Yasmin Gapper
Determinants
5-12 July 2025
The works in Yasmin Gapper’s Determinants stage moments at which the ‘photographic’ recedes from visibility, yet is materially present: as a system of comparative measurement, as an index of the sensing body, as means of data duplication and loss.
The years in which photography emerged (sometime between the 1820s and 1830s) witnessed what sociologist of science Ian Hacking once described as an ‘avalanche of printed numbers’. This period marked the beginnings of systematic forms of data collection by the British state. Early photographs were understood as both haptic markers of their environment, and numberless bits of data. Other modes of data collection were emerging in parallel: the invention of the aneroid barometer in the 1840s enabled medical officers stationed across the British empire to gather data on its climate with greater precision and automation, without needing to be present at the moment of reading. Readings on humidity, air pressure, rainfall and temperature were noted down at intervals throughout the day in register books, and sent back to Britain to be summarised into monthly averages.
The Goethe barometer was one antecedent to the aneroid barometer. This glass object could predict weather changes up to a few days in advance. Displayed in homes, they served as both ornamental objects and surveilling sensors, relying on a form of ‘liquid intelligence’ to detect atmospheric changes.
At the centre of the gallery, a table holds a series of defunct Goethe barometers. The tubular openings of these instruments serve as photographic apertures, recording everything in their environments except for their visible surroundings. They act as surrogates for an absent human body. Knock-off replicas of these instruments circulate on eBay and auction sites.
On the left is a series of blueprints, speculating on forms of compressed and elongated time (historical, alchemical, environmental). The origins of the ‘blueprint’, the technical drawing or diagram, lie in the emergence of cyanotype printing – an inexpensive means of duplicating documents at speed.
Opposite is Actor-network theories (2025): two overlaid glass slides, one of a dead insect specimen, and one of a wooden archival box degraded by termites. Each obscuring the other, and lacking a definitive author, an averaged image emerges through their mutual concealment.
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Yasmin Gapper (b. 1998, London) lives and works in London. She studied at the Royal Drawing School and UCL.
Prices on Application. Please email sam@boldinggallery.com or esme@boldinggallery.com if interested.