Generative Darkroom

I step into the Darkroom readied with a box of Black and White Gelatin Silver Photographic paper to capture the illuminations of my iPhone. Algorithmically generated pixel trails fill the digital screen. Projected through a lens onto the paper below, light as other light often has been recorded throughout the history of Photography—by the darkening of silver—documents a unique moment in time which will never again be exactly repeated.

“Binary (8/6/15) #3”
iPhone Pixel Trails on Gelatin Silver Paper
7” x 5”
(2015)

“Unary (8/6/15) #3”
iPhone Pixel Trails on Gelatin Silver Paper
7” x 5”
(2015)

(untitled, 6/30/15) #6
iPhone Pixel Trails on Gelatin Silver Paper
10” x 8”
(2015)

(untitled, 3/28/15) #2
iPhone Pixel Trails on Gelatin Silver Paper
10” x 8”
(2015)

(untitled, 7/28/15) #22
iPhone Pixel Trails on Gelatin Silver Paper
7” x 5”
(2015)

“Generative Darkroom”
Documentation of Process
TRT 2:20
(2015)

White Balance

The “White Balance” project repositions skin tone as the neutral value and hue within a photograph, creating colorcasts upon the studio environment in the images.

Digital color, for all intents and purposes, is arbitrary. Its presentation results from a controlled interpretation of numerical data by the display. When captured, its hues are influenced by the camera’s bias for neutral tone derived from white light (i.e., white balance).

With the goal of creating a catalog of color shifts as influenced by participants themselves, I photograph these portrait studies under diffuse daylight balanced (5500°K) studio strobes against a plain gray background. The exposure and white balance, though, are measured against the skin forcing the shift in both color and density.

“Maria, 3500°K, -17M, -1 ¹⁄₃ stops”
Digital Photograph
Dimensions Variable
2015

“Adam, 3800°K, -12M, -1 stop”
Digital Photograph
Dimensions Variable
2015

“Es, 3450°K, -12M, -1 ¹⁄₃ stops”
Digital Photograph
Dimensions Variable
2015

“Rich, 3650°K, -15M, -1 stop”
Digital Photograph
Dimensions Variable
2015

Mirror Minus

“Mirror Minus” is an interactive installation that continues within my process of Reductive Video. The body of work entitled “Reductive Video” borrows the choice to depict changes in movement (either as individual frames or wholly contained in a single image) and applies it to the technical rendering of images. Using a webcam, a projector, and a patch written in Max5 (Max/MSP/Jitter) running on a Mac Mini, live video is broken down to reveal only the pixels that change from frame to frame, no longer implying form, but instead the shape of what has changed from the previous frame. Through this, their activity becomes the dominant element in creating an image that describes the location of the installation.

Mirror Minus
(Rosewood Art Center, Kettering, OH)
Interactive Installation
2014

Mirror Minus
documentation of “Yoga in the Gallery” and captured still
Rosewood Art Center, Kettering, OH
05-02-2014
(photo credit: Amy Kollar Anderson)

Mirror Minus
“enjoying a little mother/daughter time at the @a2artcenter”
Ann Arbor Art Center,
07-29-2015
(photo credit: Kimberly Murphy via Instagram)

“Mirror Minus (infinity variation)”
documentation of captured images from a two-screen variation of the installation
Pop-up Gallery at BRINK Creative Digital Agency, Washington, DC
10-28-2015

Mirror Minus
documentation
12’ x 9’ (projection)
2014
Interactive Installation

For Love

For Love represents the reduction of a video into a single print. Similar to other Reductive Video works like “Mirror Minus,” the changes in motion and movement are layered to create impressions of these on-screen activities.

The source material for this exploration was appropriated from online amateur pornographic video-sharing websites.

Mirror Minus
Reductive Video Image / Archival Inkjet on uncoated Rives BFK
84” x 40” (15 images each 13.6” x 10.2”)
(2010)

“For Love (089-b)”
Reductive Video Image / Archival Inkjet on uncoated Rives BFK
13.6” x 10.2”
(2010)

“For Love (051)”
Reductive Video Image / Archival Inkjet on uncoated Rives BFK
13.6” x 10.2”
(2010)

“For Love (084)”
Reductive Video Image / Archival Inkjet on uncoated Rives BFK
13.6” x 10.2”
(2010)

“For Love (089-b)”
Reductive Video Image / Archival Inkjet on uncoated Rives BFK
13.6” x 10.2”
(2010)