Liz Deschenes Tilt /Swing (360 field of vision, version 2)
2010
Liz Deschenes' photograms are works that strive to reduce the photographic process to its most basic elements: support, light and the necessary chemicals. The works are produced with no negative or digital apparatus, Deschenes exposes photo-sensitive paper outside, capturing the ambient light present at the time and location. Calling into question and yet retaining the indexical status of the photographic image, the works are affected by the environmental conditions in which they are produced; the temperature, as well as the light level, alters the rate at which the reactions take place.
The mirror-like sheen of the surfaces, which renders the pieces as objects in the space rather than images, allows the reflections of their surroundings and viewers to be seen, bringing a presentness that is normally absent in photography. Speaking about the limitations of a traditional understanding of photography she has said: "My work is a reaction to the limited scope that photography has. I think photography is capable of much more than representing a particular moment in time."
In the Tilt /Swing series she reproduces a display structure designed by Herbert Bayer in 1935 filling the spaces designed to house images with these aluminium-mounted surface/objects. Where a veritable visual panopticon would have sat, a 360 degree array of her images present multiple fragmented reflections of the viewer in the space.
Liz Deschenes Tilt /Swing (360 field of vision, version 1)
2009