Connectivity I

This image is the winner of Digital Photo Pro Magazine's 2018-19 Emerging Pro photo competition in the Fashion & Beauty category and Third Prize winner overall.
From the ongoing "Human/Machine Dance Project".
How does the human body move when interacting with advanced technologies? This is the question that my collaborator Carly embarks on a year-long Fulbright grant to research. I approached her to collaborate on a photography series informed by her research goals and artistry as a dancer. We explored several visual themes, each related to the timely question of how we humans will be transformed by increasing immersion into advanced technologies, including virtual reality, robotics, and interconnectivity. I developed this specific visual theme from a concept that Carly shared during our project kickoff meeting: “I found myself visualizing my body wrapped in cables coiled around my limbs and torso. I was thinking about the body in relation to embedded systems.” Working in a dance studio at Stanford University, I composed a series of images of Carly—her body carefully wrapped in coaxial cable—dancing with her own reflection in the mirror. This image is compelling because the off-center composition fools the viewer’s eye into believing there are two different dancers, interconnected, with the face of one dancer framed in the hands of both. It speaks to the concept of advanced technology binding us even as it connects us.

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