A Waking Dream (from the series World of One)
One of my favorite philosophical questions to ponder is: "How can I tell if the reality I'm seeing is real?" That is, how can we tell the difference between the reality we see before us and a convincing illusion? As an artist, this is a question that I often allude to in my work, particularly in regards to the authority we give photographs over how we perceive the world around us.
Photographs have an authority over how we see the world (and beyond) in ways that a drawing never could. For example, a photograph of a distant galaxy will have much more weight in terms of evidence of said galaxy's existence than any drawing of the same subject ever could. The question I often pose through my work is "Should photographs have so much authority over how we perceive reality?" This is a reoccurring motif that I play with in the World of One, and is something I think about whenever I make additional images. There is a certain way in which we process or "read" photographs. Overtly staged photographs, like those found in advertising and fashion magazines, are generally understood to be glorified fantasies (or at least I hope they are). On the other hand, photos taken with minimal lighting effects, like the ones you find in newspapers, or more candid pictures, such as the ubiquitous "selfie," are often read as being more "real" than their Photoshopped counterparts. The images from the World of One are designed to manipulate these notions of how we read certain photographs to be more or less "real" than others, with the aim of making my fantasy seem more believable.
The latest image, A Waking Dream directly draws its inspiration from this relationship between photography and our perceptions of reality. When I look at A Waking Dream, it makes me wonder if I'm one of the guys watching the dreamer inside his dream. Or if I myself am the dreamer, being watched by all these other assholes while I sleep.
A big, big thank you to my good friends Dave Shi and Jenn Boudreau for assisting me on this shoot. Check out some of Dave and Jenn's behind the scenes pictures from the shoot below!
Here I am, pretending like I know what I'm doing (photo by Dave Shi)
Shoot underway (photo by Jennifer Boudreau)
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