Arko Datto: CYBER SEX

Arko Datto (1986) was born in India and studied physics and mathematics in Paris before he decided to study photography in Denmark.

THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT

India – 

I had started working on my project CYBERSEX during the months of March and April. I have come to the point where I am satisfied with what I have. I do not have anything new to add to the project in terms of layers, depth or angles. In that sense, I have succeeded in making the project I initially set out to do.

My working method is that of taking screenshots from websites that cater to clients interested in virtual prostitution. I have worked within the strict traditions of journalism in the sense that I have not paid money to get access. Whatever I have covered is strictly from the public realm, readily accessible to anybody who might be interested. I focussed my work on the moments when my subjects are on public view, in between paid sexual performances. I have tried mostly to focus on the lives and emotions of my subjects, portraying the human side of this virtual experience. I have also not interacted with the subjects via chat or otherwise that might have led to the images being influenced by my presence, the photographer’s presence. In that sense, this is a pure photographic work that has not been influenced to any degree by the presence of the photographer.

As for working time, I have had to spend inordinately long amounts of time searching for interesting people and details that I could document and then subsequently wait for the right moment. It has been a lesson in patience like none other.

 

This project has been a lesson in patience, as I have had to wait for long amounts of time before I achieved satisfactory results. Also, the very process of editing and selecting images has been an important experience.

As for the conceptual side of the project, I have come across a lot of projects that have been done using the web as the prime source, including several that use Google Street View. However, it must be stated that most of them have worked with pre-existing images, thereby defining the works as more of curatorial ventures than photographic endeavors. I have tried to realize my project through the actual act of photographing my subjects.

It is also in a sense my personal homage to medium format photography. Despite that fact that the images have been cropped to 1:1 format, I have tried to keep the feel similar to the language used in medium format photography.

 

Written and Photography by Arko Datto 

Related Posts

Kentaro Takahashi The Riverbed

Kentaro Takahashi: Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant Announced

Japan –  “The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same.” —Kamo No Chomei, “My Ten-Foot …

Joan Fontcuberta: The Photography of Nature / The Nature of Photography

Catalan photographer Joan Fontcuberta is the 33rd recipient of the prestigious HasselbladFoundation International Award in Photography. To celebrate the award …

Thomas Mailaender: “Illustrated People” – 23 Original Negatives, Powerful UV Lamp and Painful-Looking Skin-Based Photos

France –  “Illustrated People” is the translation into book form of a performance by Thomas Mailaender. He applied to the …

Intifada in Kashmir : Sami Siva

India – At the time of partition in 1947, the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh was forced to seek India’s …

Celebrating Emerging Greek Photography: Nikolas Ventourakis – ‘Defining Cyprus’s Borderlands’

Greece –  ‘Defining Lines – Borderlands’ is a project focused on the areas in and around the Western Sovereign Base …

Tom Hunter: Life on the Road

United Kingdom –  Life on the Road captures a remarkable moment in time, in the 1990s, when young people travelled …

Video: Emaho Mussoorie Workshop with Cristina de Middel & Ricardo Cases in collaboration with IED Madrid

Organized by EMAHO and IED MADRID Dated: June 19-22nd June,2014 India The recent success of the Spanish photobook has produced much curiosity and …

Lucie Foundation: International Photography Awards 2014 Announced

USA – The Lucie Awards presents the International Photography Awards (IPA) competition, a sister effort of the Lucie Foundation, and has …

Momo Okabe: “I truly wanted to destroy everything I had”

Japan –   Momo Okabe’s photographs depict the bare situation. Be it the sexual act, a wasteland, or the wake of …