anti:freeze

I was reading the latest issue of Wired magazine when I flipped to an amazing photograph by Michael Wesely, part of his Open Shutter show at MOMA. For this show, eight cameras were placed in strategic locations near and inside the Museum of Modern Art to document its massive renovation. 5 x 7 inch plate glass negatives were exposed for a period of 34 months, resulting in multi-layered and hauntingly streaked photographs.

Unlike most photography, the pictures do not capture single moments.

And unlike video, all moving things - people, cars, and construction cranes - are absent due to the long exposure. Instead of a linear progression from one video frame to the next, every moment is presented at once - in layers. Past and present are fused into one. Time collapses. The relationships between layers are not clear. Which came first? Which are most recent?

But most fascinating to me are the missing people.

I cannot help but think of the construction workers, how they are absent from these documents, despite fueling the whole renovation process with their labor. How like the history books, leaving out the workers. I imagine all the random pedestrians. Who were they? Did they know the cameras were trained on them, and that it didn't matter?

Unlike the history books, nobody was spared. Every person is missing, rubbed from the record just by moving too fast. Just by living in human time, too brief.