Traces of Lee Miller

`Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes from St Malo¿, a CD with supporting DVD, is the first interactive work about Lee Miller, surrealist photographer and war correspondent. It explores the possibilities of digital media for illuminating the conceptual and working processes of an artist operating within a war context. It involved the retrieval and analysis of thousands of previously unpublished photographs and personal documents. The interactive CD breaks new ground by grounding its structure and interactive forms on practices emerging from life history research, most notably through the use of re-photographs created by marrying archival and newly generated materials from key moments in Miller¿s St Malo war experience. The digital form affords new understandings of this period in Miller¿s life through these reframings and recontextualizations. The visible interface and the invisible programmatic structures created by Krell produce a range of analytical framings and implicit commentaries on the material, allowing users direct engagement with Miller¿s work whilst navigating existing and new narratives emerging from it. Krell initiated and produced the project working directly with Miller¿s son and the Lee Miller Archives. She created the interactive structures, intellectual mapping and conceptual framing upon which a team of research assistants, including art historians, filmmakers and composers, worked. Krell also directed research students in producing early project prototypes. The project was funded by grants from the ARHC and the British Academy and is on view at the V&A alongside the exhibition ¿The Art of Lee Miller¿, (2007 - 2008). In earlier stages of development, the project was exhibited with ¿Lee Miller¿s War¿ exhibitions in New Zealand (Auckland War Memorial Museum, 2007) and in Australia (Monash Gallery Of Art, 2007). Future exhibits are planned for 2008 in South Africa, the USA and the UK (Imperial War Museum). For additional materials see portfolio of evidence disc.