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.
