by Vesna Pavlović

This series of collaborative portraits evolve in a number of sessions during which both the artist and the model contribute to the making of an image. The digital screen acts much like the Claude Mirror, an 18th century invention with the slightly convex surface of the mirror, which widens the background view while allowing foreground to come into focus. The digital device held by the model acts like a mirror, framing the model and the scene. In a make-shift studio, the author’s camera frames another screen. The camera is connected to a laptop with an image capture software, which then takes a shot. The exposure happens through the mediation of multiple cameras and digital screens. The physical distance is diminished by the act of communication. The outcomes are portraits, stretched both by the very genre of portrait and the digital bandwidth which enables them. In the times of ever-increasing digital communication the physical attributes of images are considered in terms of digital pixels, their surfaces flattened even further. Digital image testifies about the digital distance, compressed within a new mode of perception.

Portrait of Hanita Schwartz, Seattle, WA March 28, 2020
by Vesna Pavlović
digital image, 2020
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