The “Camera Arts Visual Essay” is an ongoing design project that investigates the unsteady relation between image production, representation and that which is represented. Images and other forms of visual representation are always dependent on the context in which they are distributed and seen. Students, photographers, designers and artists are regularly invited to develop visual essay’s which research, reframe and reflect upon contemporary visual culture.
Project lead: Evert Ypma
This inaugural Camera Arts Visual Essay is based on ideas proffered in the book “Opera Aperta” (The Open Work) by Umberto Eco. The open work is a work which acknowledges the active part played by the viewer in the formation of meaning.
This book strikingly anticipated two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. These concepts can fit just as well into the discourse and practice of Camera Arts.
The essay tells a story in its most fundamental form; two juxtaposed images and begs the question; what is in-between, how did we get from one time, one context, one perspective to the other?
Source: Eco, Umberto (1989) Opera Aperta (The Open Work). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press (Download PDF at Monoskop)
