A (brief) History of Looking
Culture Night Belfast 2012
A project created for Culture Night Belfast, 2012.
A (brief) History of Looking references Roland Barthes’ theories on photography from Camera Lucida “I want a History of Looking.For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity. Even odder: it was before Photography that men had the most to say about the vision of the double. Heautoscopy was compared with an hallucinosis; for centuries this was a great mythic theme “
20 volunteers sat for 10 minutes each as they were filmed and projected in real time but they could only see the camera lens and the
audience could see them. In this way I am facilitating a kind of voyeurism for the audience as they have freedom to look the sitter in the
eyes without being looked back at.
A (brief) History of Looking references Roland Barthes’ theories on photography from Camera Lucida “I want a History of Looking.For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity. Even odder: it was before Photography that men had the most to say about the vision of the double. Heautoscopy was compared with an hallucinosis; for centuries this was a great mythic theme “
20 volunteers sat for 10 minutes each as they were filmed and projected in real time but they could only see the camera lens and the
audience could see them. In this way I am facilitating a kind of voyeurism for the audience as they have freedom to look the sitter in the
eyes without being looked back at.
