Portraits

C-prints on glossy Fuji Film photo paper, variable sizes, 2014 - ongoing

Constant Dullaart, C-print, framed 120 x 68 x 4 cm, 2018

Portraits is a series of smartphone photographs documenting my encounters with people IRL who I ask if I can make a photo on their device and post on their Instagram account. Originated in 2014, the continuing performative collection consists of photos I take of my finger while placed directly on top of the camera lens of someone else’s smartphone. Then, I aim the camera to a source of light, which illuminates the blood in my finger, and consequently create a grainy red jpg.

In our quantified world where we are the sum of our connections, I subsequently post the photos on the participant’s Instagram account with the hashtag #nikoprincen. That way, it becomes publicly visible whom I have met and who have permitted me to post the red photos on their Instagram account, helping me let it grow like a virus, my personal brand.

After the upload, I split the original file from the device by emailing it to myself and printing these 'fingerprints', as large as the smartphone’s resolution permits, as glossy C-prints at a professional photo lab. I title them with the participant’s name. Framed, the portraits are the physical documentation of the digital connection IRL.

View the work on Instagram here .

Exhibitions

Portraits, U124, Berlin, 2022