Back of Who’s Head?
Online Zine Launch
by Lucy Tevlin
January 2025
Back of Who's Head? is the first publication by Dublin based visual artist Lucy Tevlin. This project began with the artist acquiring a photograph of the back of an actor's head on eBay. This image sparked an investigation into the possible identities of the subject. The artbook consists of documentation of that search, presenting screenshots of the back of various actor's heads from films, bringing into question the authorship of these images.
This publication explores themes of image circulation via the internet and the screenshot as a form of photography.
Lucy Tevlin is a visual artist based in Dublin. Her practice is defined by a conceptual approach to image-making. She uses image, text, film, and found materials to interrogate the spatial, mechanical, and historical properties of the photographic image. Her work explores concerns such as the materiality of the photographic apparatus and the dichotomies of truth versus fiction and public versus private.
Edition of 100
Printed by Way Bad Press
Dublin 2024
In conversation: Lucy Tevlin and screen service
Tell me the story of how Back of Who's Head? came to be?
I found this image on eBay and felt very curious about it. I thought it would be fun to do something with it, so I tried out a couple of things like writing a casting call for someone to play the back of the head, and then I became interested in finding out who it might be. I started some reddit posts asking if anyone knew. Using their suggestions, I watched films featuring the actors and took screenshots of the back of their head’s. I’d been thinking a lot about the screenshot as a form of photography so that element fit quite naturally.
How does this zine sit in relation to your practice at large?
I have previously made work about eBay, where I bought people’s home movies and wrote texts about them. I ordered the films but never opened the packages when they arrived. The texts were numbered one to twenty-four, referencing the frame rate of the films. In general, my work is about the image. How photographic images are made, and what technologies we use to display and circulate them.
I enjoy the concept that mystery cannot be explained, only experienced and revealed. How do mystery and replication play a role in your practice?
I think there is a power in ambiguity - uncertainty can be a thought provoking tool within an artwork. I like working with found materials because I find them mysterious, so I want to share that curiosity with the viewer.
This project sees you as both investigator and witness. Will you embrace further online sleuthing in your practice?
Absolutely. I really admire artists like Sophie Calle, who use this sort of voyeuristic approach. Another reference for this book was her work Suite Vénitienne where she followed a man she met in Paris to Venice without his knowledge. The online space can be equally invasive, so I wanted to illustrate that with my investigation into this man’s identity.
