Present in Absence

by Amanda Arcuri

I allow fire and light to move though tree and park scenes, turning the natural world into a stage and the camera into my audience, where nature itself appears to be performing. The viewer is invited to step beyond the print surface, into the dense black throughout the images, into a place of emptiness. Light skews scale and makes what is natural seem unreal in what appears to be the remnants of a ritualistic act. Using temporal materials such as strobe lighting and fire, I am exploring presence and absence and their ambiguity.

The performer playing with light is not present in the images; instead we see their path left behind, thus their presence is experienced despite their absence. This implied performance, allows the viewer to envision the person creating it and reflect on the creation of the work. This plays with the experience of what is not tangible or seen, we as humans can experience emptiness and nothingness. The use of fire becomes integral, as it has the power to destroy and thus negate. It dually represents both the presence of something and its potential absence. It is this ambiguity of presence and absence in the darkness of an outdoor scene which makes us question where we ourselves stand among nothingness.