Work › Book Works › In Camera: Lens
In Camera: Lens, hand bound codex book work with black and white images printed in photogravure and colour images printed by digital inkjet printing, glass covers with leather quarter-binding, 20 × 16.1 × 2.2 cm (closed), 19.4 × 15.1 cm (page size), 2009
This is the first of a four-volume work entitled In Camera. This series uses disassembled and defunct camera components as it image source.
In Camera: Lens, view of the spine and fanned out pages, 2009
Our research has given me the context to create experimental works that are made with multiple producing methods but not limited by material or edition constraints.
In Camera: Lens, view of a spread, verso page is a digital inkjet print and the recto page is photogravure over digital inkjet, 2009
Digital and analogue photogravure technologies are juxtaposed and layered in this work.
In Camera: Lens, view of the next spread, verso page is a digital inkjet print and the recto page is a photogravure, 2009
It is printed on Entrada, a two-sided coated digital fine art paper.
In Camera: Lens, title page, digital inkjet print, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
Consistent throughout all my work is my interest in the perceptual process. My focus now is the phenomenology of seeing and the role of the old and new camera in visual interpretation.
In Camera: Lens, digital inkjet print, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
Scans from my notebooks provide clues to the image-making methods and process.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is photogravure over digital inkjet, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
The components of defunct optical instruments are represented through two simultaneous points of view: the machine (the flatbed scanner) and the eye (the side-on view of the camera). Through these means, the architecture of the camera is loosely represented.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is a photogravure, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
The colour image shows you the scanner’s translation of two stacked lenses and is a digital inkjet print while the black and white image is a medium format film camera translation of the same situation, printed in photogravure.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is photogravure over digital inkjet, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
On the recto page, the digital and photogravure prints are layered together. The verso page diagrams the four different ways to stack the two lenses.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is a photogravure, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
The historical tool, the film camera, and the contemporary tool, the digital scanner became my forum for experimentation and I was surprised by the resulting images.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is photogravure over digital inkjet, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
The technological focus of this research project provided the space where the poetic and practical converged and were the catalyst for the creation of work.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is a photogravure, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
We have become inured to the camera eye and mistake it for the only version of the truth. The contrast between these two translations reminds us of the role of mechanical devices in our interpretation of the world.
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is photogravure over digital inkjet, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
Our relationship with technology is discussed in Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. The editors, Marx and Roe Smith, suggest…
In Camera: Lens, verso page is a digital inkjet print and recto page is a photogravure, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
… “Instead of treating “technology” per se as the locus of historical agency, the soft determinists locate it in a far more various and complex social, economic, political and cultural matrix.”
In Camera: Lens, digital inkjet print, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
In this book work, each process is integral to the final result and as such, the boundaries between media become blurred. This provides a challenge to the historical practice of describing the visual arts as a series of discrete processes.
In Camera: Lens, digital inkjet print, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
The book work offers a receptive format to the issues being explored. In “The Century of Artists’ Books”, Johanna Drucker describes how the artists’ book operates “at the intersection of a number of different disciplines, fields, and ideas – rather than at their limits.”
In Camera: Lens, colophon page, digital inkjet print, 19.4 × 30.2 cm (page spread), 2009
This project has provided me with the opportunity to work closely with colleagues, to be challenged by their differing perspectives while learning from each other and I would like to thank both Pierre and David for all their contributions.