VikMuniz

Pictures of Ink

In the series Pictures of Ink, I tried to make the viewer aware of the materiality of the printed medium by blowing up a hand made rendering of a well known image. The hand made rendering was done in thick ink and photographed while still wet.

The result is a confusing moray of conflicting information. Both the photographed ink and the recognizable image playing against each other, making it hard for the viewer to simply recognize something unless he or she thinks a bit more. In my perception, immediate recognition works like short hand for an otherwise richer, more intelligent and intense visual experience. The interactive nature of these works is meant to inspire thoughts about vision, recognition and perception in general rather than simply be something to be seen.

The dot matrix was used to accelerate the dissemination of images through the printed media. By reproducing it dot by dot by hand, I turn the technique into a subject itself. A subject that co-exists precariously with the recognizable portrayed celebrity in the picture. This negotiation of attention is controlled by walking closer or away from the picture. In the case of a relatively narrow corridor, the game of finding who is in the picture becomes more intense, not to mention that the dots will infinitely be multiplied in the reflections of the pictures in front.