Made in darkness


CONCEPT:
It is commonly accepted that social acts and cultural creations are most practised in time and space with light. Light becomes the base for humans to create the world and we are becoming increasingly dependent on light and trust the visual images captured by the camera. However, DARKNESS gives us a particular space in which we temporarily forget time and location, and DARKNESS can stimulate our imagination and liberate us from the light cave..

DESCRIPTION:
My work is closely connected with the different processes in which I make visual photos without using a traditional camera. It is true that the camera gives us freedom to capture images, however it seriously limits our imagination to mechanical machine and we may not escape from it.

The main course:
1. I make graphic on the photo paper in the DARKNESS and use the ancient photographic PINHOLE box in which I place the photo paper.
2. Out of Darkness and back to light reality, I look for the environment location which could be combined with my graphic photo paper and then use the PINHOLE box to capture this environment into images.
3. I have to be back to DARKNESS again and develop these images into negative images with chemical liquids.
4. Last, I leave the DARKNESS again, and I scan the negative images into the computer to turn them into positive images.

NEGATIVE images in the physical realm and POSITIVE images in the digital realm are reminiscent of the ancient Chinese philosophy YING YANG. DARKNESS and LIGHT are two major key points in my work and they make me wander in dreams during the daytime.

by:
Qiu Jun
email: huazhunizhu@hotmail.com