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Categories: Photography
Keywords: Politics | Surveillance
Relevant passages:
Anette Hüsch «Artistic Concepts Linked to the Transition from Analog to Digital Photography»
Jens Schröter «Archive—post/photographic»
Works by Nancy Burson:
Chimären Coverdesign for the Time Magazine First and Second Beauty Composite First and Second Male Movie Composite
Check as well:
Nancy Burson
«Big Brother (Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, Khomeini»
We calculate the world, then we compute it. Nancy Burson's pictures are products of that mentality. And they show it: they show what sort of world will result from that mentality: a world of chimaeras.
The heart desires something: for example, an androgynous human being, or an accomplished Big Brother, or a perfect female beauty. Such a desire may be called a ‹program.› In order to realize such a program in the form of an image, various available photographs should be chosen. [...in this case] the photos of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and Khomeini. [...] Each of these photos is to be calculated: dissected into very small squares called ‹pixels.› These calculations are to be fed into a computer, which is then instructed to compute the desired image from the pixels according to the program called ‹desire.› The result will be Burson's photos of chimaeras.
(Source: Vilém Flusser, »Nancy Burson. Chimären«, in: Photography after Photography, Hubertus v. Amelunxen et. al. (eds.), Munich/Amsterdam 1996, p. 151.)
