Lisa McCarty will be spending her time in the Project Space developing a multi-channel installation of a new project entitled Photosites.

Photosites considers the often-unnoticed medium inside every digital camera, the photodiode. The photodiode, a component of the image sensor, is the only light-sensitive element utilized in digital imaging. Photodiodes are made up of an array of millions of tiny silicon cavities, referred to as “photosites,” which absorb and convert light into an electric current that can then be interpreted by our computers. The “photosite” is the last point at which light itself, as opposed to a representation of light, is present in the digital imaging process.

McCarty purchases and finds photodiodes from an array of disused and dismantled digital cameras then uses a digital microscope to capture still and moving images of these usually hidden sites of creation and translation.

Lisa McCarty is an imagemaker, curator, and educator based in Durham, NC. She received an MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts from Duke University and is currently Curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University’s Rubenstein Library as well as an instructor at the Center for Documentary Studies.

Join us for an open studio with Photosites video and print installations on Friday, June 1st from 6 to 9 pm. 

Support for this project came from Joy of Giving Something and the New York State Council on the Arts Visual Arts program.