Sam Holden
+44(0)7760 175957
info@samholden.com
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Artist's Statement
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Installation View
Using a digital SLR, image capture software and a hidden video
camera ’70 Still Frames
and
5 Minutes 50 Seconds of Video’ highlights
how
much
we simply don’t see when encountering someone’s photographic
reproduction
and underlines how problematic photography can
be as a
representative medium.
70 Still Frames and 5 Minutes 50 Seconds of Video
In days now numbered, we’d pick up our photographic prints from the chemist, quickly
rifle through them, exclaim and sigh, before promptly removing any prints we’d rather not exhibit - whether due to mis-exposure, lack of focus or, more significantly, to remove selves we didn’t recognize or approve of. The latter, at best, may involve an unflattering expression. At worst we’re caught without our mask, betraying a secret sadness, abhorrence or delight. With accidental selves removed, the prints can find a home upon the coffee table, to
await visiting friends.
'Ooooh, are those the pictures from last weekend?’
One by one, each protagonist, no matter how few speaking parts they held, will, mentally and surreptitiously, undergo the same re-encounters with selves both pleasant and otherwise (whilst convincingly surveying the event as a whole).
‘This disturbance is ultimately one of ownership[1]’, proclaimed Barthes. Unless one holds a photograph’s inherently exclusive authorship, we are largely powerless to cease its existence and potential replication. Photography becomes our scourge. Forbidding forgetting, holding us ransom, reminding us that our scraps can be reassembled, our actions re-imagined and our selves presented to us from an angle that we consciously shun.
So, when faced with a camera, it is no wonder that people’s behaviour changes so dramatically - eliciting a hyperconsciousness[2] matched on few other occasions. Flickering with multiplicity we must ultimately decide upon our self, invoke our most agreeable ‘qualities of nature[3]’ and hold them still for the camera’s fleeting glance.