The Sensitive Plate consists of 1250 filmed black-and-white photo portraits made between 1913-1969 by the Amsterdam photo studio Merkelbach, ran by father and daughter Jakobus and Mies Merkelbach. The sequence of faces is interrupted only by the year in which the photos were taken. In this chronology, each year consists of one minute of film time. Each photo is displayed for two seconds; 57 years are displayed in 57 minutes.