DoubleTake
DoubleTake
Seeing double. Double take. Take two.
Imaging devices record single glances of the world—Crack!—trees fall, shutters snap, photographs are captured. But the immediately obvious and apparent simplicity of the interactions between the subjects and the observer—and between the subjects themselves—are belied by repeated glances. What we see is constrained by our visual processing systems and conditioned by our expectations. Our eyes see “color,” but ultraviolet and infrared are invisible to us. The objectif-icity of our vision is undermined by different analog film emulsions, digital imaging systems, and post-processed color mappings that expose different worlds. And, we expect an image to capture the decisive moment. But in a forest, we find ourselves looking beyond the trees in the here and now. The decisive moment disappears in the trees’ constant growth and decay and collapses beneath networks of symbiotic interactions.
Stop. Look. Look away. Look again. Repeat.
Eric Zeigler is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Toledo. His research and artistic practice interrogate the underpinnings of the history of the photographic process by purposefully exploiting problematic contemporary western cultural categorizations and presumptions that are placed on photographic and lens-based imagery. Aaron Ellison is a photographer, sculptor, writer, and Senior Research Fellow Emeritus in Ecology at Harvard University. His research and artistic practice focus on the disintegration and reassembly of ecosystems following natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Working together, Eric and Aaron explore unknown worlds beyond our current understanding. Their joint work currently centers on non-anthropocentric/posthumanist aesthetics and creative photodocumentation of forests and deep time.
Seeing double. Double take. Take two.
Imaging devices record single glances of the world—Crack!—trees fall, shutters snap, photographs are captured. But the immediately obvious and apparent simplicity of the interactions between the subjects and the observer—and between the subjects themselves—are belied by repeated glances. What we see is constrained by our visual processing systems and conditioned by our expectations. Our eyes see “color,” but ultraviolet and infrared are invisible to us. The objectif-icity of our vision is undermined by different analog film emulsions, digital imaging systems, and post-processed color mappings that expose different worlds. And, we expect an image to capture the decisive moment. But in a forest, we find ourselves looking beyond the trees in the here and now. The decisive moment disappears in the trees’ constant growth and decay and collapses beneath networks of symbiotic interactions.
Stop. Look. Look away. Look again. Repeat.
Eric Zeigler is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Toledo. His research and artistic practice interrogate the underpinnings of the history of the photographic process by purposefully exploiting problematic contemporary western cultural categorizations and presumptions that are placed on photographic and lens-based imagery. Aaron Ellison is a photographer, sculptor, writer, and Senior Research Fellow Emeritus in Ecology at Harvard University. His research and artistic practice focus on the disintegration and reassembly of ecosystems following natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Working together, Eric and Aaron explore unknown worlds beyond our current understanding. Their joint work currently centers on non-anthropocentric/posthumanist aesthetics and creative photodocumentation of forests and deep time.