Pwnshow Studio
The Mallards' Call
Alfonso de Gregorio
2017–2020
Infrared photography · night-vision illuminators as modelling lights, new-moon nights · captions after the Man'yōshū
Part of INV-005 · The Surveillance Cycle
Artist’s statement
Statement, 2020.
Can there be any sublime in today’s surveillance? How does aesthetics inform us about the nature of the relationship existing between surveillance and sociality? And if the prospect of social withdrawal is unbearable, would we ever be able to escape the surveillance state?
In The Mallards’ Call, I repurpose imaging surveillance technologies to the photographic space that lies at the intersection of personal documentary, performance, and art photography. A long-time cybersecurity researcher by background, I now resolved to turn surveillance technology towards myself. I intend to record in my images the resulting introspective investigations, in the attempt to make the invisible visible. In so doing, I aim to shed new light on the absences in our lives. I aim to address the epidemic level of loneliness in today’s society, and how that condition incentivises the use of social media — where the present body of work was live-shared during its production. Mediating almost every form of social participation, those media are, in fact, perfect surveillance platforms in disguise. Appropriating the techniques of surveillance, and exploring how surveillance underpins our own way of life, the present project questions the politics and aesthetics of surveillance themselves.
To develop the concept, I returned alone to the prairie where I used to walk with my late wife, and I started photographing an allegorical elegy for her and on the lonely human condition. Each image was inspired by the wakas collected in the Man’yōshū, from which the present work draws both its title and the captions.
With the project revolving around absences and their allegorical representations, the process reflects such void by resorting to infrared illuminators for night vision as modelling lights, lighting the new-moon nights’ scenes, and to infrared cameras. The lights employed are outside the visible spectrum. As such, they cannot be seen — just like the beloved longed for — by any mammal, photographer included.
Media sample
The white surges far upon the sea of Isé
I would wrap and bring them home
As a souvenir for my beloved wife.”
— Prince Aki
Clouds overshadow the sky,
Bringing heavy rain;
The rain is swept in spray
And the storm gathers.
Has he reached home,
He who went back
Across the great-mouthed Wolf's Moor,
Deep in thoughts of me?”
— Replies by the maidens
And I well-nigh swooned,
Thinking it was you.”
— Maiden Sanu Chigami
Grow a hundredfold in my heart
Like the leaves of the crinum
On the sea-coast of Kumanu,
I do not meet her face to face.”
— Kakinomoto Hitomaro
Of the Divine Wind.
Why have I come now that he is dead!
Now that he is no more —
My dear brother —
Whom I so longed to see,
Why have I come,
Despite the tired horses!”
— Princess Ōku
How desolate I shall find
Her vacant bower!
Poor beloved!
Destined thus, she travelled far to me,
I cannot tell my grief!
How it tills me with regret!
Had I foreknown it, I would have shown her
All in this beautiful land!
The bead-tree's flowers my darling saw
Will be scattered
While my tears have not dried.
Over Mount Onū the fog is rising;
Driven by my sighs of grief,
The fog is rising.”
— Yamanoé Okura, Man'yōshū
And the moon's ship is seen sailing
To hide in a forest of stars.”
— On the sky, Hitomaro Collection
Crying on the pond of Iwaré,
Must I vanish into the clouds!”
— Prince Otsū
Credits
Captions after the Man’yōshū.
Selected publications
- Hariban Award 2023 catalogue, Benrido, Kyoto, 2023
- The Mallards’ Call, Artdoc Magazine, Amsterdam, 2020
Selected awards
- Honourable Mention, Hariban Award, 2023
Page last updated: 2026/07/10 · Pwnshow Studio