In the realms of art, we celebrate a single act of creation. We give license to a nearly ideological pursuit of aura, a way in which we receive the act of a single creation as a roughly divine measure of human success. Yet, in photography and creating a photobook, which begs for narrative and multiple images, we need to be more accustomed to what to do with a single image. Of course, we can speak about art in the age of mechanical reproduction, modernism, and the idea of doubling, repetition, and multiples when it comes to photography, but therein lies the crux of the human problem, namely, to believe that extraordinary acts of art are committed through a single effort, yet in photography, we must relegate its position, due to its proximity to technology as something that cannot be divined through its act of cloning and multiplicity.
Eugenia Patsouri’s Synapse, in the tradition of Hans-Peter Feldman, examines the role of the single image and its iterations in her new book published by S U N. She follows the path of the singular image by manifesting doubles and near clones, creating an uncanny world wherein we do not know precisely the image we believe to be the root or mother image, thus challenging our assumptions of how books can be produced and how images can be understood in their subsequent iterations. She deconstructs and dismantles the image. If you stare it down too long, with its derivative breeding images, it leads you to doubt your experience and, herein, the locus for pushing away the tactic of the single yet still generative image. It is a bold critique of culture, art, and how the uncanny doubling of our world in a time of technological uncertainty shapes our vision.
This project was developed during the Nearest Truth Year-Long photobook program. It is a limited edition artist book, and it should be read with the intention of experimentation and the will to deconstruct the photographic image and our collective insistence that a photobook tells us something about the world with specificity. It is playful and deserves attention for the envelope the artist wants to push. I am partial in reviewing the work as I helped develop it. It is an encouraging note from a young artist that there is value in simplicity and the analog tradition of photography and, by proxy, the photobook form. Uncomplicated by the rules of contemporary art, Patsouri has found a way to examine the medium at its fundament, which is a fantastic quality to observe. We should pay more attention to artists coming to photography from the outside and herald their efforts a bit more, as there is value in being unmoored by a system of critique, market, and ideological governance in these positions.
Though I am obviously biased about the work and Eugenia herself, I think it shows promise and I want to champion people who are making work that is not obvious in the photobook medium. I believe it is a step forward for cleansing our collective palette with the saturation mark we have encountered with the book makers and their markets.
