Seno: Developing the Film
We often think of black and white film photographs as a product of a bygone age. When we see old photographs in their fading, sometimes sepia tones, there tends to be a disconnect between what it means to portray due to an internal bias, and it only comes off as something historical. After all, we see the world in color, and monochrome isn’t the default state of the world we see. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped Shireen Seno from using this medium to express her ideas about the world. Seno’s Mystery Terrain lets us follow her back to parts of her past through the black and white lens. Moments of the mundane and places she’d been are the subjects of this photo collection of hers. Although one might think photography isn’t a visual art, Seno breaks through this idea and instead gives us a new perspective: that photography isn’t simply capturing what you see, but also how you want to see it and what you want to be imposed on the world you capture.
A Filipino born and raised in Japan, Shireen Seno had been at odds with what people perceived her identity to be. She recalls that people would often send cassette tapes to families overseas, however, her entire family is already based in Japan, and Seno felt that this created a sense of living without a firm root or home. There were even instances wherein she is credited as Filipino-Japanese in some film festivals. It is also worth noting that during Seno’s stay in her international school, there had always been this idea that moving to the west or the Americas is a fulfillment of a dream, and it wasn’t just her school, too: there’s also this idea by Filipinos, especially her family, pushing her to look at America as the center of the world.
You might wonder what is the relevance of Seno’s biography in her works. Well, it has been her primary inspiration for most of her works, like in the film Nervous Translation (2017) where a young girl finds a pen that translates her thoughts, and in Big Boy (2012), a boy is forced to be taller by his parents so he can be more American-like. Although childhood had been the focus of her films and some of her works, Seno had also attempted to describe the turbulent past through her film photography; we see this in her photo collections Mystery Terrain and Wild Grass.
Choosing among the photographs within Seno’s collection was rather a difficult task. Despite being grouped within a certain collection, each picture has its own title, and with it an identity. Seno employs naturalistic photography in Mystery Terrain, and images in the collection are shot in black and white. One image, in particular, piqued my interest in Mystery Terrain: the Undercover Lovers.
UNWINDING THE FILM
Undercover Lovers is just one of the many pictures featured in Seno’s first photo collection. It is a rather simple image so to say; in it we see two women, sitting on a sidewalk with their faces and identity hidden. All of this is framed in black and white film. Of all of Seno’s works, why analyze this photograph? The answer lies within its very title: Undercover Lovers. It seems to implicate that the relationship of the two people in the photograph is queer coded, and of course, it appealed to me as a gay man writing this critique.
All of the photos in Mystery Terrain used black and white film, Undercover Lovers included. Although it isn’t the only image shot in the bird’s eye view style (together with Some of My Friends I Long to See), it is unique with it being the “cleanest” in the sense it had the least noise and elements within it. The piece also gives a sense of false symmetry, wherein at first glance the mind perceives it to be symmetrical. Together with the use of black and white film, the piece evokes the feeling of both alienation and familiarity, as if telling you are just a simple outsider. Utilizing black and white also further amplifies the emotions in a photograph because we tend to see more of the emotions as color is stripped away (Shapton). Eftaiha (as cited in “Black and white VS. color.”) also mentions that “The main downside to Color, for some photographers, is that it can easily pull the attention away from the original meaning and purpose of a particular image to a completely different one.” At the same time, when we look at monochromatic photographs, there seems to be a disconnect with what we see in it because we are used to seeing things in color. People subjectively perceive that color is more pleasing and exciting than the monochromatic black and white (Detenber et al. 349). This contradictory nature of black and white photographs allows a photographer to delve deeper into their subject matter. As with Seno’s case, she perfectly captures what she wants to convey: the past as something that we can only look back to. Tito Valiente in his review of Mystery Terrain describes beautifully the heart of the collection, saying, “Situating ourselves in the past becomes greatly possible because the past becomes just another place we can depart from and into which we can return.”
