the more invisible something is, the more certain it has been around, and the more obviously it is everywhere
Joseph Brodsky: Roman Elegies
The space created by a poem and the space created by a photograph both hold specific reference points, but ultimately take their audience someplace else.
László Moholy-Nagy has said that the camera presents us with eyes outside our bodies. It exists as a tool for investigation of the limits of our vision and comprehension, and of forces counter to the visible. My ongoing body of work has evolved through intense contemplative study and manipulation of an ephemeral sculptural environment. Within this constructed space, photographs transcend consensus reality, blurring boundaries between real and fictitious worlds. References to our physical world are obscured. Compositions evolve, are photographed, and then devolve into the next image. Materials and objects photographed are discarded, secondary to the photograph itself. Images are printed in silver gelatin, grounding the work within the continuum of historical photographic practice.
Through the process of photography, I continuously question the world and my own experiences. I engage a large-format view camera as a tool for both precision and abstraction. These images are the result of an investigation into the invisible: an identification and interrogation of potential signals. I consider photography to be both a tool for escape, and an instrument for self-knowledge: a door into the dark.
Lauren Semivan
