"A Camera Darkly" Exhibition
Baxter Street/ the Camera Club of NY
This event has ended.
After-images, floating spots, hallucinations…19th century philosophers and scientists were captivated by faulty stuff of sight. It was their investigations into the unpredictable physiology of optics that made the development of mechanical vision possible. On the one hand, cinematic prototypes like the phenakistoscope directly relied on these newfound peculiarities of perception (e.g. persistence of vision); on the other, the development of still photography was hastened by the revelation of the defects of human sight and the desire for its technical perfection.
"A Camera Darkly" introduces two contemporary artists that share an interest in bringing this experimental genealogy of photography to bear on the medium’s contemporary digital discourse. Using a digital camera and an optical scanner, respectively, these two artists treat their digital photographic technologies like physiological systems, subjecting them to electric shocks and paradoxical orders that push them to their points of failure. By questioning the integrity of the technological systems that supplanted human sight, these artists redouble the 19th century’s critiques and speculate on the beginnings of a new era in the history of vision.
[Image by Christian de Vietri]
Media
Schedule
from May 03, 2012 to June 23, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-05-03 from 18:00 to 20:00