Project reviews
2016
Travis, Rebecca. "The only thing that’s changed is everything" feature article in the 2016 Summer edition of Scottish Society for the History of Photography http://sshop.org.uk/project/rebecca-travis/ password samalan
2014
Travis, Rebecca. “Sylvia Grace Borda: Camera Histories” in Reviews: Photomonitor, UK. January 27, 2014
http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2014/01/sylvia-grace-borda-camera-histories/
“Art in Scotland TV channel feature: Sylvia Grace Borda Camera Histories – Artist interview” produced by Summerhall TV, Dec 29, 2013 http://www.artinscotland.tv/2013/sylvia-grace-borda-camera-histories/
Artist video interview (December 5, 2013) with Christiane Monarchi, editor of PhotoMonitor Magazine about 'Cameras and Watercolour sunset' series and other works presented in the exhibition 'Camera Histories' presented at Street Level Photoworks Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (November 23, 2013 - February 2, 2014).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jo7lxuQ-KU
Artist interview “Sylvia Grace Borda explaining 'Interrogations of a Camera” A&D Gallery & Pitch page productions, London
December 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TQHQwJV_08
Project statement
Photograms by X-RAY
Print output: C-41 digital photographs
15 prints: 60x60cm; 3 prints (panorama) 150cm x 60cm
Interrogations of a Camera explores the constructions of well-known and obscure analog cameras as detailed by X-ray. The resulting images recall photograms and blueprints, revealing all of the camera’s internal workings; these are reminiscent, in both aesthetic language and content arrangement, of Rodchenko's Russian Constructivist and Man Ray's industrial material photogram studies.
By interrogating what a camera is through the examination of its inner surfaces, the viewer is left to question how narrative can be drawn from physical and abstract forms. In the adoption of X-ray technologies the artist offers audiences a unique perspective from which to examine camera construction, using the lightless process to draw an architectural map of its physical technology.
Concepts of cause and effect are equally part of the project’s narrative. Documenting cameras through intensive X-radiation, in order to 'expose' construction, reveals their inner beauty but also temporarily interferes with the camera’s defined function of exposing a subject to film. As the 'focus' of the imaging process the camera as functional object becomes iconic and ironic, simultaneously the subject and artifact of its output.
2016
Travis, Rebecca. "The only thing that’s changed is everything" feature article in the 2016 Summer edition of Scottish Society for the History of Photography http://sshop.org.uk/project/rebecca-travis/ password samalan
2014
Travis, Rebecca. “Sylvia Grace Borda: Camera Histories” in Reviews: Photomonitor, UK. January 27, 2014
http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2014/01/sylvia-grace-borda-camera-histories/
“Art in Scotland TV channel feature: Sylvia Grace Borda Camera Histories – Artist interview” produced by Summerhall TV, Dec 29, 2013 http://www.artinscotland.tv/2013/sylvia-grace-borda-camera-histories/
Artist video interview (December 5, 2013) with Christiane Monarchi, editor of PhotoMonitor Magazine about 'Cameras and Watercolour sunset' series and other works presented in the exhibition 'Camera Histories' presented at Street Level Photoworks Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (November 23, 2013 - February 2, 2014).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jo7lxuQ-KU
Artist interview “Sylvia Grace Borda explaining 'Interrogations of a Camera” A&D Gallery & Pitch page productions, London
December 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TQHQwJV_08
Project statement
Photograms by X-RAY
Print output: C-41 digital photographs
15 prints: 60x60cm; 3 prints (panorama) 150cm x 60cm
Interrogations of a Camera explores the constructions of well-known and obscure analog cameras as detailed by X-ray. The resulting images recall photograms and blueprints, revealing all of the camera’s internal workings; these are reminiscent, in both aesthetic language and content arrangement, of Rodchenko's Russian Constructivist and Man Ray's industrial material photogram studies.
By interrogating what a camera is through the examination of its inner surfaces, the viewer is left to question how narrative can be drawn from physical and abstract forms. In the adoption of X-ray technologies the artist offers audiences a unique perspective from which to examine camera construction, using the lightless process to draw an architectural map of its physical technology.
Concepts of cause and effect are equally part of the project’s narrative. Documenting cameras through intensive X-radiation, in order to 'expose' construction, reveals their inner beauty but also temporarily interferes with the camera’s defined function of exposing a subject to film. As the 'focus' of the imaging process the camera as functional object becomes iconic and ironic, simultaneously the subject and artifact of its output.
