Jeff Wall - Dead Troops Talk

During the 1980s, Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan, attempting to suppress the Mujahadeen Resistance and occupy the country. The Resistance responded with guerilla tactics, sabotage, and land mines. After 9 years, the Soviets withdrew, leaving the country war torn and shattered, with no one a winner. Jeff Wall is recognised for his gigantic colour photographs combining actors, sets, crews, and digital manipulation into one cinematic productions. In 1992, Wall decided to create a tableaux of the horror of a single moment of the Soviet-Afghan conflict. He staged 13 Army soldiers are shown as they've just been ambushed. They soldiers display different reactions to their wounds and fate such as surprise, shock, despair, and humour. The soldiers wounds are graphic and disturbing. "Dead Troops Talk" exists as a giant Cibachrome backlit transparency, measuring 2290 x 4170 mm (7.5 ft tall by 14 ft wide), and was exhibited at the Tate Modern from October 2005 to January 2006.

Wall’s works are typified by two approaches, which he characterises as either cinematographic or documentary. At first glance they often appear to be snapshots but, on closer inspection, the multi-layered content sometimes seems too bizarre or complex to be real. Wall also draws upon cinematic techniques by using actors as protagonists, artificial lighting, staged compositions, and a narrative technique which leads you to contemplate the unseen events leading to the moment depicted. With my own work I want to try work and make big scenes and take control of a full scene and look at using various cinematic techniques. I want to look at how we are so used to seeing pictures of war and dead people that we are almost becoming desensitised to the real thing, however the staged scenes and becoming more powerful because Susan Sontag also mentions in her book 'On Photography', such that with the repeated viewing of war photographs it shrivels the sympathy that the audience should feel. Photography is a medium capable of portraying multiple realities. With photographs of war and death we usually tend to forget them or they all mould into one after seeing the first few, however with photographers like Jeff Wall he is making the made-up realities to make sure we never forget what has happened in reality. Like Jeff Wall I want to create cinematic realities, staging scenarios that have happened in reality to see how the audience feels about these images compared to the photographs of the original event.