Surfacing I
2022
Aluminium, fabric, and lights
40.6 x 60.9 x 8.0 cm
Exploring the inexpressive potential of photographic images and the universal propensity of photographic reading, this set of eight black and white photographs together brings their own surfaces into view. Intentionally taken in an out-of-focus manner through a six-by-nine medium-format box camera, only a plain and monochromatic wall was photographed.
The work appears to be devoid of content at first glance, but upon attentive observation and examination, one would discern the presence of the normally unseen surfaces and notice their subtle details of what have been accumulating in and through time and spaces. Despite each photograph looks intrinsically identical as each seemingly shares homogeneous elements, yet surprisingly looking close enough they are inherently different, in which viewed individually each one has its own distinctive and unrepeatable surfaces, most manifestly the hyphen-like lines that were created when winding the negative across two spools and the scratch marks that might have created when processing the film roll in the photographic film lab.
In such manner, the common reception of photogrpahy to overlook, unknowingly penetrate and look through the photographs’ surface has thereby been subverted, as the deadpan details of the surfaces are being offered and shown up visually which acts as an obstruction between the contents and the viewers. In return, the resulting series of photographic images is an experimental search onto the essence of the overlooked surfaces and its physicality regarding the photographic reading, of which I entitle the act of searching as — Surfacing.
View the uncompressed photographs here
