Screenshots
John Haddock / 2001 / USA / Cortesy of Howard House Gallery, Seattle
“Screenshots” is a disquieting series of images that depict iconic media events. They picture both real events, such as the image of the “unknown hero” from the Tiananmen Square Protest, and fictional scenes drawn from movies such as “Twelve Angry Men.” Haddock's isometric drawings are rendered in the god-like perspective of a video game. These re-tellings of defining moments of twentieth century media culture seem to cast their subjects with new significance. The disorienting mix of familiarity and strangeness brings a new intimacy to the events. Haddock states, “On one level ‘Screenshots' is an attempt to come to terms with experience of violence that has made me who I am.” Despite the title “Screenshots,” a term for still images captured from within a videogame, Haddock's work is carefully drawn in Photoshop software. Where possible he uses documentary information; for example, extruding up from a plan of the Dallas Police Station garage for the design of “Lee and Jack.”
