(De)construct
Inkjet print on matt litho realistic paper, 42cm x 60cm, Prague 2019
The demystification of the black box was initiated by using hollow shell of my first camera to photograph its own parts in a makeshift darkroom. The ritualistic arrangement of camera parts, a metaphor for the posing for family portraits two decades ago.
Photography was an act of marking a momentous occasion while growing up in the suburbs of Bombay, India. The act itself was close to a ritual when my father would bring the camera (an automatic Canon SM111) and encourage us to pose. The camera was a black-box to me, not due to a lack of understanding of its mechanism; it had more to do with the lack of permission to operate the apparatus itself. After demystifying the conceptual black-box, it was turn to deconstruct the black-box called camera. Unscrewing the parts of the old Canon was symbolic of going against tradition and it felt unreal to look at the various parts of the camera, I had to ask for permission to even touch. Once the deconstruction was complete, it was time to construct new meanings from the various parts. I toyed with the motor and gear wheels to create a “Robo Painter” and it generated unique patterns by alternating between RBG and CMYK colors.
The demystification process was completed by using hollow shell of the camera to photograph its own parts in a makeshift bathroom turned darkroom. The ritualistic arrangement of camera parts seemed like a metaphor for the posing for family portraits two decades ago. Obscuring the camera by by removing all the electrical components and inserting manually cut 120 films instead of the 35mm to create photographs, is an attempt to move beyond what has been programmed in the apparatus and within my subconscious mind. With (re)programming also comes the desire to push the limit of viewing a subject in many different ways as possible.
