Experimental Camera

Reflection

Conventional cameras use depth of field, shutter speed and aperture to adjust settings and capture photos with different effects. The parameter for my experimental camera is years.

The idea came from the difference resolution between human vision and cameras. The resolution of human eyes is about 576 megapixels, and currently the highest resolution camera is 151 megapixels. The most recent model of iPhone 12 has 12 megapixels camera which is more than twice of the resolution than iPhone 4 that released 10 years ago. That made me to think further on the relationship between individuals and technology. Under the same timeline, technology is constantly iterated to become better and more powerful as the time goes by, while humans as individual is deteriorate with aged. Technology and individuals are developing in opposite direction: technology is developing from old to new while individual is aging from new to old. The experimental camera is aimed to demonstrate this relation through the adjustable parameter, years.

When I sit in front of my computer and turn the camera on, I could see myself appear on the screen. This is the result of me and the computer staring at each other. The relatively clear capture appeared on the screen is the reflection of what the computer sees, or computer's vision.

Starting from the beginning of the timeline, 0 year, the vision of computer is at a low resolution, which means the world that computer sees is pixelated, but what individual could see is a very clear image. As the time goes by and technology developed, the computer can see me with higher resolutions, but the visual organ of human individual started to deteriorate. The result would be the computer camera seeing a clearer and clearer me, but I start to see computer with blur.

My other initial idea including the culture of selfie with extreme filters to reflect the lack of self-confidence. However, as I see myself and my peers appear on the screen everyday in the online class, I decided to make the project to examine the impact that technology and human result on each other. Through the developing of this camera, it made me to think from the perspective of technology. If technology has the ability to think, or ultimately developed the ability to think in the future, what would technology think on the objects, human, that it gets along with everyday?