BARRY W HUGHES

Volume I
Digital photographs. 2004 - 2012

Featured: American Photo Magazine

Overlord - In 1944, the British newspaper Daily Telegraph published a series of cryptic crosswords which happened to include solutions such as Utah, Omaha, Mulberry, Neptune and Juno. These words were in fact code-names given by the Allies to the various landing sites and naval assault phases of the D-Day Landings. Overlord, the code-name for the entire operation, came on May 27th.

Overlord - In 1944, the British newspaper Daily Telegraph published a series of cryptic crosswords which happened to include solutions such as Utah, Omaha, Mulberry, Neptune and Juno. These words were in fact code-names given by the Allies to the various landing sites and naval assault phases of the D-Day Landings. Overlord, the code-name for the entire operation, came on May 27th.

Black Dog - When the Spanish painter Francisco Goya's body was first exhumed in France for repatriation to Spain, his head was missing. Still unlocated, it is believed to have been stolen by grave robbers. While visiting Spain in 2012, I came across a bust of Goya in a flea market. This image is based on Goya's The Dog, one of his so-called Black Paintings, which were painted directly onto the walls of his Bordeaux home before his death in 1828.

Black and Blue - This is an original Soviet Navy emergency canned water ration. The 240 gramms of drinking water was canned in 1991, the final year of the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the USSR that year, the Soviet Navy lost some of its units to former Soviet Republics, and was left without funding. The Black Sea Fleet in particular spent several years in reserve, until 1997 when an agreement ceded some of its ships to Ukraine, which is where this can of water was purchased.

The First and Last American - In March 1978 serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin attempted to assassinate Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Flynt has fought several prominent legal battles involving the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Joseph Paul Franklin was born James Clayton Vaughn but renamed himself after Paul Joseph Goebbels and Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, a noted publisher and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States earned the title of 'The First American' and is a signatory of the US Constitution.

Proposal (Berlin to Baghdad) - There are 37 crumpled maps of the proposed Berlin to Baghdad railway, one for each year of construction (1903 -1940). The railway was built to connect the German Empire with the Ottoman Empire city of Baghdad with a 1,600 km line through modern-day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The railway became a source of international disputes during the years immediately preceding World War I. Once finally completed, neither German or Ottoman Empire had survived and its purpose had changed.

Werner's Geburtstag - This small framed photo, approx. 9cm x 6cm, was purchased at the flohmarkt am mauerpark in Berlin. It was acquired with an accompanying DDR passport for the lady on the far left who can be identified as Hedwig Schindler (b. 1899). It states in the passport that she was domiciled in East Germany, just on the border with West Berlin. The inscription on the back of the photo reads 'Werner’s geburtstag, 1962'. According to the passport, she traveled to West Berlin in August of 1968 and ’69 but not again.

Slovenly Execution - This is a digital scan of a bookmark found in Primitive Art by Franz Boas (Dover Publications inc., 1955) between two pages from the chapter on Symbolism and subsection Change of Type Due to Slovenly Execution.

Family Portrait (Grimm's Fairy Tales) - This is the front cover of Grimm's Fairy Tales, published by Blackie & Sons Ltd (1890-1991). The history of this book is unknown (there is no ISBN or date), other than my mother had read it as a child and brought it with her when she married my father and began her own family. She would read it to myself and my siblings when we were young, who then graffitied the front cover. Efforts to tape the spine together can be made out through the paint marks on the cover.

Coalition - When Napoléon declared himself Emperor of the French in 1804, his armes de l'Empire featured an eagle, inspired by Charlemagne, and also a bee. The bee was considered the oldest emblem of the sovereigns of France as in 1653, golden bees were discovered in the tomb of Childeric I, father of Clovis, the first King of the Franks. Bees are in fact a specialized form of wasp, the ancestor of the species. Napoléon’s French Empire was eventually overthrown by the seven coalitions of European states.

Kevin - Recent research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken, or lose fertility with age. In fact, older lobsters are more fertile than younger lobsters. This longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs some DNA sequences. It has been argued that lobsters may exhibit negligible senescence and some scientists have claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc. However, it should be noted that this claim is highly speculative.

Legacy of Desire - A retelling of the myth of Actaeon's metamorphoses.

Short Days Ago - The book in this image is Pye's Surgical Handicraft (1942) and is open on the page for Medical 'Operations' by F. Dudley Hart, which begins with a method for the Venesection, a surgical technique for blood-letting. On the left hand side is a Poppy, an ancient symbol for death and ressurrection, and in modern times for those who died during war. The title of this piece is taken from 'In Flander's Fields', the famous poem by Canadian surgeon and soldier, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.

Metacognition - Metacognition is usually interpreted as knowing about knowing or cognition about cognition and is instrinsic to learning and problem solving. An important form of metacognition is metamemory, defined as knowing about memory and mnemonic strategies. It is believed the ability to consciously think about thinking is unique to sapient species and indeed is one of the definitions of sapience, however a study by the University of Georgia in 2007 provided some evidence for metacognition in rats.

Spectre - "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism." Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848. The map in this photograph is found in Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Longmans, Vol. II, Second Ed. 1941). Sidney was an early member of the Fabian Society. The Fabian Society is a British intellectual socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means.

Herschel's Keyhole - Sir Frederick William Herschel (1738-1822) was a British astronomer of German Jewish descent. Amongst his many achievements he catalogued nebulae such as the Carina Nebula, a portion of which is named the Keyhole Nebula, which contains a much smaller nebula known as God's Finger due to its shape. The image in this photo is a screen shot taken from a Rabbi pointing to the sky while discussing the Bible Code in the Old Testament.

Untitled (USSR) - The Constitution of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1977. I had discovered this little pocket sized book in a second-hand book store in Dublin, circa 1998, while I was still in high school. Somewhat fittingly, and predominantly because I had no money at the time I stole it.

Lichen (study for a landscape) - Lichen is the result of a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a photobiont such as algae or bacteria. It is estimated that nearly 8% of the earth’s terrestrial surface is covered by lichens. This enables them to make a significant ecological contribution by generating carbohydrates through photosynthesis, reducing carbon dioxide levels and fixing nitrogen so that it is in a form suitable for living organisms.

Pressure Garment Assembly - The type of space suit used by the American Apollo astronauts was called a Pressure Garment Assembly (PGA-A7L) which was a five-layer suit made from rubber-coated nylon, and alternating layers of nylon and nomax, a fire-resistant fabric. It was essentially a life support system for each astronaut.

Pumice (study for a landscape) - Pumice is a volcanic rock produced when lava with a very high content of water and gas is extruded from an erupting volcano. As the gas bubbles escape from the lava, it becomes frothy, and when it cools and hardens the result is a very light-weight rock material filled with tiny bubbles of gas. Pumice and pumicite are used to make lightweight concrete and construction materials, resulting in about three-quarters of pumice being consumed annually for this purpose.

Djandoubi, Sept 10 - On September 10th, 1977, Hamida Djandoubi was the last person to be executed by guillotine in France. A Tunisian immigrant, he lost his job and most of his right leg following a workplace accident. Djandoubi then began a life of crime, later facing charges of torture-murder, rape and premeditated violence. His defence lawyer claimed that Djandoubi was driven to alcohol and violence, turning him into a 'different' man, after losing his leg six years earlier.

Earthquake (Tokyo) - This work was made in response to experiencing an earthquake in Tokyo, while attending an event organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation. I had been contemplating an image to make, but could not decide until I accidentally broke a souvenir tea cup when exiting an elevator in my hotel. The broken Japanese tea cup, in exactly two parts, was shot on my hotel room window sill overlooking the Tokyo skyline.

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