The interview began with the discussion of Cohen's "cut-out" and erasure pieces. His theme pertained to the awareness of a missing piece within a photo. The white silhouettes were what made whatever was absent obvious to the viewer. Although it was obvious that something was missing, he distorted all sense of time and location. He wanted to compress events and personal experiences, creating a sense of past and nostalgia. For example, his pieces which include a person and a silhouette engaged in any activity together suggested that someone who was once there was now gone, whether he or she had passed away or moved to a far-off place; there is always room for interpretation from other people. Editing his work in this way, Cohen hoped to prod more the viewer's analyzations on what exactly the silhouette was, its relationships to the background, and what activities it could be engaging in. Deleting one piece of each puzzle, he granted the viewer plenty of room for assuming what was there rather than actually knowing what was there. He wanted interactivity between the viewer and the photos and not just a one-second reaction. People find themselves wondering what exactly the silhouette was doing in relation to its pose and background, thus participating with the image as well as observing it from afar.
I personally find these kinds of photomontages very fascinating. I never thought that manipulating a single subject of any photo, whether erasing the subject or replacing it with something else, could change the entire meaning. Cohen’s white silhouettes definitely suggest a trip into the past, especially when he makes the silhouettes glow like ghosts who were once living people. I liked that although the absence of the subjects are obvious to the viewer, such absences still continue to blend with their respectable backgrounds.
