Sleeping amoebas

‘Through the light projected he can see himself up close’. Lemon. U2.

Humanities evolutionary trajectory has become a course of abstraction. We are organic beings that have not only learnt to survive in our environment, but also how to change it, for better or worse, and synthesise new comfortable living conditions. Rather abstract ones at that. Controlled and removed from nature.

Everything around you is an abstraction. A tree is milled into lengths of timber to make a table and chairs, or a doorway. Earth dug up and fired into bricks or a bowl. Steel into skyscrapers. Sand into glass.

Photography has been recording this evolution for two centuries now- the first physical photograph was taken in 1826- and at the same time, through its own development it has made a record of its own growth. From the first grainy black and white image made with bitumen to saturated colour, to the pixel.

Once revered for its technology breakthroughs, and feared for stealing souls… cameras are now commonplace and in everything, everywhere. We use them for recording memories, reversing the car, telling stories, selling products, selling ideas, selling propaganda… accountability and making ourselves accessible to the masses. It’s once again both witness, and mirror.

These paintographs are pure pareidolia, an X-ray of amoebas, light reflected and light absorbed.