Untitled, from the series As Long As It Photographs It Must Be A Camera, 2012

As Long As It Photographs It Must Be A Camera is the title of a series focusing on the construction of cameras and photo-esoteric experiments with camera bodies of all different types. For this project, the artist duo Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs selected books of collected essays published by Aperture. In their own words: “We wanted to build a camera that is constructed from words about photography, not photographic equipment. The idea is to be able to photograph through a collected body of knowledge. In Tibet, newborns sleep on a bed created by laying blankets over holy books, so that they can soak up spiritual knowledge while they sleep. Similarly, perhaps, this camera osmotically transmits the wisdom of decades’ worth of thinking about photography.”

Portfolio of Two C-Prints
Edition of 15 and 3 Artist’s Proofs
Signed and numbered by the artists

Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (Both b. 1979, Swiss) have worked collaboratively in photography, film, and installation since 2003. Their work has been published and exhibited internationally, and their books The Great Unreal (2009) and As Long As It Photographs (2011) have garnered critical acclaim. Solo exhibitions of their work have been presented at MoMA PS1, New York; Swiss Institute, New York; Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland; EX3, Florence; Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz, Germany; and Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow.