Being Seen







Being Seen, 2003 - 2006
The project Being Seen deals with the boundary between viewer and what is viewed. The project stems from my interest as a performer, in the audience. The interest extends beyond the question of attention but to the subtle interactions between the audience members. The audience is clocked in anonymity. Yet the same architecture that allowed them to watch me allowed me to watch them. With a large format camera and some times strobes I froze a moment in time. with a very formal arrangement of the camera in the center between that audience and what was viewed. In theaters (i choreographed and preformed in order to do this) football fields, movie theaters, lecture halls homes (people watching tv). With the clarity that large format cameras can bring as well as the assistance of formal theater architecture this relationship could be explored. When exhibited I prefer to have one print life size or a bit larger to yet again change the relationship. When a its life size or a bit larger the photographs gains new power in its relationship with the viewer. This multi layered transformation of power is at the core of this project. This project explores power and attention who is watching whom? The audience the performer? The performer the audience? The gallery goer the images of the audience? The pictured life size printed audience the gallery goer?
And yet some how it also asks my won very personal question where and how I fit in the world.