Circadian Rhythms

Caroline Ferro (they/them)

Description:

 What does it mean to live in a world of blue light and screens, to see the world through a digital lens? Is there such thing as untouched nature, or is technology just one piece of a greater and more complex whole?

This photo series invites the viewer to reflect on how technology frames their day and shapes their experiences of the world around them. Each picture includes aspects of both nature and the artificial, the rhythms of the seasons and the tranquility of a single, dreamlike moment. The series begins with an image of the moon, but the illusion of untouched nature is broken by the noise and other artifacts of the digital camera. Moving through the series we see a painting of the ocean, the puppy teeth of a domesticated dog, the shadow of a houseplant cast by artificial light, cicada wings dancing on threads, and finally, a picture with no obvious ties to nature: a ball of bright, acrylic yarn, unwinding into darkness. However, even this final image contains hints of the so-called natural world: fiber, made from plastic in imitation of wool, and a curiously organic shape, reminiscent of the undulations of some strange creature yet unknown to human senses.

Photos taken with a Canon Powershot G11 and digitally edited. Long exposures, high ISO, and high saturation were used to exaggerate the “shortcomings” of the digital camera and to lend a sense of the unreal.