Com­pa­ra­ti­ve work studies with the camera: Darcy Lange

With his camera, the artist Darcy Lange provided important scientific material on work and education, which still begs to be analysed in social and educational research.

In the early 1970s, the Kiwi artist Darcy Lange (1946 — 2005) began film studies on the topic of ‘People at Work’. He thus follows in the tradition of Lewis Hine, Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange (no relation), who became famous for their photo docu­men­ta­ti­on of farm workers com­mis­sio­ned by the US Farm Security Admi­nis­tra­ti­on in the 1930s.

While his claim to use the camera as an instru­ment of social reform is akin to his peers, Lange in contrast goes beyond them in his metho­do­lo­gy. His filmic works are com­pa­ra­ti­ve social-anthro­po­lo­gi­cal analyses par excellence.

In “A Docu­men­ta­ti­on of Bradford Working Life”, Lange selected four factories (he called them “situa­tions”) and took shots of specific work actions of no more than five workers (he called them “studies”). Each of the 15 studies consisted of 10-minute video record­ings, two 16mm film record­ings (of the first and last half minute of the video) and a black and white photograph.

According to Mercedes Vicente, whose dis­ser­ta­ti­on and various exhi­bi­ti­ons on Darcy Lange have made a signi­fi­cant con­tri­bu­ti­on to ensuring that his work is not forgotten, Lange endea­vou­red to depict reality as “inter­ven­ti­on-free” as possible. This also explains why he used all three media (video, film, photo) simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to record one and the same image detail with sys­te­ma­tic precision (Vicente 2009, p. 40). He thus explored both the potential and the limi­ta­ti­on of each media for his inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. A similar com­pa­ra­ti­ve metho­do­lo­gi­cal approach can be found in his “Work Studies in schools”, 1976–78 (more to come on that later in this blog).

By not editing or changing camera angles or repeating shots, Lange’s videos are thus an attempt to directly document reality. The viewer is not accused of having a par­ti­cu­lar point of view or any type of bias, making any claims that the montage rips things out of context, unfounded. The works are thus also deli­ber­ate­ly in contrast to con­ven­tio­nal docu­men­ta­ries, which is also reflected in the act of viewing: Watching Lange’s videos is more like studying sci­en­ti­fic material than the passive con­sump­ti­on of a TV documentary.

However, it is precisely this unadul­te­ra­ted and com­pa­ra­ti­ve access to the supposed reality that makes Lange’s work inte­res­ting for work and edu­ca­tio­nal research. Thanks to Mercedes Vicente, Darcy Lange post­hu­mous­ly gained the fame he deserves in the expe­ri­men­tal art film scene, and has recently being showcased at Tate Modern in London in 2017. He has yet to be dis­co­ve­r­ed for research and, sub­se­quent­ly, for social and edu­ca­tio­nal policy either, to which he wanted to make a con­tri­bu­ti­on throughout his entire life.

I owe my intro­duc­tion to Darcy Lange to my friend, the artist, Gregor Schmoll.

Refe­ren­ces:
Vicente, Mercedes (2009). Darcy Lange, Camera Austria, No. 108.
Vicente, Mercedes (2017). Images of people at work: the video­ma­king of Darcy Lange (Doctoral dis­ser­ta­ti­on, Royal College of Art).