Thursday Entry: Ambiguity

"The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space"
-Victor Turner, from The Ritual Process

Slemmons, R. (2006) "The Self Seen Double".
MP3: Kelli Connell, 48-51.

When Rod Slemmons first saw the work of Kelli Connell, he was immediately intrigued and confused by the two characters who populate every scene. The body of work in which these characters appear is a series of personal vignettes dealing with relationships. What stands out as odd, is that the two female protagonists evolve throughout the work. In some images, the women, who are both played by the same model, appear to be identical, while in others, one takes on more masculine attributes. Slemmons relates that their relationship can alternately be both homosexual and heterosexual, plural and singular. The sense of ambiguity in the photographs enables the figures to be seen as individuals, or different facets of the same being.
The author compares the subtlety of Connell's manipulated images to plays of Tennessee Williams. He sees the relationship between the two figures similar to the ambiguous relationships found in Williams' plays.
The images that I consider most remarkable in Connell's series, are the ones that hint at events preceding the moment captured on film, those which have the viewer concoct narratives. The ambiguity extends beyond the relationship between the figures and fills the entire scenario. It seems as if entire years have led up to the moments caught between the women in the photos. I strive to provide enough information in my own images, for viewers to construct their own stories.