Trap - self portrait
Headspace is more than a state of mind in Justine Cooper’s self-portrait. Intrigued by the ways that technology informs and shapes our lived experience, she underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and used the scans to create this layered restructuring of her head. Intentionally interactive, Trap becomes fully visible and dimensional only as one moves around it, so that the viewer is caught in a mediation between physical and virtual realms. The work is particularly evocative today, at a time when we have learned to mentally register the risks of our proximity to others.
Artwork Details
- Title: Trap - self portrait
- Artist: Justine Cooper (Australian, born 1968)
- Date: 1998
- Medium: Transparent film mounted on plexiglass
- Dimensions: 33.7 x 29.2 x 30.5 cm (13 1/4 x 11 1/2 x 12 in. )
- Classifications: Transparencies, Sculpture
- Credit Line: Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1999
- Object Number: 1999.173
- Rights and Reproduction: © Justine Cooper
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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