Manual Focus 1: War
This work is part of a project began in 2003 during a lot of discussion by alternative media outlets about the failure of the mainstream American media to engage in real journalism. The concept of "Manual Focus" is to present two differing visual perspectives of a particular issue. The first image is the perception of events or situations as presented by the mainstream media or the dominant power, whether it be political, corporate, or both (as they are increasingly inseperable). However, an alternate (some might say "real") perspective lurks within the image, out of focus. By clicking on the focus button, the dominant perspective blurs out of focus and the alternate perspective comes into focus.
Each image in the sequence is a complete image unto itself. Yet the collection of images in sequence form a whole greater than the parts that expresses ideas about information, perspective, perception, truth, spin, and media representation.
-Julian H. Scaff