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kelcd/third eye
The KeLCD is a camera I invented in 2011 to take pictures not just of the subject in front of the lens, but also of my experience with the thing photographed. A modified Polaroid Land Camera equipped with an Arduino microcontroller, the camera has two copper sensors worn around the fingers that run into the "brain" of the camera. The camera takes 100 readings every ten seconds of my GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) which is then averaged. GSR measures the electrical conductivity of my skin (technology popularly implemented in most lie detector tests as well as Scientology meters). It senses my excitement and tension, and this is mapped onto the 0-360 color wheel by the Arduino. I programmed the Arduino to then project that color inside the camera with color-changing LEDs. Cocking the shutter on the Polaroid camera triggers this entire process.
The result is a double exposure with a color light-field coming from the response of my body and the image that is photographed by the camera. The body of work made with the KeLCD camera, entitled Third Eye is a look at the places that resonate most abstractly with me: home. Both my own home and the home I grew up in are photographed. These places, rooms, and things, are more than any photograph could describe. Instead, the physiological response of my body has to try to point to a relationship with the place, and not just the place itself.
Presented here is a very small selection of hundreds of photographs taken with the camera. Deep gratitude to Hive 76 with assistance, instruction, and the facilities for the fabrication of the KeLCD. This project has been exhibited in various iterations at the Icebox Project Space in Philadelphia, the Berman Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania, and Interlochen Center for the Arts.