Exploded Camera was created for Diderot and the Last Luminare: Waiting for the Enlightenment, Erika Suderburg’s collaborative installation with works by 100 artists at Southern Exposure, SF, CA.

A dissection of the tool I use most. I choose my apparatus because the camera signifies the past and the future, embodies the collision of reality and fantasy, and provides a space for time travel. Some say the camera is an extension of human sight, enabling us to see what is there if we could naturally see in slow, fast, repetitive, layered, or reversed motion. 

The camera is also a so-called “truth” seeker; its indexical character commands a clarity of vision allowing for seemingly accurate documents of scrutiny. This sculptural piece turns the potential of objective scrutiny back on to the objectifying tool itself.