As part of an ongoing photographic and conceptual exchange, University of the Arts graduates Ahmed Salvador (BFA Photography, 1995) and Scott McMahon (BFA Photography, 1995) present some of their most recent work as part of “Response Time” at the Sol Mednick Gallery at the University of the Arts.

The most basic level of their artistic process sees Philadelphia-based Salvador sending bits of traditional silver photographic paper to McMahon in New Mexico. Throughout the journey, the light sensitive material is exposed either initially by the sender or by perforating the packaging materials with holes in order to allow small streams of outside light to reach the film. In the end, the recipient develops the delivery and sends the results back. The final product is an ethereal body of work that verges on total abstraction but oftentimes reveals tiny bits of representative images along the way.

Scott McMahon and Ahmed Salvador, “Response Time #1 (Found roll of T-MAX film with lens images of South Philly taken in the future. Immersed in developer, and then sent in the mail to be fixed upon arrival. By then, the emulsion started to peel.)”

Some of the pictures here refer back to the medium from whence they came: thin strips of film negatives displayed and back lit through light boxes. The deteriorated yet linear arrangements of works like “Response Time #1 (Found roll of T-MAX film with lens images of South Philly taken in the future. Immersed in developer, and then sent in the mail to be fixed upon arrival. By then, the emulsion started to peel.)” refer directly back to the chemical mechanisms that created them, and they embrace their form completely, mounted with sprocket holes intact and, as the extended description explains, crumbling from the wear and tear of their journey.

Scott McMahon and Ahmed Salvador, “Response Time #11 (An amulet incased in Green Jello. No? No.)”

In other places, the photographs take on even more indistinct, abstract compositions. For “Response Time #11 (An amulet incased in Green Jello. No? No.),” the title itself explores some of the possible associations that accompany its strangeness and ambiguity. A hard-edged, reddish-purple form stands at the center of the frame submerged in a gelatinous yellow-green froth. If not for its context in this show, the source might remain a mystery. Instead, the artists bait and switch the viewer by suggesting both what the photo might be and what it is not, almost in one breath.

Scott McMahon and Ahmed Salvador, “Response Time #5 (Scanned enlargement of a New Mexico landscape taken with a pinhole camera. Then, wrapped in tinfoil and whimsy.)”

Existing somewhere between these two planes of pure abstraction and fragmented photography, we discover scenes of the New Mexico landscape similarly dotted with the same cosmic bubbles as in “Response Time #11.” In the foreground of “Response Time #5 (Scanned enlargement of a New Mexico landscape taken with a pinhole camera. Then, wrapped in tinfoil and whimsy.),” these two-dimensional strands of light crisscross the trees and rocks barely visible behind their veil. Anchoring real places within the tumult of overexposed holes, we find traces of reality and the nebulous fully intermingled.

Amidst a minimal soundtrack collaboratively scored by McMahon and Salvador, we slowly come to the realization that the tricks of light are the only truth present in “Response Time.” By exposing even recognizable images as merely the artifice of chemical reproduction, the warped shapes and residual radiance we find elsewhere are revealed to be as honest as those that resemble the world around us.

The show will be on display through February 6 with a closing reception on February 5 from 4-7 p.m.

University of the Arts Sol Mednick Gallery is located at Terra Hall, 211 S. Broad St., Philadelphia; 215-717-6030; uarts.edu.