In my Humanities 3 class, we were taught this concept of being organic in written works, particularly in poetry. It refers to how the title, the words and metaphors chosen, and the format of the form of the piece work together to create an image that is concrete, tangible, and understandable. The idea of being organic can also be seen as how cohesive the piece is. As I explore Undercover Lovers, I felt that the concept of being organic extends to visual art, too. Without this piece having a title, it wouldn’t make any sense at all. Why would Seno take a seemingly empty photo with just legs? The title ties it all together, and gives it an entirely new identity. This new identity then explores the intricacies of love between two women, and of course the need to be hidden from judging eyes. After all, many still see same-sex unions as unnatural or immoral. With the title and the image given interpretation, the photograph, in a way, can be seen as a visual poem. There’s so much more beneath the surface, and the title helped unravel what’s underneath.
Undercover Lovers is just one of the many photos in Mystery Terrain. What it lacks in overt elements, it makes up for being organic and cohesive with all the other images in the collection. It appeals greatly to emotions, too, trying to bridge the gap between our narrow, heteronormative world view of love. There’s still much to be desired, but knowing that these photographs were taken as Seno was traveling shows how fleeting are the moments we glimpse.
FRAMING THE FILM
We are often caught up with the complexities of day-to-day life. Most of the time the past and its moments are just something we never pay much attention to, and yet this very thing is also what defines the present us. Seno, on her desire to define her roots, looks back at this very past, and in doing so, reminds not only herself about it. As we mused among the photos she has amassed for Mystery Terrain, the photos speak of the times we could’ve cherished a little bit more.
Photography had existed nearly only 200 centuries, and yet ever since its conception it had been an important way to keep and record history. Photography as an art had only been recognized fairly recently, with its identity as an art still a debate among many. Seeing Seno craft narratives with her camera solidifies the idea that photography is an art form, too. It can be emotional, it can have depth, and so much more. As we progress as human society, our perception of what art is changes as well. Seno’s Mystery Terrain beautifully delivers in both its attempt to look back and at the same time present photography as more than just capturing what you see. In a black and white world presented through the collection, we feel much more by removing the unnecessary colors that we’re so used to seeing.
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Works Cited
“Black and white VS. color.” The Art of Seeing, http://theartofseeing.weebly.com/black-and-white-vs-color.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020
Detenber, Benjamih H. et al. “The Emotional Significance of Color in Television Presentations.” Media Psychology, vol. 2, no. 4, 2000, pp. 331–355
Hirano, Mayumi. “Interview with Shireen Seno.” Art, Writing,and Archives, 5 Nov. 2013, http://2050artandwriting.blogspot.com/2013/11/interview-with-shireen-seno.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Jaucian, Don. “‘I think we grow up brainwashed to think that there are products to solve our problems’ — Shireen Seno.” CNN Philippines, 14 Sept. 2018, https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/los-otros-shireen-seno-john-torres-interview-experimental-film-community-philippines. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Oredsson, Ellen. “Are There Any “Art Movements” in Photography.” How To Talk About Art History, 28 July 2018, http://www.howtotalkaboutarthistory.com/reader-questions/art-movements-photography/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Seiferle, Rebecca. “Straight Photography Movement Overview and Analysis.” The Art Story, 17 Oct. 2017, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/straight-photography/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Seno, Shireen. “Mystery Terrain.” Shireen Seno, https://shireenseno.tumblr.com/post/45382103143/mystery-terrain. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Shapton, David. “Want emotion? Go black-and-white.” Redshark, 26 Oct. 2015, https://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/2986-want-emotion-go-black-and-white. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Turner, Matt. “Los Otros: building an experimental film community in the Philippines.” BFI.org.uk, 23 Nov. 2018, https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/los-otros-shireen-seno-john-torres-interview-experimental-film-community-philippines. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Valiente, Tito. ““Yet so like our perishing Earth” (excerpts) A review of Mystery Terrain.” Business Mirror, http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/life/22360-yet-so-like-our-perishing-earth. Accessed 25 Jan. 2012.
Wenzel, Jasmin Grace. “Interview: Shireen Seno, John Torres.” Kubaparis, https://kubaparis.com/an-exercise-of-feeling-moving-with-fictional-subtitles-an-interview-with-shireen-seno-and-john-torres-by-jasmine-grace-wenzel/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
