Rita Lino1

20William Mortensen…

Replica suggest a new reading of the body and the model as a pure image, a pure tool, without referring to any representative identity, hereby ignoring todays contemporary society of what the self should be.

Lino refers strongly to American mid-century photographer William Mortensen, who states that a body is simply considered to be a machine that needs adjustments. According to Mortensen the body must be the basis, representation of personality and emotion [] are irrelevant and misleading. There is a certain dehumanization in Mortensens approach to the model, a return of the body to an object without meaning, in front of the camera. Mortensen saw models as clay that form the image, a body was articulated only by the operators intention. He wanted to strip the figure from its emotion and personality, so that we, as an audience, could consider the body as a formed prop and stare at the image as the essence, and not the subject.

In Linos case she is the model, the operator / photographer, the subject and the image at the same time. She is in complete control. She found a way to remove herself from representation and reduced her own body to a pure object and image, almost like a machine. Replica is a manifestation of the artists understanding of her role in front of and behind the camera.

Replica is a prescient of an approaching future in which identity will surrender to the carefree machine of image magnification.