They call me research

This is why attempting to earnestly interview Jones is a fool’s errand. In any semi-normal setting, Jones will unleash his growly baritone on any subject, spinning his own tired narratives and making sure that nobody else can get a word in edgewise. As soon as he feels cornered, he’ll start yelling even louder. He creates a spectacle that’s difficult to look away from. Jones’s ravings, even when odious, can offer perverse entertainment to his haters, even if just to dunk on him. Because he appears so much like a caricature and because he is so outlandish and volatile, there is a desire, even among those who find him dangerous and vile, to try to understand the man and his true beliefs. Most profiles of Alex Jones have attempted to answer the same question that I, a person who has profiled Jones, get asked constantly: Does he really believe what he says?

“There are no easy answers here,” says Dr Omar Kholeif, writer, cultural historian and senior curator at Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates, who has spent their career interrogating the intersection of emerging technologies and how it shapes and impacts humanity. “The way that we ‘see’ is continually shifting,” says Kholeif. “The bigger shift is not in the image itself; it is in the proliferation and volume of images, the speed in which they accelerate, and the manner in which humans consume them. This metabolic process creates a way of looking that can simultaneously be more voyeuristic as it is distanced, leaving different kinds of meaning and interpretation subject to exploration.”

And that may or may not mean direct eye contact. It may mean really understanding who that person is and placing that individual in the most comfortable, appropriate environment. But that’s not always the case. It may also be that a portrait is made in the studio and the sitter has the opportunity to fantasize and dream about who he or she wants to be, how they want to present themselves. I think there are many different ways to create a great portrait, but I do think that, more often than not, it’s a collaborative work, a collaborative effort. There are some photographers who just have that knack and there are others who don’t, and I think it’s something that can’t be faked or forced. I also think in some instances, having a great subject is really important, you know, somebody who can really shed all inhibitions and just be there, be real, be there for the photographer to capture.

Imperial Courts, 1993-2015 is a project by photographer Dana Lixenberg about Imperial Courts, a social housing project in Watts, Los Angeles. The project contains work made over a period of 22 years and consists of a book, exhibition and web documentary.

Reference + Infrared

In the second part, which is constructed according to the principles of theatre set design, the same features create the optical effect of expanding the space in the gallery. “Knowledge sculpture" - the term given to the "bookshelves" by the two artists - refers to the range of possible meanings connected to the theme of false perspective, and alludes to the difference between the visible and underlying reality.