seeMe

Browsing through a dating site, do we ever ask ourselves if the photographs posted are genuine? The question of the referent is frequently raised in photography, but it is especially important when it comes to the Internet. Though there might be some correspondence between the information given in a form and a photograph, nothing can tell us that the photograph is a truthful representation of that reality. How can we believe our eyes?

Working with a series of nude photographs made in 2003, I created four photographic characters, mixing the nose of one, with the leg of another, the buttocks of another, and so on, in an attempt to respond to my questions. This is how seeGreg, seeChris, seeFred, and seeTina were born. I put them up online, on a US dating site, for four months. Their ads received numerous responses from subscribers. I then created the site seeMe, which presents my four composite characters, their ads, as well as a selection of the emails they received.

Our world is increasingly reliant on the fake and the illusory, which explains the growing popularity of avatars and role-playing games. Is changing our bodies and tampering with our identity becoming more attractive than regular reality? That is what my intervention suggests.