hektor's self-portraits are a series of eleven experimental pinhole photographs (1999). The camera is a homemade contraption constructed out of an answering machine box - a substitute for communication when "nobody's home." Some of the images are double or triple exposures, while others are washed-out shots of his face. There is a deep contrast in each image, and his eyes and face are never fully realized. The original images were digitally scanned and can be viewed on hektor.net.

The screen erases the traces of the primitive technology used to create the pinhole photographs. The texture and roughness of the originals are transformed into what seems like digitally manipulated images. Transformations and the impossibility of "the original" are integral to hektor and the non-aggressive narrative.To recapitulate texture, the images were taken down from the web, further abstracted using PhotoShop, blown up, and interpreted into patterns. The resulting 'topological face map images' were then printed onto etching paper.

Playing further on this iterative process, I used the original pinholes once again as my core images to run through an ASCII art algorithm. The resulting texts-as-photos were remixed with pieces from the patterned series, and similarly printed on etching paper.

see the prints