Time Structure Diptychs

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In this body of work, I rephotograph slide images found in a university's art history archives and present them with microscopic photographs of photo chemicals. I separate each chemical form into lone objects and pair them with a slide photograph based on subtle connections. I create all of the microscopic photos myself with many of the chemicals used in a traditional darkroom. Like finding music samples, I sift through the unused slides left in boxes from previous art instructors who used them to teach the history of photography before everything became digitized.

 

I look at these photographs taken long ago and try to mentally bring myself into that moment, one before my life started. With these diptychs, I’m inspired to visualize this sensation of a past time that older photographs contain. For me, the fragmented patterns and forms found in the world of the microscopic are like apparitions of the long ago moment. Perhaps they once helped form it, but also form the vision of them now. I associate the diptychs with the impression of time that is hard to pin down. If we perceive time, what is it made from, and what is its structure? I want these photographs, as presented here, to convey these types of questions and make connections that go beyond what one has imagined and that will stay with you into the future.