[Woodchuck] Photograph by Jesse Burke.

[Beatriz] Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; from the series Generations.
Photograph by Mariliana Arvelo.

[Viscosity (No. 1)] 2003-04. Photograph by Esther Teichmann.

From the series [In Water] by Ethan Aaro Jones.

[My Father] Naples, Florida, 2006.  Photograph by Doug Dubois.

[Untitled #9 (Surfers)] 2003.  Photograph by Catherine Opie.

He has the ability to imagine himself a minor incident in the lives of others. It is not an abstract thing. Alex-Li Tandem would not know quite what you meant by ‘abstract’ – he is twelve. He simply knows that if he imagines swimming in the sea, well, while most children will think immediately of the cinematic shark below them, Alex, in his mind, is with the lifeguard. He can see himself as that smudge on the horizon, his head mistaken for a bobbing buoy, his wild arms hidden by the roll of the surf. He can see the lifeguard, a bronzed and languid American, standing on the sand with his arms folded, deciding there’s nothing out there. Alex sees the lifeguard wander off down the beach in search of those half-bare German girls from yesterday and a cold drink. The lifeguard buys a Coke from a passing vendor. The shark severs Alex’s right calf from his body. The lifeguard sidles up to Tanya, the pretty one. The shark drags Alex in a bloody semicircle through the water. The lifeguard speaks kindly to her ugly friend with the flat chest, hoping for brownie points. Some vertebrae snap. Did you see that? A seal! says Tanya, mistaking Alex’s desperate hand for the turn of a glossy flipper. And then he’s gone. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a seal? No, it’s me, drowning. This is how things go for Alex-Li. He deals in a shorthand of experience. The TV version. He is one of this generation who watch themselves.

Excerpt from The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith.

[Rising] 1998.  [enlarge] Photograph by David Hilliard.

I like the weird world that emerges, viewing the photographs of Susanna Hesselberg and Jessica Bruah together…

Hesselberg and Bruah both playfully twist and turn the human form, puppeteering in a way, manipulating this thingness of tangled arms and legs.  Both photographers obscure or cut out any defining features of their subjects.  Faceless, these beings are at most male or female, but empty of any more specific identity.

Identity is dictated, hidden, and revealed by these beings’ surroundings, which are powerful.  A vague social anxiety permeates the air.

(Below, from top to bottom: Susanna Hesselberg, Jessica Bruah, Susanna Hesselberg)

Hesselberg’s figures are molded optical illusions — whether they’re staged sculptural/performance pieces, or pinpointed photographic decisive moments (as when a cloud of smoke or tossed paper wad take on the role of a man’s head).  There’s a Wonderland sense that anything can happen, though any delight or forboding message comes across as only a whisper alongside the spellbinding visuals, in which things and people merge.  (Below: Photographs by Susanna Hesselberg)

Brauh has more specifically identified a tone in facelessness — a kind of domestic anxiety in dollhouse dressings.  This is a home life wherein a viewer can’t tell the difference between people and manequins.  Headless, faceless, and often askew, these hapless house-bound women and men are overcome by dishes and drapery, and succumb to laundry and bubblewrap.  It’s a familiar madhouse — the dissarray amid domestic chores — but one where coathangers dance in anarchy.  There is a muted comic tone, except for that slight by persistent fear that things could go horribly wrong with a single slip up or drop of the toilet-paper roll.  (Below: Photographs by Jessica Bruah)