For each group of "Figments" works, a single digital image is juxtaposed with 47 lower-resolution "elements", each derived from it by somewhat methods. These are combined side by side in different arrangements in the "Figments" sheets, presented in a single large grid in the "Alls" sheets, and superimposed somewhat altered in size and space in the "Supers." One goal is to create a feeling that the inner machinery of the digital image is exposed, its various parts seeming to grind against each other. Another is to try to present all these versions of an image, from the original to its reduction to a single solid color, as equally authentic, equally beautiful, and equally "true." In the "Clouds" works of "Figments," fragments from some of the superimpositions are enlarged, in the hope of creating a series of suggestive, inexplicable mysteries. One viewer commented on the "Clouds," "It's like seeing a photograph together with its DNA." It is my hope that throughout "Figments," the seeing of the world itself, the properties of photography, and the unique properties of digital photography, are interwoven in complex and surprising ways.
Fred Camper
New York, NY
September 10, 2009.