Reinscribing the self
This piece is a digital reproduction of a still from Dziga Vertov’s “Man with a Movie Camera.” Being a well-known figuration, and especially as a figuration extracted from the allographic medium of film, Vertov’s still of the man with a movie camera eye is part of a long lineage of reproduction. This piece engages and catalyses this heritage of reproduction by using a regenerative grasshopper script that allows a digitized version of the figuration to reproduce itself. The piece simulates and re-inscribes how mass technological reproduction allows the artwork to be freed from the bourgeoise notion of authenticity.
As the image reproduces itself the pixels are forced to spread further and further apart, eroding the image into imperceptibility, until nothing is left but the stark white of the abyss, a blank canvas. The aura of the figuration is entirely lost.