Double Convex
Jesse Dyer
25
October 2018
25
October
2018
9
November 2018
Gallery 2
The term for a photographic lens comes from the latin lens culinaris meaning lentil. Its usage equates the form of a double convex lens to that of a lentil. A lens which focuses light, projects, and magnifies is considered truthful, despite the inevitable distortions it causes. Lenses, in the form of microscopes, telescopes and high speed cameras, enable the observations on which scientific theory is built. That which is objective is actually edible, biological, vegetable. Dried lentils are hung on strings in formations which resemble the optical structure of lenses. Others are sprouting under large magnifying lenses. The tiny lenses of a phone selfie camera are suspended alongside the dried lentils. Double Convex investigates what the lentil plant knows of photographic representation, of lens based culture and of CCTV surveillance systems. It explores how this knowledge can be used to understand our image saturated social media cultures and re-evaluate lens based representation.
The term for a photographic lens comes from the latin lens culinaris meaning lentil. Its usage equates the form of a double convex lens to that of a lentil. A lens which focuses light, projects, and magnifies is considered truthful, despite the inevitable distortions it causes. Lenses, in the form of microscopes, telescopes and high speed cameras, enable the observations on which scientific theory is built. That which is objective is actually edible, biological, vegetable. Dried lentils are hung on strings in formations which resemble the optical structure of lenses. Others are sprouting under large magnifying lenses. The tiny lenses of a phone selfie camera are suspended alongside the dried lentils. Double Convex investigates what the lentil plant knows of photographic representation, of lens based culture and of CCTV surveillance systems. It explores how this knowledge can be used to understand our image saturated social media cultures and re-evaluate lens based representation.