Self Portrait

In his famous book about the art of editing, "In the blink of an eye", Walter Murch describes the act of splitting an image as an organic process holding resemblances with our daily act of blinking our eyes. Yet, the camera and the lens holds the power to capture a specific frame and angle which then distorts all reliable realm and fascinatingly manipulates our perception. We are constantly tricked with this magical tool, which is the camera's lens and nowadays come to a point in which we give so much power to it's tendency to define norms and reality as a whole. This creates an ambiguity and a strong contradiction between the inner self and the outer image. As in Merleau-ponty's phenomenological writings and in Lacan's definition of the "outside" which he directly links to the "inside" by creating the term "extimacy", (a private exteriority), it is the observer that creates the observed. The perceived couldn't exist without it's perceiver. Thus, with this act of splitting the image, and using a lens that simply reverses the initial image, my aim is to reflect upon these notions and present the gaze as a manipulative yet still transient act.