Disintegration Portraits - Video - 2016-2022

The Disintegration Portraits are 2 meter tall photographic installations in synchronized, multi-channel 4k video.

The Disintegration Portraits are a series of multi-channel, synchronized, reactive works presented in ultra-high definition (UHD) video. The works transition between two states of looped content, the action in which is dependent upon the distance of the viewer to the installation. When observed from farther than four meters, the works are friendly and welcoming, or unaware of and indifferent to the presence of the viewer. If approached more closely, they transition to an evasive or confrontational state, and remain so until their personal space is once again respected. The works in this series depict people peaceably, perpetually performing various actions - digging a hole, shelving books, or taking a piss for instance - who react to an approaching viewer by shifting into an elusive state, denying the visitor closer inspection. Initially inviting approach, the works’ reaction to our presence is to impose distance, deflecting our gaze into the surrounding environment - the passing clouds, circling birds, or blowing snow. 

As our lives connect ever more tightly via a matrix of machines, we move determinedly toward cyborg. While the machine must be expressly incorporated biologically to be so, our phones have unquestionably taken over responsibilities previously allocated to our brains, becoming so indispensable that we are literally lost without them. it is nearly an anachronism to experience people directly, especially in this moment of pandemic, as almost all personal associations are replaced by digital replication. This work does not seek to exploit our deeply ingrained suspension of disbelief when encountering display screens, but rather to push the mechanics to the fore by visibly trisecting the body. The machines will dictate our experience - if we are respectfully distant they behave kindly, yet antagonize when we move near. We seek ever more soothingly fulfilling ways to digitally obviate the need for one another, and concurrently use the mechanical interface to connect with each other. In this case the machines do not oblige.

This series exists in the nebulous space between photography and video, presenting highly detailed images with a photographic sensibility, but adding a reactive element via micro- engineering and high resolution video technology. The work is created both on location and in the studio with a 3 camera array, capturing in 6480x3840 resolution (3xUHD) to create 2+ meter tall portraits in extremely high definition. The issue of parallax error is managed by combining separate layers in the editing process. In the exhibition space, a surveillance system obscures the amount of detail the viewer can receive from the bodies they’ve approached.

This work explores the parameters of photography by incorporating viewer distance into its presentation. The machine-moderated installations are digitized gatekeepers of human experience, which push the viewer from a comfortably voyeuristic experience into confrontation with figures agitated or obliterated by our presence. The work investigates the isolationism and escapism inherent in digital attractions, and encourages introspection regarding our increasingly moderated and algorithm curated life experience. And it touches on what it is to be human, to desperately need contact with one another, while struggling to maintain autonomy and privacy.