Copies, codes and patterns...

Wendy McMurdo uses the concept of 'The Composite' to create something that isn't real, a moment that is created or non traditional, along side a traditional staged like image. She uses digital manipulation to place children in a moment of play with their double. This could reference the idea of imaginary friends and myth. A sense of play, with an element of fear. She called this work 'DOPPELGÄNGER' which translates as 'double'. As society is presented with this idea of creating the designer baby and manipulating the codes in our genes, Wendy presents us with a series of photos which are similarly manipulated, she clones the children and places them next to each other, interacting, almost as if they represent different genetic codes and make up. Her repetition of this pattern throughout this project allows a pattern to form through the way the cloned children copy and interact with themselves.

                                                                (above) McMurdo 'Helen, Sheffield 1996', 1997     
I struggled to find images from Wendy McMurdo in books in the library, so I decided to use her website to look at her projects. I was very excited by some of the work she has created as it is quiet similar to some of the ideas I had in my previous projects. I love the way she presents the state of mind that children fall into when transfixed in to the virtual reality world. The notion of reality and false reality, combined together in a composite to create something quite provoking. http://www.wendymcmurdo.com/



In the series 'The computer Class' Wendy McMurdo removes the items of technology that these children are playing with, giving the images a surreal intensity. By removing the components, for example the computer,  we are drawn towards a pattern of behaviour and a state of mind that these objects induce. She isolates the children from the world and their surroundings, captured and lost in a trance of concentration. Creating an image which is more about codes and patterns, which are a result of the components in the composites.

                                                       (above) McMurdo 'Computer Class, Edinburgh II', 1997 
                                                      http://www.wendymcmurdo.com/



Her work references the growth of digital imagery and software,  as it becomes more assessable to the mass, making is easier to create imaginary images like the images above. It also presents us with growth into adulthood and the unknown, showing children mesmerised by something that we cannot see yet, the unknown.