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In today 's visual culture the cinematic and the photographic are omnipotent forms of representation. Our world is a cacophony of visual flux made available by the reproducible media. The moving image has infiltrated our minds and come to reside in our memory. Some insist that our memory and consciousness, our very ways of thinking and imagining are photographic. Given this proliferation of the reproducible image, it is not surprising that contemporary painters refer to and absorb the image generated by the camera. This is not simply an appropriation of the photographic or cinematic, rather it is representative of the fluidity now apparent across visual cultures.
The early history of photography has often been described as a magical process of 'light writing' where 'nature' undertook an artistic role and made images appear on metal and glass plates. The late nineteenth century, much like the early twenty-first century, was paradoxical in that realism and magic collided in the new technological advances being made available to ordinary people. Today the making of electronic images via digital technologies has brought a new magic to the realm of image making.
Lily Hibberd says that she sees 'cinema as a kind of collective belief system, not dissimilar to a church, where people go to escape reality and simultaneously find reasons for living' .1 Other commentators have drawn parallels of a similar kind. Paul Coates, for example, notes that in some countries the screening of a film is still described as a seance.2
Otherworldly experiences appear to seduce Lily Hibberd, especially in the series 'Blinded by the Light' where she makes reference to the genre of science fiction in film. Using oil and phosphorescent paint Hibberd... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline