MUGSHOTS, 2020, 40X 30, EDITION OF 10,

3D LENTICULAR

Supposedly, a famous mug-shot is an oxymoron, but an infamous mug-shot is, precisely, a matter of fact. So, then, why do the best among us often appear before the law? Remember: just because a crime is committed, it does not mean that a criminal is produced. In fact, it seems that the justice system is, primarily, or at least in its initial phase, concerned with the production of photographic subjects and the institution of a process of collection as method of (dis-)appearance; which is to say, forgetting is fashioned into an archival form of memory—a loss made into a kind of bureaucratic nostalgia that attempts to make a single act last forever.... This is precisely the autoerotic fantasy of every autocratic authority; albeit, these days, crime is an erogenous zone—or a least a libidinal economy governed by a dominatrix and a pornographic ethics of captivity: to capture, to hold onto… do photography and justice not share these sadistic activities? Then again, remember: what is taken in the light is always held in the dark. The fact that, the victim is the common substance of criminality among all observable societies suggests a synthetic component being constructed at the place of crime, on the face of the criminal. In other words, that the victim of a crime and the subject of photograph are so entwined is not an accident of time, but is, rather, a measure of the amount of space we set aside for a body to be stored at the cost of face value.