Ansen Seale: Unfolding no. 14

 
  • ©,

Artist(s):


Title:


    Unfolding no. 14

Exhibition:


Medium:


    2D imaging, digital slitscan photograph

Size:


    25" x 49"

Category:



Artist Statement:


    For the most part, photographers have applied their craft to imitate the real world. The camera has been used to capture a frozen slice of time, and present it to us as we would normally perceive it. Thus, the photograph become a proxy of the real object.

    Rather than suspending a single moment, my photography examines the passage of time. With a digital slitscan camera of my own inven­tion, the horizontal axis of the image is rendered as a time exposure. Counter to classic photography, still objects are blurred and moving bodies are rendered clearly. Instead of mirroring reality as we know it, this camera records a hidden reality. The apparent “distortions” in the images all happen in camera as the image is being recorded. There is no Photoshop manipulation. These “distortions” could really be described as a more accurate way of seeing the passage of time, although it is quite different from our traditional concept of the depic­tion of time and space in art.

    The Unfolding series continues the idea of using reality as a starting point, but offering a different perspective on it. Although this is photography in the purest sense, this technique violates two of the most basic traditional photographic notions: single point perspective and the idea of the “slice of time.”


Technical Information:


    The source of this image is a special digital camera invented by the artist. The device is a combination of computer and camera specially designed to capture a reality that surrounds us but of which we are unaware. A single sliver of space is imaged over an extended period of time at hundreds of times per seconds. The result is an exchange of the dimensions of X and Time.