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self-Less (Dana Dal Bo 2014-ongoing) emphasizes the not symmetrical relationship between self and other that is catalyzed by the mirror and asks how that relationship is further complicated by technology and social media. The project uses hundreds of screen-captured selfies- naked people taking their own picture in bathroom mirrors with smartphones; a practice that is prolifically performed across borders, genders, orientations, races, ages, religions, sizes, classes, etc. All are included. Each subject is grey-scaled and rendered unrecognizable through digital manipulations of painting, erasing, and cloning. The manipulated images have a dedicated Instagram account @underskirt_ and also function as an installation.
The original unique selfies become ubiquitous- representing everyone and no one. The viewer is immersed in a sea of similar surfaces.
Carbon Copy brings the selfies from self-Less into the darkroom. Negatives of the images are made and they are printed using the antique photographic process of carbon printing which produces images that are exceptionally resistant to deterioration. It speaks about the tension between disposability and permanence in the digital world. It is likely that theses images were exchanged intimately and not intended for public consumption. Yet they are online, available to anyone. The contextual abyss, that is the Internet, makes it difficult to ascertain the circumstances under which any particular image was produced and how it is disseminated. Thus it is hard to distinguish between a naked selfie posted by the subject with personal exhibitionistic intention, from pornography produced for profit, from revenge porn circulated against the will of the subject. Facts from facades from fictions. Together self-Less and Carbon Copy reverberate in the tensions of agency between capturing/circulating one’s own image, and having one’s image captured/circulated. Anything Legal is Hosted Forever.
“Surveillance”
jacquard weaving 40” x 60” cotton warp with lurex weft
This is an ongoing series of weavings that addresses historical and contemporary surveillance practices.
During my undergrad at Concordia University I approached several security guards and requested surveillance footage from their archive for an art project. After months of rejection, finally one guard did provide me with a handful of VHS tapes of recorded footage that was a few months old. I used stills from that footage to begin this series of weavings, which has expanded to include other found surveillance footage, as well as footage I have taken myself by installing cameras around my neighbourhood. The project serves to question who is watching who, and with what kind of permission?