What does it mean to have a ‘photographic eye’ in the age of image proliferation + photographic ubiquity?

Inversing the gaze, I invited 7 of fellow photographers to view their own eyes through the bodies of their own cameras. Orchestrated remotely (to add to the irony) the exhibition was held as a closed project in the dungeons of UTS Photostudios. A huge thank you to Simon Ross for your support and documentation of the project.

I hope to expand on this project in future as a collaborative installation celebrating both the ubiquity and authenticity of photographers in solidarity.

The below videowork ‘Ocula’ can also be considered a performance exploring the act of capturing mental images. And the mental state of photographing. Where are our on/off switches?

'Ocula' is a contemporary re-staging of Brazilian conceptual artist Lygia Clark's 1968 interactive sculpture titled Dialogo Oculos. The original work comprised of a pair of double ended spectacles designed to engage two participants in the intimate act of gazing into one another's eyes. Co-opting Clark's participatory, sensory and spatial methodology, my Oculus invites one to consider the disconnect, distance and mediation of human sight and relationships in a post-pandemic and post-smartphone world.

A lone participant is met with a virtual presence, a pluralism of eyes that are unresponsive, overwhelmed and distracted accompanied by a cacophony of camera sounds. It's easy to loose touch with our sense of a body. Technological innovation reduces , augments and fragments the amount of movements we make on a daily basis whilst visual consumption remains rife. A top of this the social distancing has made us more reluctant to physically touch and engage at close proximity.