INTERPOSED STILLS
2022-*
series of animated photographic montages
INTERPOSED STILLS
The body of work „interposed stills“ investigates on the edge of photography. At the intersection of still, photography, digitality, animation and moving image I place my artistic research. The starting point of each „interposed still“ forms a photographic self-portrait. In the digital process of editing, I weave subtle partial movements into the file. Where does the medium of digital photography start and where does it end?
I DON´T REMEMBER IF I WAS A MIRROR OR A PHONE
2022
single-channel video loop, 16:9
I DON´T REMEMBER IF I WAS A MIRROR OR A PHONE
single channel video loop, 16:9, 2022
„I don´t remember if I was a mirror or a phone“ is questioning the photographic gesture by leading it ad absurdum in a digital space. The title, refering to a missing piece in the animation, the expected phone in the phonecase, places the gesture of photographing above the actual act of taking a picture. The appartus becomes interchangeable. A figure seated on a reflective surface holds a selfie stick in her raised hands, which appear to hold a smartphone. The character‘s arms are articulated and rotate the apparatus at a shallow angle: the rest of the image is motionless. There is a white shadow on the face turned towards the smartphone display, it moves as the apparatus rotates. It appears as if the character is taking a photographic self-portrait using a flash. Or does she hold a mirror in the apparatus that reflects the incident light onto her face? The flash, which in its singularity coincides with the trigger moment, seems to have been detached from it and, contrary to its nature, expanded in mobility into infinity. Photography and video merge. A closer look reveals that the smartphone holder is just a case clamped. The cut-outs for the smartphone camera let the view through to the background. The flash was subsequently placed on the image and digitally animated with the hand movement. The photographic gesture is theoretical. The camera becomes interchangeable. The photographic act is brought into focus via the animation. In fact, it is already complete when the original image is created. Video and digitality reflect the mediality of photography. The surface on which the figure is placed seems to flow away. A tablet shown becomes liquid and slides down the edge of the picture with the neighboring parts. This glitch refers to the digital, changeable materiality of the meta-reality in which the work is situated.
2023
single-channel video loop, 16:9
WHEREVER, WHENEVER
WHEREEVER, WHENEVER
single channel video loop, 16:9, 2023
Whenever, wherever shows an animated photographic figure. The basis forms a portrait in which hands that appear blurred in their movement open up a visual circle. In the center you can see a mobile phone rotating on its own axis. The movements share a common center, suggesting a connection between them.However, the actual motion executed before the moment of capture remains hidden in its stillness.At this boundary it meets the moving object. Mounted together, they combine into a gesture between photography and animation.The hint of a past movement converges in the digital image space with a videographic, ongoing movement. The witness that photography provides to the past movement through blurriness seems detached, as the movements engage in a dialogue with another.While the implied movement of the hands remains locked in the photograph and is reinterpreted by an added moving object, the face is set in digital motion. The gestures of the living have left in the process of merging with photography , of becoming an image. I synthesize these movements and reintegrate them into the transformed face during the digital animation process. Thus, I bring virtual and physical corporeality together in an ambiguous image. Living bodies and virtual corporeality merge.The model of the modeled Clipphone is inspired by the first mobile phone with a built-in camera. In a video from 2001, the singer Shakira's assistant showcases the new device, and both are visibly fascinated. It could capture 20 JPEGs with 0.11 megapixels.
ON PHONES
2022
single-channel video loop, 16:9
ON PHONES
single channel video loop, 16:9, 2022
In an undefined, digitally composed room, a photographic figure is situated as if lying on phones. On closer inspection, movements emanating from the figure can be discerned: a flexing of the knuckles, a blink of the eyes, a slight turn of the feet, an arch of breathing. These movements refer to a living body. In the physical act of keeping still, they are the ones that inevitably lead the endeavor ad absurdum. Only death separates the living from these signifiers of life. The life-bound state of complete stillness is unattainable. Through photography, the body can pass that threshold. Becoming a photograph, the body gives its mobility and its three-dimensionality to the medium. The captured position of the body appears extended to infinity in the photograph. Like a sequence of a single, constantly duplicated image. The signifiers of life have left the body with the formation of the image. I synthesize these movements that photography retains and lead them back to the transformed body in the process of digital animation. Virtual and physical corporeality, living body and virtual physicality, merge. The breaks in keeping still, the small motions, become the focal point of the work and place it in a context between photography and moving images, nature and artificiality, physicality and virtuality