Steven Pippin is a British artist who works with sculpture and photography. He is known for his ‘inventions’ and experiments, challenging perceptions of the mundane by adapting everyday objects to create sculptures and machines, including cameras. Inspired by developing photographs in the bathtub with his father as a child, he began to experiment with making pinhole cameras out of unusual objects, beginning with the bathtub in his flat. This soon extended to a fridge, a wardrobe, and the toilet of a train on the London to Brighton line, using the cistern for developing. In the late 1990s Pippin turned a row of washing machines in a laundrette into cameras, modifying the glass front of the machines to create lenses and shutter devices, whilst pouring developing chemicals into the powder drawers. Pippin triggered the shutters of his ‘cameras’ by walking across tripwires, creating a study of movement through the sequence of the resulting pictures.

For this series, Non Event, Pippin placed a camera in front of a mirror in complete darkness. He then simultaneously shot a camera with a handgun whilst triggering the flash, to capture the moment of the ‘death’ of the camera, recorded by the camera itself. Pippin has spoken of his interest in the processes of photography, and how process can determine the end result. For this series, Pippin presents the camera as an artist, capable of producing work that it creates but cannot control. This is print one of a diptych.