Fotonet

Renja Leino - Research Residencies

Just Anybody

The mobile phone is a little technological wonder that most of us carry all the time.

I have used its camera function to produce a new body of work, which deals with the fact that we can get photographed anywhere at any time. We can be snapped and stored in files and archives kept by anybody; perhaps to be placed in a new context within seconds after the snapshot and sent to another mobile phone or via e-mail. To take photographs today demands no skills and it costs nothing if you just have a mobile phone - a camera is a normal extra function.

I find myself going back to basics as a photographer to consider my professional ethics, facing the fact that people everywhere take images like never before. I am also questioning motives for using images of other people for artistic purposes. To investigate this, I push myself: where is the ethical limit for me?

The mobile is like an observing eye. It is very quick to capture an image, unnoticed by most people. It can be very innocent - fun to share moments and so on - but I find the phenomenon unpleasant somehow. When I look at the image of a strange face or family on my computer screen, I get a specific feeling that is related to guilt. Photography is complicated. We know that context is everything.

I have also experienced a new feeling of anxiety when making these images. Irrelevant perhaps –or is it a sign that something essential has changed with the new technology? I find myself wondering what does a photograph of a person actually represent and why is it taken? For example, images of children used to be seen as part of a ‘celebration of life’. Today, when asking permission to take a photograph of a child, I encounter not proud parents, but fear. People are very aware of the possible misuse of images. I am worried by the fact that a person’s integrity is perhaps permanently lost in a public space. Are mobile images a symbol of the technological invasion of our lives? Have we already lost control?

I use my feeling of guilt as a starting point when deciding which images I consider to be ‘free’ and which images might be ‘forbidden’. I draw white lines and white marks on those images that I maybe should not have taken or that I should be careful with. I play with self censure.

The mobile that I use is a few years old. The images still have that special digital structure that I find fascinating. They have a visual language of their own which is different from the perfect camera shots produced by new mobiles.
I take snapshots with my mobile. Later I study my images and their details on my computer screen.

Just like anybody.

Absent Minds

In the home of today, there are open connections to work, by e-mail and by mobile. This is the new norm; we are available to reach at any moment. The private is no longer private; a deliberate decision is required to shut out the digital invasion by closing connections. Computers have become part of the furniture. Children, curious and fearless, regard them as natural. While we are dealing with a new invention, which gives rise to new habits and behaviour, our children take it for granted. Handling this technology isquite demanding for an adult. But children learn by playing. They grow up surrounded by new technology. Playing at the computer is considered good for them, as they learn new skills and will have better chances in a computerised world. But who oversees the content that comes into our living rooms? Children are good customers of computer games; the entertainment industry is huge. Is childhood sacrificed for profit? Digital technology brings war scenes and catastrophes to our homes by television and by computer in real time.

The use of the mobile was the most logical choice for my attempt to study people wherever, spontaneously, or in more controlled circumstances. The content of my work handles the digitised human being, so the latest technology, most convenient for my purpose, emphasised the content of the work. People are staring in my images. They are faces in a foreign landscape, absent minds in front of these pixel boxes. In my imagination their brains are slowly being absorbed by the screen. Where are their minds when the machines so completely capture their concentration?

We see this kind of staring face all around us. It is a new archetype of the human face. It is recognisable, like a sign.

Renja Leino
2008

These essays were written for the exhibition catalogue.