David Birkin

In contrast to Walter Hugo’s physical, hands-on methods, David Birkin’s intricate explorations happen inside a computer: the digital equivalent of a dark room.  Like Hugo, he works across the media but his focus is on photography associated with conflict and censorship.The Embedded series employs a staggeringly complex layering of digital language to represent the casualties of war.  A crucial element in these works is the colour coding: a colour strip represents the name of a victim translated through digital coding, and embedded in the original archival photographic image.

Twenty-Six Shades of Red from the series Profiles, is an installation mounted in light-boxes. Identification methods used by the Iraq Body Count project are translated into deceptively beautiful shades of red which shield the meaning of this important political art work.

David Birkin/ Twenty-Six Shades of Red/ 2011/ From the series Profiles
Each transparency/ 10” x 8”/Dimensions Variable/Courtesy of the artist