Disruption

Moments drift like a distant dream or a memory from an uncertain past, suspended within the blurred turbulence of the mind. Images appear as fragments of time that cannot fully settle—hovering somewhere between recollection and anticipation.

During the lockdown, I photographed an empty New York City. These images were later re-photographed onto medium-format film slides. Just before the image could fully take shape, each frame was disrupted by an uneven burst of light, interrupting the photographic process itself.

The work examines the disruption of becoming. By intervening at the moment when the image begins to form—between exposure and development—the process of formation is interrupted. Metaphorically, this gesture echoes a time when the potential for new memories felt suspended. Each image carries the trace of a moment interrupted, where memory is disrupted before it can fully emerge.

In the light box installation, the slides are illuminated through programmed flickering sequences that prevent the images from stabilizing in the viewer’s perception. The image appears, dissolves, and reappears, resisting fixation in memory.

The project consists of:

• Eighteen archival pigment prints transferred from film slides to digital, framed in black, in two sizes: 50 × 50 cm and 100 × 100 cm

• Forty-two light boxes presenting 12.5 × 12.5 cm film slides in bronze-finish frames, each with a unique lighting program

Disruption, New York, 2020-23 © Tooraj Khamenehzadeh