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The films of Mark Lewis are
comparable to an ambitious “making of” that
questions the industry’s methods while skilfully
manipulating the reality of its illusions. Lewis creates,
as he describes it, a “cinema part,” that
is, he isolates its component parts (the credits, the
end, the extras, the genre, and so on) with the goal
of rearranging them into a distinct work. This method
allows him to reveal the rhetorical strategies of image
producers, to observe the way in which cinema generates
its own forms, to break down its codes and formal conventions,
to destabilize its generic features, or to comment ironically
on its spectacular measures. Lewis is also interested
in modes of film production and the division of labour
that they entail. This is what is suggested by the series
Location Photos, which takes us to a film’s
pre-production stage, when shooting locations are found.
These kinds of images are essentially preliminary sketches
not usually intended for public exhibition. Their often
banal aspect, combined with the lack of adequate context,
invalidates their informative function. In effect, lacking
an interpretive framework—a commentary or advertising
slogan—these images give us very little information.
They contain no precise information about the nature
of the film and do not always make it possible to identify
the shooting location or, even less, to picture the
action that took place. At most, they allude to existing
or forthcoming films. Location Photos thus
produces a peculiar sensation, as though the meaning
of the images were being twisted to reveal a conflict
between a literal interpretation and the function to
which their title refers. Lewis’s photographs
have lost their illustrative function in favour of an
aesthetic autonomy.
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