Each year at CalArts grad students have their own solo show–I was going to complete the series and show my cigarette cards. And I was also getting a network of friends who supported my project. For each shoot, I was able to have at least a couple of friends there to press the button and help me pose. In fact, my friend Alexis had the insight to document the process, she thought I’d want to think about to these shoots at a later date.
Shooting became much easier once I bought my dream camera and all the trimmings from a class mate. My very own RZ67 Mamiya camera. This one was idiosyncratic–the dark slides didn’t function properly. Usually if they are left in then the camera will not fire, but mine could shoot film with the dark slide in. As a work around I stuck Dymo labels onto the film backs to remind myself to remove the dark slides.
I like this image, as in the lower right of the photo you can see where the power socket has been picked up by the chalk background I created. This was a mistake–I thought on the photo you wouldn’t be able to see that detail. A tutor of mine, Leslie Dick, pointed out that this could be seen as a mise en abyme. The clue, the detail that reveals the device in a work of art or story. In this case, the chalk rubbing imprint is a kind of index, or copy, and that’s a naming of the gesture I’m doing. I’m doing a copy of an image by recreating the look of that image–a lifting off? A rubbing?
Zoë Mozert Appreciation Society 