Altered Realities

About

Altered realities is an exhibition by John Brooks and Christopher Cristóbal Newberry exploring aspects of our surroundings that we do not normally perceive.

Newberry's images are verisimilar, that is they look like truth or reality, but are not. His images are a distortion of reality in the sense that they are simplified to resemble what can only exist as Platonic ideals: symmetry, straight lines . . . Euclidian geometric shapes. These images exist perfectly only in the mind not in nature, therefore his images cannot exist in reality. The purpose of his images is to invite viewers in this period of post-truth to see that they are false or exaggerated.

Brooks' images comprise abstractions of our surroundings or re-constructions of observed real objects with an added dimension to give the viewer the illusion of the third dimension or the interior structure of a building. Therefore the image as presented cannot exist but may be considered impressionistic of the subject as observed in reality.

What particularly brings Brooks and Newberry together is their shared 'deadpan' approach to their subjects: the images entirely lack emotions, where the object is captured as it is, flat and almost uninteresting at first glance. There is almost a non-relationship between the photographer and the subject. There is evident indifference to what is being photographed, and this simplicity is what makes the images so alluring.