BACKGROUND
The focus of a concert is typically what is on stage. All attention is on the lights, the sounds, and the energy of the band performing on the stage. This is the spectacle that mesmerizes a crowd, participants sharing in the experience.
The spectacle for the photographer exists within the entire space of the room. The photographer focuses attention on both the stage and the crowd. They take a step back, remove themselves, observe the experience, and capture a representation within the camera’s frame. All the energy and chaos is presented for the photographer only to control and confine. To what affect? To mediate the chaos, this overwhelming experience, for a viewer. Is there a way to immerse the viewer, pull them back in to the experience?
CONCEPT
I designed a physical platform to immerse the viewer, the spectator, reverse the roles in the system of photography, and allow those involved to question the process. The means we receive images impacts how we comprehend the documented experience.
The space seeks to provide another access point for the experience. It is mediated not through photographer or frame of the camera, but on another level, through control by the user. When the spectator becomes operator, they are in control. They are the apparatus, not the camera. By allowing the spectator control over how the images are displayed, they reflect, reinterpret, and form a narrative through control. Through control the spectator can connect with the experience and the object, in this case the crowd, in the photograph.
