Webcam Works
Webcam Works Isabelle Jenniches
Isabelle Jenniches: Webcam Works
Solo exhibition (closing)
October 2 – November 6, 2009
Cabrillo Gallery
6500 Soquel Drive, Room 1002 (below library) at Cabrillo College, Aptos, California
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday 9 AM – 4 PM, Monday & Tuesday evenings 7 – 9PM
Jenniches’ fascination for live cameras on the Internet – webcams – began over a decade ago. She’s used webcams in theatre, online performances and photographic series, and most recently to create monumental composite images.
Many miles away from the actual location yet connected via the Internet, the artist directs robotic cameras to scan the picture plane bit by bit. Over the course of several months or even years, she captures thousands of still images, and in a tedious manual process stitch them together into a single image of great complexity and detail. The result reveals the passage of time and develops its own narrative logic, offering a fictive yet hyper-realistic portrait of a place.
Jenniches’ fascination for webcams (public cameras on the internet) began over a decade ago. Since then, this technology has evolved from tiny grainy pictures to high resolution imagery, and from rarity to ubiquity. Jenniches utilizes webcams in theatre and online performances, in realtime collaborative creation and photographic series. This practice culminates in the creation of monumental collages of webcam pictures, the main focus of her first solo exhibition.
Seeking out the intersections between physical and virtual space, these works appropriate online cameras to create vast, intricate composite panoramas. Many miles away from the actual location yet connected via the Internet, the artist directs these robotic webcams to scan the picture plane bit by bit. Over the course of several months or even years, Jenniches captures thousands of still images, and in a tedious manual process stitches them together into a panorama of great complexity and detail. Although each individual webcam image is a true photographic representation of one instant in time and space, however mundane, the sum of their arrangement has a spectacular effect. The result reveals the passage of time and develops its own narrative logic, offering a fictive yet hyper-realistic portrait of a place.
To find out more about Isabelle Jenniches, visit her website: http://www.9nerds.com/isabelle/