Tearing photopaper in half by hand in 8 seconds, II

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  Making process experiments | 2019

In my photograms I visualize – through “flat” imaging – how an event can also be seen as an object. Using the photogram technique, I render four-dimensional events into two-dimensional images, which allows me to hint at the eidetic properties of photograms as standalone objects. By eliminating the ‘object’ of the image (that is, the representation of something external to it) the photograms themselves become both ‘subject’ and ‘object’: they embody the different spatio-temporal events (bending, folding, cutting, tearing etc.) that shape the photosensitive paper, and they also provide an “internal” visual representation of these events as organic components of the work. The visual uncertainties caused by tonal differences question the photographic objects’ material qualities and boundaries. As Dora Maurer writes, “the photogram is a shadow and a presence.” Similarly, in the cross-section of a lengthy title describing the making process in detail and the photogram serving as ‘evidence’, the viewer is left in a void that leaves ample room for interpretation. Viewers are invited to guess at, and try to retrace the linearity of, the (hi)story of these photographic objects.