Altered Negatives

Human interactions are dynamic and fluid, changing over time. How is it that we can share the same moments and proximate space, but ultimately have different experiences and memories? In my work, I use altered photographic negatives as a medium to highlight the distance in human connections and interactions. My process begins by using film as a proxy for relationships. A pinhole camera exploits long exposures that force the film to be in a state of constant sensitivity, creating images that could not be rendered otherwise. By physically layering two sheets of film together during exposure, I am constructing a connection that inevitably will be severed. I ‘blindly’ adhere remnants from the body and nature onto the unexposed film, creating intimacy and connection through the sense of physical touch. Remnants attached to the film project onto and block each other, hindering complete exposures. At different stages of processing, items degrade and disappear, leaving one to consider what is absent and what is present. Whether they are working together or separately, their creation as a seamless indexical moment references the distance and loss of a past connection. Each empty moment requires the viewer to consider what is missing; like our memories of past conversations, only traces may remain.