During assignment 4 I was trying to be creative & contemporary with my approach by playing around with the focus on the camera to create abstract shapes with light. In my tutor feedback my tutor suggested looking at the work of Erik Kessels, specifically his piece ’24 hours in photos” in relation to the ideas about the contemporary use of photographs.
The pieces features a million photographs that were uploaded to the internet within a 24 hour period. Kessels made the piece to demonstrate how during the 21st centenary and the digital age we are bombarded by images on a daily basis. People who went to view the piece were encouraged to walk over and interact with it, the idea was to present it as a “sea of images you can drown in”.
Recently I have got rid of my smart phone and replaced in with a ‘non smart’ phone after becoming increasingly frustrated by the amount of time myself and friends were living our lives through technology so this piece is particularly interesting to me. I find it interesting because the majority of people these days feel a need to document their lives through their phone by incessantly photographing them selves and their lives under the false pretence that people are interested. Kessels said that one of the reasons he made the piece was to demonstrate to people how public out lives have become and I think he is successful in doing this.
Another thing I found interesting about this piece is the presentation. Usually we assume that photographs should be framed and hung on the wall but Kessler piles the photographs on top of one another. Never before has it occurred to me to present my work in any other fashion than on the wall, but after looking at this particular piece I will consider the way in which I present my work more carefully and may look at alternative ways of doing this.
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