Photographic project
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour...”
The practical project for the module Beyond Perception has been quite challenging. I decided to work on scale straightaway by covering what human eyes cannot normally see: the infinite small and the infinite big. Regarding the essay I chose to research some aspects of the universe and how we perceive it as human beings, while for my photographs, at first I wanted to explore how information travel inside something like molecules or circuits by producing a time lapse. I gave up the idea quite soon because the project was almost impossible to realise due to the limitation of time and technologies. Then I was suggested to work on identity which would have made a good link with my written report. I started to experiment with fingerprints, which represent identity in an excellent way and I found myself fascinated at once. Because traces of fingerprints are not detectable under normal conditions, I need to make them more visible, I chose to use fluorescence: I put my finger on a slide and then I contaminated the fingerprints with some magnetic fluorescent powder used also by police; in order to make them “shine” I illuminated them with a portable UV lamp and then I took picture directly from the microscope with a Canon DSLR. This operation appeared to be not as easy as I thought, some issues emerged: I needed to focus the image directly from the camera which did not replicate the images as they would have resulted afterwards, moreover I had to hold the UV lamp and press the shutter at the same time being careful not to move anything. I could use the lamp only for a short time because it heated very quickly and the whole dark room with it (furthermore it is not advisable to expose the body to UV rays for a long time). Despite all the difficulties, the first pictures were beautiful and powerful; they didn’t look like fingerprints but more like constellations and so I decided to continue on this path in order to produce a work both practical and written that would have strongly linked together. Among the various colours of the powders, I chose red because it reminded me of blood and so the work that police does with fingerprints.
I chose this course because I wanted to challenge myself. I have never been really interested in science subjects, but I decided to give them a chance and this module represented the perfect collaboration between art and science. I have learned a lot about different approaches towards photography and now I am really glad I chose this module. Unfortunately I also encounter some troubles: firstly the amount of work was maybe to consistent for the short time available and I wasn't able to organise myself properly, secondly I was almost shocked by the lack of people during the lessons. We were always very few and not too collaborative as well, this has been maybe the principal reason why I didn’t feel inspired for the whole beginning of the module. This is a splendid course full of possibilities, but it certainly needs to be filled with people that interact with each other.
The title for my project is a quote from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, which I find to explain perfectly my intentions.
-On the whole, I spent 7 days (170 hours) working on my practical assignment and 4 days (100 hours) on my written report.
