Evidence - Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel

In 1977, photographers Larry Sultan (USA) and Mike Mandel (USA) published a book of photographs entitled Evidence. The book was the culmination of a three-year search through the files and archives of over one hundred American government agencies, educational institutions, and corporations, such as the Bechtel Corporation, General Atomic Company, Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the San Jose Police Department and the United States Department of the Interior. The original pictures were made as documents and objective records of activities and situations unfamiliar to the lay public: the scenes of crimes, aeronautical engineering tests, industrial experiments, among other subjects. Sifting through some two million images, Mandel and Sultan assembled a careful sequence of fifty-nine pictures. Every detail of the book's design was carefully articulated to condition the reading of the photographs in terms of their "documentary" origins, yet the photographs were reproduced without captions identifying specific images or their sources. Faced with a world of mysterious events and unfathomable activities, the reader is confronted with only the sequential narrative imagery of the book and is required to actively participate in creating its meaning.