What happens to lost photographs, mementos to memories long gone? Bea de Visser contemplated this idea while shopping in a flea market in Prague. There, she found an old black and white photograph of an unknown woman and proceeded to do 25 multi-view paintings of this same photograph session. After they were completed, Bea took the images and loaded them into a software program that morphed the images together, creating a smooth and flowing view of the subject from different angles. The photograph's subject now has new life transforming into an illusion of a three dimensional figure. This technique helps to restore a moment and perhaps a person that has been lost in the folds of time. Yet this anonymous woman remains a puzzle, her whereabouts only dictated…by the clothes and fashion that she has on. Her smile alludes to something we will never know or understand; she is lost in her virtual environment. Her original photograph is one that perhaps our minds are not able to contemplate in our modern age, and yet our contemporary contexts are difficult to grasp as well. [This installation was featured in the travelling exhibition "The Second, Time Based Arts from the Netherlands" (1996), and the DVD series "Installations 1975-2006" (2007).]

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Ruby Mcneil Read more...