SIGHT UNSEEN catalog - California Museum of Photography ...

34
bruce hall irviNe, cAliforNiA
Bruce Hall’s night sky was devoid of stars, a
vast sheet of darkness. Hall was born with
a word salad of eye conditions: nystagmus,
myopia, astigmatism, amblyopia, macular
degeneration and exotropia.
“I grew up hearing about stars, but I’d
never seen them. When I was nine or ten,
Aberration
He can’t seem to get off the roller coaster, the frenetic dance seems
endless, until I break the pattern and change direction. These necessary
changes in direction nearly always piss James off… as we drag him
kicking and screaming back into our world.
“beyond reach, into the light, time in the sun, trying to escape the
shadows, denied existence, worshipping the sun god (who doesn’t
acknowledge)”
“Maybe this is the way that James sees the water droplets, because we
know that children with autism experience the world in ways different
than typically developing children. Is this picture an insight into his
world or the world of the autistic child?”
a neighbor kid down the street let me look
through his telescope. We pointed it at
the North Star. It was like an opening into
another world.” Hall saw not just stars, but
possibilities. The childhood glimpse became
a turning point, directing Hall into a lifelong
engagement with seeing devices: cameras,
lenses, magnifiers,
telescopes, computer
screens.
Since then, Bruce Hall
has constructed his
world from photographs.
When he looks into
your eyes, it’ll be on his
forty-inch Sony high
definition monitor. Most
photographers see in
order to photograph.
Bruce Hall photographs
in order to see.
Hall is one of four artists
in the exhibition who,
while legally blind, retain
some limited, highly
attenuated sight. “I
think all photographers
take pictures in order
to see, but for me it’s
a necessity. I can’t see
without optical devices,
cameras. Therefore, it’s
become an obsession.
It’s beyond being in love with cameras; I
need cameras.” Susan Sontag called photographs
objects “that make up, and thicken,
the environment we recognize as modern.”
By this logic, Hall leads a hypermodern life,
employing an ever-present camera to build
his visual world one photograph at a time.
Hall calls his device-enabled interface with
the world “intensified seeing.” The devices
are extensions, amplifications of his body.
“Without cameras, my life would be bleak.
With cameras, I can see.” The result is a
strange form of double vision. “I always see
things twice. First, I see an impression. I take
what I think I see, later I can see what I saw.
I have certain aims, guesses, impressions,
but the photographs are always a surprise.”
This exhibition features photographs from
two of Hall’s most extended projects—
underwater photography and an ongoing
engagement with James and Jack, his
profoundly autistic twins. The subsurface
and autistic worlds are essentially beyond
reach. One can visit, gather glimpses
and impressions, but it is impossible to
truly inhabit either space. That Hall now
concentrates his photography on these two
subjects comes as no surprise. After all, he
has spent a lifetime using a camera to visit a
foreign world—everyday life.