Chantal Faust
"What happens when the digital optical scanner is used for the photographic reproduction of three-dimensional objects? A relatively new technology, the flatbed scanner is generally not associated with the reproduction of tactile objects and it is not commonly used as a vehicle for artistic expression. This form of image making in relation to the history of photography and the current state of digital production is the focus of my artistic practice.
My work relies on a pre-existing language of photography – how we read and understand images and the spatial relationships that can be expected when viewing a photograph. It is the subversion of this photographic vernacular that occurs through scanning which makes the viewing experience so strange. The scanner disobeys the rules of lens-based photography, associated with aperture, depth of field and the use of perspective. Scanning requires an immediate proximity to the subject. It distorts and stretches space and yet the focus maintains an acute sensitivity to surface detail; so much so that the images often can appear ‘hyper-real’. What really interests me is the way that the scanner visibly impacts upon the surfaces of that which it scans. The photographic idea of an anonymous voyeur is denied through the physical transformation of subject matter and the subsequent freezing of this pressured moment into a flat image."
(Chantal Faust 2007)
