Jesse McLean

“Invisible Tracks,” ThreeWalls

Time Out Chicago / Issue 223 : Jun 4–10, 2009

At a time when even liberal authorities are reluctant to let the world see certain photographs from Iraq, Jesse McLean draws on the power of images from the war there—and the intersection among instant communication, censorship and global conflict.

McLean’s video Clone centers on an image of American soldiers swimming in the pool of a bombed-out palace in Iraq. By choosing this scene over more shocking pictures of Abu Ghraib or flag-draped coffins, McLean allows us to focus on the nature of documentary war photography itself, particularly its truth-telling ability.

McLean digitally manipulates Clone’s original, seemingly straightforward image to consider the possible meanings of such alteration. Mimicking Adobe Photoshop tutorials found on YouTube, she zooms in to focus on a computer cursor as Photoshop’s clone tool blurs and shades small details. In six related photos, McLean lets the soldiers’ bodies float, isolated, over the white and gray squares of a “transparent” Photoshop background (pictured).

“Invisible Tracks” goes beyond merely presenting the results of digital manipulation. But we’d like to see McLean push her investigation of Photoshop as a process further, into other areas where images hold a lot of power. Our culture has a love-hate relationship with this technology—just look at the cover of any fashion magazine and the websites devoted to spotting “Photoshop disasters”—but McLean only addresses part of this complexity.

-CW