This process helps to make the digital changes more visually compelling, but also undermines the slickness of these changes by drawing the viewer’s attention to the surface of the image. The idea is to involve the viewer in questioning their perception of the imagery as well as to form a metaphor for its malleability and the transience of the architecture pictured.

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