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Xerographs
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Autoportrait |
Homecoming |
The Margin |
A xerograph is a technical term (and the original
term) for a photocopy. I use the term xerograph
more specifically— an image which has been derived from using a photocopier as
though it were a camera. Some characteristics of photocopiers (and colour photocopiers in particular) allow
one to create images which are unlike those which can be created
photographically (e.g. a limited focal plane beyond which nothing is visible,
an ability to control the what, when, where, and how much with regards to
colour). By playing around with these highly sophisticated machines, and
sometimes by unintentionally harming them! I have been able to discover ways to
coerce office machines to create unique images. I have found a means of
letting these servants deliver things that are not usually requested of
them. The images (portraits) which result are only possible because of my an
intimate interaction with the machine. In these xerographs one sees that the human and the
non-human, face and object, are no longer separate, and that daydreams,
hallucinations, anxieties are literally written on the face.
Technically speaking a xerograph is a process I have developed using some
design features (or flaws) in colour photocopiers. The Xerox Majestic series is
the copier of choice for me. Once I produce a xerograph I photograph it with a black and white digital camera. This
digital image is then toned in Photoshop and then a print is made. So, in
effect, each image is the result of two photographic events.
