Notes

The repetition series consists of about 80 found passport photographs that I remade and resized. I concealed all identifying information of the subjects. The disconnection that arises when the photographic image is cut off from its function evokes the rupture that occurs when the passport photographs are isolated from their political, historical context – a type of problem of representation.The series had 2 starting points:The gaze as the origin of desire;in our gaze we search for the object not present, and this creates desire. A reading based on the Lacanian gaze and its uncanniness (as well as Zizek’s looking awry). The series examines the relationship between the elected (because they are sufficiently dominant to be elected), the ruling, the power holders (powerful males, rhetoricians, leaders and the rich in turkey) and ordinary people. The Hegelian master-slave dialectic is conjured in relationships where there is a disparity in power, in this series between rulers and the ruled. The effect of the gaze on people, or how we position ourselves according to it…the repetitiveness of history the detachment of the gaze/potency in this series from temporality, and its perpetual repetition. The fact that we become part of this cycle once we position ourselves according to the gaze in this master-slave dialectic. How we play the role of master and of slave in our daily lives, and how our perception of the image clashes with its representation and creates an uncanny space.The creation of history and memory – with and without a mediator - in time, repetitively and continuously, and the photograph’s role in this process.How do the relationships we form with images manifest in our memories, in our minds? Who remembers what, and how much? What is the role of the image in this?