Autofocusfalle /// 1989-1991 /// Interactive Photographic Installation
/// Michael Schuster

A digital camera fixed on a pod is directed at a photograph by the same camera. The dimensions of the photograph result from the distance between the camera and the picture. In size, the photograph is exactly the size required for it to completely fill the camera’s view-finder. The camera is sharply focused on a specific spatial position and if someone takes up this position in space it automatically takes a picture. This photograph is saved by the computer and appears on the screen in real-time. The next person that walks into this “Auto-focus-Trap”, extrudes the predecessor from the picture and is thus in the picture in himself.
(Text: Michael Schuster)

Michael Schuster (*1956 in Graz, Austria) lives and works in Graz. The focus of the artist’s oeuvre in media analytical works is the examination of perception and the reproduction of reality by means of various media, such as photography and panorama photography. His works are characterized by their particularly precise design and construction as well as by a good dose of self irony.

Michael Schuster, Autofocusfalle, 1989–1991, interactive photographic installation, digital mirror-reflex camera, large format photography, loaned by the artist