The Photobooth as Subversive Space
"Sit down and stick out your tongue."
Years of ambivalence about the photographic form led me to purchase a second hand photobooth 2 years ago to create an interactive artpiece. I want to explore the subversive role of the photobooth, expanding on the ways people would undermine their "id" photo (school pictures, passport, drivers, police). This is a place where the photographic subject feels comfortable and laughs freely. In this space I can introduce myself as a disembodied performer.

The photobooth instantly deals with several important ethical issues. It returns the power of representation (self-portrait) and property (the photo) to the participant. But is self-directing "the gaze" enough? How to deal with all that historical baggage? In the digital 21st century, could this claustrophobic mechanical booth be near death?
The Photobooth as Monument
"The purpose of the collection is forgetting." Susan Stewart, On Longing: narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection.

Imagine the photobooth as a funerary monument established in memory of the anonymous user. The outside, clean lines of polished granite, mirror-like and reflecting the participant. Inscribed on this tomb are the words best we forget. Inside this sarcophagus*, is an ironic visceral space constructed of skin-coloured silicon foam just outside the photographic frame established by the camera.

In 1880 British prisoners were photographed with an odd mirror resting on their right shoulder, capturing front and side views simultaneously. In 1927 the first photobooths had an attendant who instructed the people to " look straight ahead and then turn to the left and right", creating images that resembled criminal profiles. By 1930, the attendant was redundant and the booth became the subversive space we know today.

Attached to the wall behind the adjustable stool will be a moveable replica of the 1880 mirror for optional use.

*sarcophagus latin for flesh consuming or flesh eating
The Requiem: A chemical tour of the history of photography
Ambient Soundscape and Audio Recording triggered when someone enters the photobooth [to be made in collaboration with Toby Carroll, sound artist and musician]
This audio performance component is an unusual historical tour of photography, using the sounds, chemistry and mechanics of the photograph1s development as metaphorical tools that connect our complex relationship to photography.

sample audio script [more research needed] "smile please"
… In a parallel development of race theory, darkroom theory in black and white photography reinforces racial lines. Ansel Adams1 Zone System specifies that "skin tone" is found in Zone VI, a reference point that is effective only for photographing lighter skinned subjects.
… The make-up used by silent film stars on screen and in photographic stills was made in varying shades of pale gray.
… The term "snapshot" comes from the military, when there was little or no time to aim a rifle.
… Many of the same chemicals used in developing gun powder have been experimentally used in photography.
… Nitrate based cellulose used in the earliest 35mm film and negative format would often spontaneously combust.
… The average person sees 100,000 death-related images per year.
… Thousands of 35mm films, glass, copper and print negatives were destroyed to recover the silver and platinum. [a list of photographers and film-makers whose work was lost needs research]
… Silver nitrate was the first actinic chemical used to create photos. It was also used to treat Syphilis.
… As soon as an image could be fixed, photographs of naked women were for sale.
… In 1839 Daguerre turned his patent for daguerrotypes over to the French government, they immediately began to use photography for military and civilian surveillance.

The Photograph: collection, memorial or false attachment

The photographic format of the booth will remain the same. The user will deposit 4 loonies in return for the traditional 4 poses. I know that someday a person will pull out this seemingly average strip of paper with 4 perfect chemical stains and begin saying something strange learned from this photographic experience. Perhaps something like... "Do you know what photographers call a picture that looks like a tree is growing out your head? False Attachment... the same term used by Psychiatrists when you obsess about someone."