Present, 2006

35mm Manual Camera, with Tack and Adhesive

Present proposes a exchange of damage in return for the photographic exposure: injure yourself, to take a picture. The work begins a concern not just in the act of photography, but in the consequences of its act. It challenges, and perhaps negates the claims to photography’s ease and simplicity, drawing attention to the complex and in many instances, compromised circumstances of mineral and chemical construction of the image. The title of the work, alludes to Man Ray’s tack-laced iron, Cadeau (gift, or present), playing on the two meanings of the english translation to describe a gift and a concern for the immediate over and above the future.