The Invisible Punctum
An AI-driven exploration of human memory, data, and the gaps in our digital archives.
Why do we take so many photos in our mobile devices? Are we crazy to do so? Or is it okay for humans to do so?
I did the entire research and exhibition design to develop the idea, build some digital prototypes and film a performance film themed on this.
We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.
Kafka
Key Idea behind the Project
The Idea There is always a moment in a photograph that pierces you.
Not because it is beautiful. Not because it is well-composed.
But because it touches something unexplainable.
Roland Barthes called this the punctum — the invisible detail that wounds the viewer.
But here's the problem:
Most photographs don't do that.
Most are noise. Most are remembered only because algorithms remind us of them.
So what do we actually remember — and what is being remembered for us?
“The attempt to analyse one’s own work, which is to say to know one’s subject, is seen as destructive. Superstition prevails, fear that the fragile unfinished something will shatter, vanish, revert to the nothing from which it was made.” Rejecting a well-defined process in favour of instinct is central to a photographer's work. To dissect it would be to risk losing the magic with which it was made.
“The attempt to analyse one’s own work, which is to say to know one’s subject, is seen as destructive. Superstition prevails, fear that the fragile unfinished something will shatter, vanish, revert to the nothing from which it was made.” Rejecting a well-defined process in favour of instinct is central to a photographer's work. To dissect it would be to risk losing the magic with which it was made.
“The attempt to analyse one’s own work, which is to say to know one’s subject, is seen as destructive. Superstition prevails, fear that the fragile unfinished something will shatter, vanish, revert to the nothing from which it was made.” Rejecting a well-defined process in favour of instinct is central to a photographer's work. To dissect it would be to risk losing the magic with which it was made.
I almost cried when I saw the project for the first time. I will definitely want to see this in places like MoMA and also be publihsed in a book.
Shutu, Photographer
This is the most ecstatic I have evry felt in my life. Literally unreal!!
Exhibition Outcome
The work was presented as part of a public exhibition at the Royal College of Art and later documented through photography and video.
Collaborators
- Yashaswinee SahooProducer
- Miley CyrusDancer