The correct representation

With the birth of representation, the human will to depict reality in a ‘correct’ way was born at the same time, pushing civilizations to constantly search for technological innovations. The project The correct representation pokes fun at our obsession with the portrayal of reality by deconstructing the same tools that promise to capture it.

I forced the encounter between two of these technologies, nineteenth-century stereoscopy and digital photogrammetric techniques, eliminating the information load that makes one the progress of the other.

Stereoscopy provides just two images to reproduce our binocular visual system and depth perception of volumes: stereoscopic postcards still evoke wonder through their analog realism.

Digital photogrammetry extrapolates three-dimensional information based on how many images of the same view or object are subjected to it. By analyzing all the points in common between pictures, it produces 3D views that are the more precise the more perspectives are proposed to it. For example, the meticulous render of Google Earth is based on this technology.

The impoverished relationship, born from the constrained communication of the two techniques, produces a third unexpected, eroded, incomplete image. Despite being the product of an exact mathematical calculation, this ‘correct’ image no longer respects its promise to represent reality. The results of this failed communication produce new shapes of limestone-like formations, rocks worn by the waves, sculptural forms now reinserted into the aseptic museum context of a white cube.

Although this project does not pass through the lens of my camera, it allowed me to meet the gaze of a photographer who, far away in time, wanted to transport us to fantastical places through that new medium called photography. This impossible dialogue in time and space reveals the limits of photography and it’s deceit, that so often leads us to believe we are witnessing reality.