Paper short abstract:

The paper considers the capture of light with examples of my auto-ethnographic experimental video work in lens-less (pinhole) undertaken in Venice.

Paper long abstract:

I will reflect on the capture of light in photography/cinematography (neither purely analogue nor purely digital) as exemplified by my auto-ethnographic experimental work with lens-less (pinhole) high definition video. 

Over many years my art practice has employed photography, moving image and installation to explore the physics of light. I address how light is captured under different conditions and via different means, with the intention of a challenging and subverting audience perception. 

Using a hybrid of analogue and digital forms, I consider how tropes of technical light capture - from the camera obscura to the pinhole aperture, via the lens - have altered our perception and continue to dominate Western values. Zielinski (2009) declares: 'Do not seek the old in the new, but find something new in the old'. In my practice-as-research/auto-ethnographic artworks, a 'bricolage' method, combining outmoded optical light capturing devices with the latest technological ones has become key, producing some original results.

I will concentrate on my current video work centred on the ambient light in Venice, my mother's home city and links with Venice's glass production which generated the first spectacles as well as Galileo's telescope lenses. The aim is firstly, to immerse the viewer in an experience of Venice's light, recalling the city's renowned light quality beloved of artists and filmmakers; secondly to reveal how the camera obscura's single point of view as a method of light capture has come to dominate how we negotiate the visual world, transforming literal and figurative frames of reference.