CAMS 2001-02

computer prints, dimensions variable

Cams is an ongoing project that uses personal web cameras as the source for images. Web cameras are small video cameras that attach to a personal computer and broadcast live video images in real-time on the Internet. I watch a number of these cameras regularly. When I see an image that appeals to me aesthetically and that has compelling content, I capture a frame from the video stream. For me this is a form of "street photography" with the Internet being the "street". I currently have over 1,500 images.

I find these images aesthetically interesting because of the low resolution quality of the video stream. The images are often discolored and have a fuzzy-painterly quality. In addition I am interested in how individuals frame and compose themselves and their space for the camera. A number of these images are taken from adult erotic web cameras. Therefore, these individuals frame themselves in the camera for voyeuristic pleasure. Even when the space is empty of the individual it often maintains an anticipatory erotic charge. These images represent a meeting of my aesthetic with that of the camera operator.

A selection of these images will be appearing in a book I am editing entitled CAMS. I am intrigued by the individuals and spaces portrayed as forms of fiction. Because of the banality of these images the viewer believes that he/she knows these individuals and their quotidian existence. Yet, the viewer must always fill in what the camera hides or what lurks beyond its eye. I have collaborated with a number of fiction writers and poets to create this book. I have given a selection of images to participating writers asking them to select one or more of them to write "around". By this I mean that I want the writer to create a fiction of thier own from these images. This is continuation of the process of re-framing these images. I received the framed image from the operator, I select a subset and pass them on for re-selection and further fictionalization.

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