Haffenden Paul & Ip Kenny

I was born in 1974 in Hastings, UK. I am a conceptual artist who specialises in photography. I have learnt and developed many different techniques throughout my BA in Visual Communications at Kent Institute of Art and Design and my c MA in Image and Communication at Goldsmiths. My own interest in photography and film stems from the paradox of it being a recording medium and its ability to reveal, or capture, something unseen at the time of recording. This can be seen throughout my work. I am fascinated by restrictions and the ability to create artwork when limited resources are availably. I decided to do a project where I restricted myself to a few materials. I chose to do this project in a cellar that contained a large number of unusual objects. I used items from the cellar to make a pinhole camera; I did not use any lighting or any technical equipment and had a restricted amount of equipment to developing the photographs in the cellar. I was continually intrigued by the way the pinhole photography captured and froze the hidden being within the objects revealing presences (blurred but distinct faces, bodies, filmic associations, etc) within the image. Once I felt I had exhausted the natural materials of the cellar, I decided to document my experiences within the cellar with a normal camera. Through the use of multiple exposures, different lighting techniques and by constructing images, this has grown to include video, music and internet technology and most recently a stop frame animation (Jamais Vu) which is focused around the objects in the cellar. I have used the objects in the cellar to punish the character in the animation. I have attempted to depict the individual’s descent into his own madness, capturing the perverse poetry of insanity by using motifs of dreams, blackouts, amnesia and final annihilation.