GRAPHSET
CREATIVE
STUDIO
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KAINOTOMIA
ABOUT :
For this second collaboration, Graphset and Amandine Besacier once again strive to expand the commonly accepted definition of photography. Indeed, the medium and its specificities (both technical and material) have evolved since the advent of digital technology.
As such, the materiality of the medium is being questioned due to the disappearance of paper formats in our daily practices, which now favor screens and data centers.
Our images are now made up of pixels, most often liquid crystals, irradiated by light. But these pixels are malleable, nothing forces them to remain in a fixed state. In other words, nothing limits them to being arranged in static images, except for the conscious or unconscious choice of their creator. Movement is an option, just as the pace and speed are a matter of choice. The same applies to the screen as a medium, as a surface.
Once we acknowledge its materiality, the screen can be dismantled, reorganized, and reconfigured to offer a new approach, different from the one proposed by the industry. The screen, as an object, as a signifier, can then be revealed as a sculptural object, merging with its signified and enriching our discourse: photography conceived in the age of the pixel.
For this project, we choose the screen, the pixel, the light, a sculptural materiality, and movement. From this crucible, we attempt to develop a continuation of our previous themes.
Once again, the subject is female figures, the fragility of their images, their uncertain state, immersed in a constant cycle of appearance and disappearance. These images directly echo Byzantine icons, which, during the iconoclastic controversy, disappeared under layers of gold, only to reemerge a few decades later.
Here, what consumes the model is a golden mist, symbolizing an illusory happiness tied to a certain vanity. The figures literally emerge from a screen of smoke, a screen with a negligible thickness. The bodies can be briefly glimpsed, only to be lost again a few moments later. Technology and image become one, flooded by the light of a Hollywood golden hour—eternal, yet artificial.
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