Review: Discovery Abounds in ‘Camera Watch’

Sunday, May 15: ‘Camera Watch’, an exhibition of photographs by Medium’s most intriguing artist, opened on Sunday morning at the Tom Mitchell gallery.

The artist, whose name remains unknown, but who is referred to by his fans with the emoji [boy] plus the words “-skin colour unknown”, gave permission for his handlers to post the stunning series of watch photographs on Medium.

The series begins with the startling “Dark Daddy”, an atmospheric investigation of parenting, go-betweens, and the relationship between art and marketing promotion. The photograph is raw, but not RAW. How did it become a .jpg? We know that the [boy]- skin colour unknown had no hand in the conversion. Did his handlers subject his work… with “permission”… to a lossy compression algorithm, or did the process of uploading it to a “platform” alter the work by subjecting it to digital manipulation? What is lost when one allows their work to be shared on social media? Certainly, the photograph tells us, one thing remains. Dark daddy is near the center of the frame. The aperture and the light are on the other side of HIM.

The second item in the series, “Don’t Know,” is a portrait of time. In this very clear picture we see an image of a vintage Fisher Price music box set to “The Mulberry Bush.” The Mulberry Bush is a children’s rhyme in the public domain that Fisher Price has incorporated into their “music box” toys. The tune used for Mulberry Bush is a Scandinavian folk tune similar in melody to “I Saw Three Ships.” The lyrics, which are probably missing from the music box version, are elastic, but often contain the following:

Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, The mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush So early in the morning.

We wonder who has set the music box to “The Mulberry Bush”? What good is agency if the only available selections are dedicated to the preservation of social sleeping norms? It is a clear… and the photograph is the clearest of the collection… rebuke of what is called the “Before 8 AM Listicle” in social media circles. Now the opening of this series on Medium makes sense. [boy] — skin colour unknown, has done more by 8 YEARS OLD than most of us and already is “going round the mulberry bush.”

There are other wonderful photographs in the series; a “painterly” color field finding image that is reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler’s work in the 70s, a “Duck Beast” that evokes and rebukes the personal mythologies of Matthew Barney, and a pair of alien street lamp photographs that underscore the childhood dictum “objects are as interesting as people and animals.”

It is the final photograph, when seen as a bookend to “Dark Daddy,” that is the most haunting and gives the show its remarkable gut punch. “Light in the Out Garden” is a pictorial translation of the meme “I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.” Here is the future, as seen by a four-year-old. Dark Daddy has been replaced by the “light” of overlooking machines.

It’s time to start building your Lego spaceship.