Kunstkaart

I use a prepared camera which, when looked through, shows a text saying “people die of exposure”. I ask accidental passerbys to take pictures of me using this very camera. I am wearing a T-shirt with another line of text saying “People desire exposure”. Only for the brief moment of looking through the camera these two texts come together. The experience of the person taking picture is unique and volatile –remains without any evidence. The text inserted in the camera bears notion of individually addressed, personal message, that nobody else, but the person holding the camera, can see. The text I chose is a comment on constant need for being in focus, which modern societies bear. At the same time it is a play with words which is only possible in English language, in which the word exposure has a double meaning, referring to photographic process as well as to state of putting oneself in public view. This performance bears some notion of assisted suicide. When fulfilling my desire to be exposed the person holding a camera releases the shutter as if it were a trigger of a gun. “The photograph is always about the past”, as R.Barthes said