I covered my studio apartment with Mylar, creating an environment where every surface has distorted reflections. For 70 days, I lived in this space, surrounded by distorted reflections of my body, and slowly felt my sense of self dissolve. I invited strangers into the apartment and asked them to recreate the pose they had just taken outside. Then I hid in the bathroom, setting the camera timer to take the photograph without my presence in the room.
When the timer sound spread through the room, the camera witnessed the manipulation of the stranger’s pose and background. Soon, it seemed to recall the memory of those days when it was controlled by its owner — the photojournalist — who had once used the camera to erase the identities of his subjects in the pursuit of a news story. It was mechanically repeating the same dehumanizing act it had once performed. However, ironically, what the camera created was a beautiful and hopeful vision — the possibility of seeing a human being free from any background or condition.