Title (from top-down):
Love & Hate
Marilyn Monroe & Adolf HitlerLove & Understanding
La Cicciolina & Sigmund FreudGenius & Strength
Albert Einstein & Sylvester StalloneLust & Levitation
Patti Smith & Salvador DaliShadows & Myths
Greta Garbo & Andy WarholThrills & Simulation
Michael Jackson & Alfred HitchcockDreams & Visions
Martin Luther King & PrinceVoice & Meaning
Ludwig Wittgenstein & Elvis Presley
Size: Image dimensions: 37,9 × 32,5 cm, Outer dimensions: 49,6 × 44 × 5 cm
Technique/Material: Gelatin silver photography, digitally processed
Year: 1992
ABOUT: CAICAN
The digital collages are made out of two different photos of two well-known people. The photos are ”sewn” together digitally, on the computer. The original photo parts are intact and can be identified. No morphing or superimposing.
The works have their origins in the development of the computer. The project was inspired by the software technology available in affordable personal computers (Mac II Si) at the time. At a computer graphics class in Los Angeles, in 1991, I got in touch with the first version of Photoshop 1.0.
Shortly after, I created a series of images of ”brand new people” that consisted of two photos, paired visually and mentally to a new persona. The titles are named after common instant attributes associated with the image of the original photos. The newly composed images suggest a more complicated public persona.
The solid steel frames, coarsely welded together, refer to the “non-digital world”, in contrast to the synthetic seamless welding in the computer. ”CAICAN” is an anagram of Carin Carlsson, a fictive brand of artificially created people.