Sittings
Johnnie Eisen

Sittings is a series of video portraits of sixty individuals, set in a situation that echoes an archetypal photo portrait studio setting. To remove the inherent distraction of the photographer’s presence, all subjects were left alone with the camera running. There was no sound recording, and each portrayal runs unedited for ten minutes. The scheme employed is such that by encompassing a sizeable group of people, the viewer is drawn away from the particular and into a broader discourse.

There are various allusions inherent in this piece, one of which is the play upon one’s anticipation of narrative –for what is presented here is a circumstance where imaging through time, though connecting moments, in due course moves nowhere. We are, in effect, suspended. “Sense” may be gained through one’s own perceived narrative, but within each portrait we are simply hovering at the threshold of knowledge, a knowledge that isn’t forthcoming.

The motivating hypothesis embedded in the work was this–as we add levels of technological information to our portraying of individuals, we are, paradoxically, no closer to the core of the subject.

From its startling inception, the photographic portrait held the sense of being not only a breathtakingly realistic depiction of the subject’s visage, but of carrying something fuller within it – a portal into the very depths of that self being portrayed. We had abruptly leapt beyond hand rendered interpretations to dramatically truer, precise portrayals. The shift was profound, and the depths of the “reality”– of the knowledge that each image apparently carried–ultimately affected our ways of perceiving and understanding ourselves and others. As further scientific developments in image capturing were employed, color and movement particularly, the intense impression of having secured the fullness was amplified.

My feeling, though, is that these technical layers manage to deflect the very understanding and knowledge of others that we so curiously desire to hold. The sheer weight of the visual information expressed carries the beguiling perception that we are closer to the essence of the person. I suspect that in fact we are mesmerized by, and stay very much on, the dazzling surface – while the complexity lies firmly concealed.

Johnnie Eisen

gallery  Gardiner  St. Maur