i spy with my 3rd eye- Ana Muna

Anastasia Muna


Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles”

- Frederick Sommer


The work, for me in basic terms addresses the way we as individuals, perceive this idea or concept of the ‘real’ within photographic images to be. The concepts within the work examined constructed notions within society, which relate to the presumption that when one is taking or viewing a photographic image, one is recording or viewing reality as it is around us within our physical lives, which is a belief that appears to be ingrained into the way in which individuals tends to view photographs. For this reason, there appears to be this tendency to accept the idea that the 2-dimensional space that a photograph exists within can be extended in place of the kind of “reality” we live within.


“The magic of Photography is that it is the object which does all the work.”

- Jean Baudrillard


What I have come to understand is that, what is being depicted within the photographic image is only an appearance of the world. This is due to the fact that the perceptual experience of the world is closely related to the appearance of the photographic object. I have been quite influenced by Roland Barthes crucial contribution to semiotics, he examines ideas surrounding how signs take on the values of the dominant value system or ideologies of a particular society and makes these values seem normal, even though these signs might be untruths or have different values within other systems or ideologies. Thus Barthes shows us how such signs can become a signifier to create not only connotations, but also myths. He explains that it is fundamental to the understanding of the relationship between the photographic image and its referent as one of representation. There is no law in nature which dictates that the linguistic sign ‘rose’ or say ‘table’ or even ‘person’ should be associated with the thing with which it is in fact associated.


With the above in mind, I have deliberately create scenes that appear to be real; people, tables, chairs, lampshades, etc must all be life size. I would like to do this because; I want to play with our general perceptions that photographs contain this idea of reality, even though this idea is a myth. In doing so I would like to force the viewer to question the fake-ness of this almost, but not quite ‘reality real’ image.


The 3-dimensional exterior exists and can not be argued with; we can touch it, whereas the illusion created by photographing the interior rooms gives rise to a world of fantasy, one which appears to be real. The exterior fact hence leads to the desire to go into the fantasy of the interior, which can never be achieved because the interior does not exist and holds no space, volume or means for entry. All one can do is walk away from the illusion, with the idea of entering a fictional space. The idea is brought to the viewer, but never physically experienced.


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The majority of the installations are still up, however due to the nature of the art being street art; a few of the pieces have gone missing. Therefor if you can't fine one of them it has either been taken down or it's just very small and you will have to look more closely...