It was a very particular way of looking at the world associated with a special way of thinking that engendered the construction of the classic camera.
The mechanical eye replaced its human counter part in order to take and transfer into pictures the images that the human eye was able to select and retain.
Black box, camera obscura; the sons of the “perspectivist” construction directed the light to the diaphragm which in its turn determined the light intensity and the sharpness on the receptive surface. Both were, of course, determined at the opening of the diaphragm.
Technological advances won’t change the basic concept, even if the possibilities of digital photography have given us a different way of experiencing the world.
Today the camera and its unifying vision don’t suffice any longer, in spite of the huge amount of pictures taken. This amount is trying to make up for both the diversity of information that solicits our eye sight and the speed with which we are exposed to it.
This is really the root of the problem: a picture is not enough to bring back the feeling of the moment. It becomes necessary to invent a “fusion” where you can retrieve all the images at the same time even if it means giving the picture a much longer lifespan than was at all desired to begin with.
Forever pressed upon, our eye intercepts and makes pictures that, in time, come back melted together in such a way that it is impossible to separate them. Even if we try hard to retrieve from our memory the exact likeness of our first impression there are always parts of other impressions which imperceptibly join the impression we want to recall. The images melt together and the one we successfully isolate has inside a part that was never called for which alters it in a fatal way.
It is more than an inconvenience to restore to the feeling of the moment its authenticity. What could take place under the appearance of creation has the merit to restore the reality of the process which is happening from the first recovery, its storage in memory till its restoration.
It is in this development that the photographic assembly works of Bettina David- Fauchier find their significance.
At the beginning there is the fund of stored visual impressions from which the selection is made, then the choice of pictures to be mounted together. The photographs were taken in different places and at different times, without any pre-assigned destination or place in the final project. We are dealing with a kind of “collection tank” and it is only at the opening of the tank that certain pictures catch the eye and are chosen. The choice is based on the signs, forms and other characteristics of the photographs which may furnish material and responses to the moment and consequently to the needs of the picture which is being created.
The assembly condenses the photographs in order to form a new picture in which the characteristics of the individual ones cancel out; the mutual cancellation benefits the whole
In which the vanishing points are multiplied; the result is a space with changing thickness in which the far and near alternate and are recovered. Near and far alternate and are rediscovered in a light pulsating movement. The lines and planes spread out and break offering many ramps to slide into and many passages to our eye sight.
The tension and thickness take the place of the old depth. The exposed surfaces are similar to the layers of memory where printed images and memories become allies and mix all the while reducing time for an enlarged view of the world.
J.B
traduction: Vera Smith
Toutes les images présentes sur ce site sont de ©Bettina David-Fauchier et ne sont pas libres de droits.
Webmaster ©Bettina David-Fauchier