Lisa Barnard - On Perception

"I've been in dialogue with Lisa Barnard for over a decade now and what I've always loved about her work is her relentless pursuit to explore the prescient questions of our time. In her latest work, You Only Look Once, currently on show at @coberlin she considers perception in relation to both the human and machine experience, addressing the complexity of technological progress and the ecological resources on which its promises depend. We talk about this new show and her approach to image making." Gemma Fletcher

In this conversation Lisa Barnard talks to Gem Fletcher about her new exhibition, You Only Look Once, at c/o Berlin which considers perception in relation to both human and machine experience. She addresses the complexity of technological progress and the ecological resources on which its promises depend. Her research focuses on California, unfolding a multilayered, fragmented and nonlinear story that encompasses photographs, an immersive video installation, archival interventions, alternative printing strategies and AI-generated image analyses that weave together in the creation of a dense visual entanglement.

Lisa Barnard is a British artist and lecturer whose photography focuses on real events. In her projects, she combines classical documentary methods such as photography, audio, video, and text with contemporary visual strategies and digital technologies. She brings together her interest in aesthetics and current debates on the materiality of photography with political questions surrounding new ecological efforts, technological developments, science, and the industrial military complex. Barnard is an associate professor and head of the online masters in documentary photography at University of South Wales. She regularly exhibits her work and has published three monographs: Chateau Despair (2012, GOST, supported by Arts Council England), Hyenas of the Battlefield: Machines in the Garden (2014, GOST, supported by Albert Renger-Patzsch prize), and The Canary and the Hammer (2019, MACK, supported by Getty Images Prestige Grant).