This small selection raises questions about our ability to be in two places at the same time—whether we like it or not. (An often-quoted Harvard study found that 47% percent of the time, our mind is not in what we are doing.) These images wrestle with the idea that we see first and foremost “with our minds”—whether our eyes are open or not, and whether we pay attention to the “reality” in front of us or not. The images try to make sense of what it means to live in a deeply subjective, human “space”.
These five images are a subset of my work on the relationship between the Self and its environment, and their blurred boundary. The double-exposure process allows the images to manifest, and even add, intimate ties between the person and the environment. The process is artificial, but it somehow mimics a central paradox of human life: our relationship to our environment is based in part on serendipity (perhaps we found a job in a different city and moved there, choosing a neighborhood because a colleague recommended it, etc.) and yet, perhaps thanks to the organic work of time, essential bonds are created as we contribute to the design of our environment, and in turn are slowly affected by its outlook and physicality. It becomes difficult to state where “we” end and where “the environment” begins.
