Detached in this way from the coarser texture of real events and real space the effect of the photographs is overtly theatrical. But rather than create a stage setting, Moore transforms the office into a kind of operating theatre. The body is prepared for our scrutiny by a coruscating light and we adopt an almost surgical or forensic gaze as the figures themselves stare out across the picture space. Under these conditions skin take on a translucent quality, absorbing and reflecting light it has a wax like sheen. Even those figures, which Moore has invested with a wide -eyed, cartoon like presence, seem to have absorbed a negative charge. Breathing its air-conditioned, recycled oxygen, deadened and rained by electronic emissions, the body here is rendered corpse-like against the cold dark slab of office infinity.

Even as it occupies centre stage in our lives, a space into which so many of our energies and aspirations are directed, David Moore’s work reveals the office as the dead-zone of the contemporary human soul, luring us into a wandering compliance and submission.

David Chandler
Director of Photoworks. England.

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