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| "Alice and Ryan" Evan Baden, 2008 |
Does this picture make you uncomfortable? If yes, you're not alone. The image is part of a greater body of work entitled "Technically Intimate" by photographer Evan Baden. This series explores the the rise of sexual material's availability via technology, and today's obsession with "sexting."
"Technically Intimate" raises a highly relevant art world question: how do you distinguish art from pornography? In his visit to Lawrence University, Baden explained that his work is intended to convey much more than just sex. The images he created for this series are all based off of real photos posted online, but expanded. For instance, the image above's source photo was simply a pornographic shot of a couple gettin' intimate. Baden takes this source and mimics the posing, but makes it once removed by adding the separate entity of the camera. As Baden explains on his website, " the introduction of the camera to the relationship dramatically changed the way the couple interacted with each other...The couple knew very well that the camera was there and actually played to it."
"Technically Intimate" raises a highly relevant art world question: how do you distinguish art from pornography? In his visit to Lawrence University, Baden explained that his work is intended to convey much more than just sex. The images he created for this series are all based off of real photos posted online, but expanded. For instance, the image above's source photo was simply a pornographic shot of a couple gettin' intimate. Baden takes this source and mimics the posing, but makes it once removed by adding the separate entity of the camera. As Baden explains on his website, " the introduction of the camera to the relationship dramatically changed the way the couple interacted with each other...The couple knew very well that the camera was there and actually played to it."
Oh My god, It's not that I didn't feel uncomfortable seeing this photo, but I thought they really did have sex during the photo shoot. It looks so real and provocative.
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