Predicting the Past
May 1 – June 1, 2008
My work revolves around the use of antiquated photographic and optical processes. In my photographs, I utilize the historic wet-collodion photographic process of exposing images onto glass and tin plates. By exploiting the archaic quality of this medium, which dates back to the 1850’s I am attempting to re-imagine the nineteenth century, by creating displacements between notions of the past and the present. One of my primary objectives is to refute the notion of history being a closed circuit, instead history is viewed as a evolving work in progress, still receptive to moments of serendipity.
Expanding the realm of my photographs into the three-dimensional world, my sculptural installation work explores the era of pre-chemical photography both literally and philosophically. My constructions encompass optical projections and sculptural reinterpretations of the camera obscura, which seek as a whole to examine the intrinsic nature of photography during this nascent period when it was possible to create fleeting images, but it was impossible to fix them into permanent photographs. This search to rediscover the ephemeral nature of pre-photographic history, the scientific interplay of light and optics, and the quest for optical amusements, also known as philosophical instruments are considered throughout my installation work. A few of the installation projects that employ the camera obscura principle include “Surveillance Obscura”, “A Wandering Eye”,“The Obscura Object”, and “Looking Glass”, which is perhaps the worlds first transparent camera obscura.